A Cognitive Study Of English And Chinese Polysemes Fire And Huo

Polysemy, as a common phenomenon in every language, has been a popularresearch topic in the linguistic field. Specifically, the gradually developing cognitivelinguistics has made great contributions to the study of polysemy and provides therelevant research with new perspectives and methods.In this thesis, the prototype category theory is selected as the guiding theory.Combining the two meaning extension forms-prototype shift and prototype split withtwo meaning extension mechanisms-metaphor and metonymy, the current thesisdeeply discusses the cognitive motivation of polysemy. Meanwhile, by a comparativeanalysis of the Chinese and English polysemes huo and fire, the cultural differencesand different cognitive orientations of the two nations are clearly revealed.The thesis collects relevant materials mainly from two representative dictionaries,namely Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary and Modern ChineseDictionary. The total of20meaning items of fire and huo in the current research arederived from the two dictionaries respectively. First of all, the thesis depicts themeaning extension paths of fire and huo from three aspects, namely features of entity,functions of entity and functions of language, and then describes the forming processof subcategories in detail. Afterwards, the underlying reasons for the differences ofthe two polysemes are thoroughly explored. The comparative angles are mainly fromthree aspects, namely different cultures, different linguistic features and differentmetaphorical thinking models. Finally the following four conclusions are made.Firstly, the meaning extensions of the polysemes fire and huo are usually in theforms of prototype shift and prototype split, but mostly in the former form. Prototypeshift can cause much more deviations between the extended meanings and the prototypical meaning than the prototype split in the meaning extension process of fireand huo.Secondly, in the semantic category of fire and huo, the formation ofsubcategories keeps in a dynamic state, which can be in radials and in chains. Someextended meanings can play dual roles, one of which is a peripheral member in themain semantic category and the other one is a sub-prototype in a subcategory.Thirdly, there not only exist cognitive universals but also cultural variations inthe comparative study of fire and huo. Cognitive universals based on common humanexperience of fire give rise to similarities between these two polysemes while culturalvariations related to fire in different nations result in their differences.Lastly, the differences between the polysemes fire and huo can be explained notonly by cultural variations but also by linguistic factors and metaphorical thinkingmodels. For example, in the cultural aspect, the five-element theory in Chinese cultureand Greek mythology in English culture can provide different cultural foundations forthe meaning extension of these two polysemes.However, the related data in the current research is still far from comprehensive.Some peripheral meanings of fire and huo, which are completely originated fromspecific cultures, should be explored further in the future study.