A Tentative Study On The Integrity Of Polysemous Senses Through Guidewords And Menus

Almost in all of the human languages, polysemes are taking the dominant part of their most frequently-used words, so in dictionary compilation, how to deal with these polysemes is one of the most important and complicated tasks.Polysemes seem very complex with various meanings; however, these meanings are generally rooted from one original meaning, that is, a polyseme is not a bom polyseme but a born monoseme, and with the development of language the monosemes gradually turn into polysemes in language use.The senses in a dictionary are built on the basis of sense demarcation. The differences of polysemous senses are thus emphasized so that they can stand independently in an entry. But a sense can not be absolutely independent from another since they are originated from one root—they have some interrelations. Unfortunately, the traditional learner's dictionaries have neglected these relations. Moreover, in sense ordering, most learner's dictionaries adopt frequency principle which breaks the relations of polysemous senses.Based on the cognitive theories of metaphor and metonymy, this thesis discusses the way of meaning expansion. After analyzing and comparing the sense menus and guidewords of several major ESL learner's dictionaries, this thesis proposes to integrate the senses through guidewords and menus so that they can show the interrelations of the polysemous senses and provide users with the hints of sense relations and help them to have a comprehensive understanding of the word.