A Cognitive Study Of Ambivalent Words

The ambivalent words are universal language phenomena. Together with"synonymy","antonymy","polysemy"and"homonymy", ambivalence constitutes the diversity of sense relations. However, compared with the research on other meaning relations, the research on ambivalent words is strikingly sterile. It is in this background that the thesis is designed for a study of ambivalent words in relation to the motivation and mechanism of meaning forming, in the theoretical framework of cognitive linguistics.The thesis focuses on the following three questions: (1) how can we understand the two opposite meanings in one word form? (2) How are the opposite meanings of an ambivalent word formed or extended? (3) What are the semantic mechanisms for the meaning formation of ambivalent words?According to Langacker's imagery theory, the study concludes that the meaning formation of ambivalent words is related to human understanding of the events represented by the words. Word meanings are the reflection of human experiential knowledge. Different perspectives, different selection of salience and different specificity for the same thing or event are the important factors that determine the different images in the understanding of the word meanings. These differences may result in the opposite understanding to the same word in certain conditions.The paper further studies the conditions for having opposite meanings in one word form. That in fact makes the cognitive mechanisms of meaning formation of ambivalent words. The research suggests that metonymy, context and opposite thinking are the cognitive mechanisms of meaning forming of ambivalent words. In the cognitive linguistics, metonymy is regarded as a means of cognition and thinking for human beings to conceptualize the world. Metonymy is a cognitive process in which one more salient aspect of an object, even of a situation is used to refer to the object, idea, or event as a whole. The opposite meanings of an ambivalent word are thus made in the cognitive operation of metonymy. Contexts are also creating the indispensable environment for ambivalent words. Finally, opposite thinking, as the inner emotional activities, exerts certain influence on human cognition. And some ambivalent words are formed under certain emotions. At last, the thesis concludes that the forming of ambivalent words are the results of the interactive relationship between human cognition and the reality of the world.