Research On Lexical Meanings Of Basic Color Terms In Modern Chinese

In Modern Chinese, color words are usually focused on by many scholars in different fields. But most researchers have studied the meanings of basic color terms only in light of traditional semantic view. This thesis has mainly explained semantic extension mechanism of basic color terms on the basis of metonymy and metaphor from synchronic approach.In the introduction, the main theories of metonymy and metaphor are introduced. They are the base for the following analysis. In the second part, the basic color terms in modern Chinese are defined and categorized. Owing to the abundance of the culture connotations in the basic color terms, the cultural backgrouds of the six basic color terms are discussed in detail in the third part. The culture meanings are not only the base of polysemy but also the foundations of metonymy and metaphor. Base on the culture meaning,the polysemy of the basic color terms and speech meanings have been analyzed in the fourth part and fifth part. In the fourth part,we firstly introduce the operating system of metonymy and metaphor. And then we construct the polysemic framework of basic color terms.Next,we explain the course of the semantic extension. In the fifth part, the pragmatic meanings of the basic color terms are researched in the metonymy and metaphor perspectivesTo sum up,the thesis aimed at analyzing the semantic extension mechanism of the basic color terms from a cognitive perspective within the theoretical framework of metonymy and metaphor. There is a conclusion that metonymy and metaphor are the significant methods to the polysemy of the basic color terms. They construct the polysemy and pragmatic meaning. In the process,metonymy and metaphor are a continuum. To some extent,the present study in this article has guidance significance in terms of the other kinds of lexical researches .