A Cognitive Study Of Human Body Words And Its Implications For English Vocabulary Learning

Compared with other common nouns, human body words (hereinafter referred to as HBWs) are strikingly polysemous. Conventional researches of polysemous HBWs mostly concentrate on the approaches or leading processes to polysemy rather than analyzing the interrelation of various meanings. Cognitive studies of the polysemy of HBWs have obtained many achievements in recent years, but there still exist some deficiencies, which we will try to make up in this thesis. In this paper, based on Embodied Philosophy, category theory, metaphor and metonymy, we aim to analyze the meanings of HBWs, particularly those of"foot"and"blood"in order to discuss the essence of polysemy from cognitive perspective, and then on the basis of the theoretical research we will propose some practical implications for English vocabulary learning. So this thesis is significant on both the theoretical and practical sides.In chapter one we will retrospect the previous researches on"HBWs"as well as"polysemy", and point out some drawbacks based on the affirmation of the former achievements.Then we shall introduce the theoretical foundation in the second chapter. According to Embodied Philosophy, concepts and meanings, being obtained by the interrelation between body and the world, are based on human experiences. In China, our ancients pointed out that"people should rely on their body nearby and the surroundings in the distance to judge and estimate the result."(近取诸身,远取诸物) Since HBWs play an important role in helping people to understand the world, they obviously obtain more meanings compared with other common nouns. With regard to category theory, the meanings of polysemous HBWs can be separated into prototypical meanings and peripheral meanings, and the latter can be mapped onto the former by means of metaphor and metonymy. In chapter three we will focus our attention on the research of metaphorical characteristics of HBWs by analyzing the meanings of"foot". There are two kinds of metaphorical mappings based on similarity, i.e. the interactional mapping between body domain and non-body domain, among which there are three sub-mappings from body domain to non-body domain: mappings of shape and appearance, mappings of situation and mappings of function. According to these characteristics we separate the meanings of"foot"into the following six metaphorical models: FOOT FOR THE"FOOT"IN THE LITERATURE, FOOT FOR THE END, FOOR FOR BASEMENT, FOOT FOR CONTROL, FOOT FOR CORRECT DIRECTION and MEASUREMENT FOR FOOT. Meanings of"foot"are much more abundant than those of other common HBWs in terms of functional mappingsFourthly, we shall analyze the metonymical characteristics of HBWs based on the meanings of"blood"in chapter four. There are mainly three types of metonymies concerning body parts: body part for person, body part for its relevant characteristics and body part for its relevant action. In accordance with these three types, the meanings of"blood"are divided into the following five metonymical models: BLOOD FOR PERSON, BLOOD FOR RACE OR FAMILY, BLOOD FOR NATURAL ABILITY, BLOOD FOR FEELINGS and BLOOD FOR ACTION. By analyzing these models, it is found that the HBW"blood"is more polysemous when describing its relevant characteristics.Last but not least, we will discuss the practical significances of this study for English vocabulary learning in chapter five. We are going to put forward three implications of this cognitive study. The students should lay emphasis on the interaction between human body and the world rather than separate their relations, on the basic-level terms rather than spend too much time in reciting those infrequent words, and on the role of metaphor and metonymy rather than memorize the words mechanically.