A Cognitive Analysis Of English Neologism From The Perspective Of Conceptual Integration Theory

Language is an open system which develops with the society. Among all the components in language system, vocabulary is the most active, sensitive and typical part. The ever-growing neologisms can best illustrate the features of vocabulary. Recently, neologisms have drawn great attention from researchers and have become a hot spot in cognitive linguistic studies. English neologisms refer to words which are newly-formed or old words with new meaning. Generally, language will involve a conventionalization in the process of its usages. In this thesis, attention will be paid to the provisional uses of English neologism, with the hope of getting a better understanding of its dynamic essence in cognitive process.So far, great efforts have been made by scholars both at home and abroad to the study of English neologisms. However, most of their researches focus on the classification, property or the application of neologisms. Little attention has been paid to the comprehensive interpretation for the motivation of word-formation from the cognitive perspective. In view of the above-mentioned facts, the researcher tries to make sense of the on-line meaning contruction process of English neologisms under the guidance of conceptual integration theory.Based on mental space theory, Fauconnier and Turner initiated conceptual integration theory in1985. It is a unified theoretical framework in studying the cognition process of language. According to CIT, the meaning of a word results from cross-space mapping and selective projection among different spaces.The data in this thesis are collected from two resources:one is the book Twentieth Century Words(2002) authored by John Ayto; the other is a website-"word spy". Neologisms in this thesis will be divided into three types:created neologisms by ways of word-formation rules, semantic change of existing words and loan words. In the researcher’s eye, the existence of English neologisms is highly motivated. The compositionality of English neologism is closely related to the cognitive efforts and complexity of its emergent structures. Generally speaking, the lower degree of compositionality of neologism, the higher complexity in neologism and the more cognitive efforts should be made. On the contrary, with higher degree of compositionality, English neologism presupposes less cognitive efforts and less complexity.In this thesis, the researcher tentatively applies conceptual integration theory to accounting for English neologism from the view of on-line construction and meaning interpretation, which to a great extent reveal the cognitive processes of English neologisms.The study of English neologisms in this thesis is significant both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, after a thorough analysis of English neologisms, we can make clear of the backstage cognition mechanisms underlying the meaning construction of English neologisms, which fills in the theoretical blank of CIT in its explanation of meaning construction. Practically, this study may help English learners have a better understanding of English neologisms, promote further verbal communication, and have its stance in guiding language teaching.