A Cognitive Approach To The Polyseme "hand" In Chinese And English And Its Application To English Vocabulary Teaching

Polysemy is a very common phenomenon in language. Byrd et. al (1987) has once said that out of approximately 60,000 entities in Webster's Seventh Dictionary,21,488, that is, almost 40 percent have two or more senses. As an important and pervasive linguistic phenomenon, polysemy, which reflects the economical principle of language, has attracted much attention of linguists from different schools.Structural linguists' study on polysemy is restricted to analyze the internal structure of the word, neglecting the external factor-significance of human body. As a result, the above study fails to grasp the essential of polysemy and has inevitable drawbacks. Cognitive linguistics provides more convincing and systematic analysis of polysemy.In some ways, cognitive linguistics has uncovered the cause and extended the meanings of a polyseme.Based on the experientialism, by virtue of metahor and metonymy, this dissertation takes Chinese word "手" and English word "hand" as examples, aiming to give a satisfactory explanation of polysemy from cognitive approach and make a comparative study from cross-cultural aspects. The dissertation can be best represented in the following aspects:Firstly, polysemy is a cognitive phenomenon. It is the result of human cognitive categorization and conceptualization. The formation of polysemy is a process of meaning extension in ways of conceptual metaphor and metonymy. The relationship among various meanings of a polyseme is not arbitrary but systematic and motivated.Secondly, the meanings of the same polyseme are characterized by similarities and differences in different languages. The reason is that language speakers in different cultures have both cognitive universals and cultural variations.Thirdly, by virtue of a questionnaire, students'knowledge of prototype theory, metonymy and metaphor is found inadequate. Therefore, how teachers introduce prototype theory, metaphor and metonymy to vocabulary teaching is analyzed. Applying cognitive approach to vocabulary teaching can initiate students' enthusiasm of learning English.