Study On Antantonym From The Perspective Of Conceptual Metonymy

Antantonym, which is also called "ambivalent word","antiphrases","auto-antonym" or "the same word with two opposite meanings", mentions that the lexical system of a word includes two opposite or repelling meanings and it is a kind of special lexical phenomenon of polysemy. As a matter of fact, this lexical phenomenon exists both in English and Chinese with a great number, however, it is relatively ignored by language researchers. Most of the former studies on Antantonym are mainly simple descriptions, especially the analyses on the generating roots of Antantonym are superficial and in lacking of intensiveness. They ascribe the generating roots of Antantonym to the following factors:the reflection of the philosophical contradictory dialectical law in meanings; the result of meaning vagueness; and the result of meaning expansion. Nevertheless, the important indispensable role of language users’cognitive thinking in the internal generating way of meaning change is ignored and not taken into consideration; This paper tries to take English Antantonym and Chinese Antantonym for example to study Antantonym from the perspective of conceptual metonymy in cognitive linguistics. The main purposes are:to explore the effect of conceptual metonymic cognitive thinking in the internal generating way of Antantonym, to prove that the antonymous relation between the two meanings in Antantonym could be considered as a kind of metonymic relation and to classify Antantonym according to the type of metonymic relation embodied in the generating process of Antantonym.This paper, at first, gives a comprehensive redefinition of Conceptual Metonymy based on the former research and proposes two kinds of Metonymic cognitive models:the Conceptual Mapping in the Same Cognitive Domain Metonymic Cognitive Model and the Conceptual Activation Among Multiple Cognitive Domains Metonymic Cognitive Model, then it interprets the generation of Antantonym under two cognitive models of conceptual metonymy and considers antonymous relation between the two meanings in Antantonym as a kind of metonymic relation, and then it classifies Antantonym according to the type of metonymic relation embodied in the generating process of Antantonym. At last, it tries to explore the application of the study results in practical vocabulary teaching activities and translating practices. This paper adopts two kinds of researching methods:literature-analyzing method and example-presenting method, to provide theoretical guidance and researching basis for the study through comprehending, analyzing and comparing lots of literatures concerned with this paper; to prove the viewpoints of this paper through collecting representative English Antantonym and Chinese Antantonym.Chapter three and chapter four are the main parts and the following problems are mainly analyzed in this paper:(1) The generating basis, generating way and generating influential factor of Antantonym under two cognitive models of conceptual metonymy-the Conceptual Mapping in the Same Cognitive Domain Metonymic Cognitive Model and the Conceptual Activation Among Multiple Cognitive Domains Metonymic Cognitive Model;(2) The classification of Antantonym according to the type of metonymic relation embodied in the generating process of Antantonym.Theoretically speaking, on the one hand, the study in this paper not only richens the connotation of metonymic theory but also intensively illustrates the great explanatory power of metonymic cognitive mechanism; on the other hand, the study proves that the generating root of Antantonym should be attributed to metonymic cognitive thinking, which paves the way and gives new directions for the future study on Antantonym. Pragmatically speaking, the study gives a profound enlightenment to vocabulary teaching activities and translating practices and provides useful and constructive advice for the better and more effective teaching and translating activities. Therefore, the study enjoys very important theoretical and pragmatic significance and reference value.