A Study On Meaning Construction Of Polysemantic Verbs Based On The Frame Theory

Polysemantic verbs are high frequency words in any language. They make the expression of a sentence or paragraph more vivid and exact. However, it still is a difficult problem for English learners to grasp and memorize the various meanings of a polysemantic verb in English, since they believe these meaning items are not related and even hard to predict the exact meanings of them. But actually among the meaning items of a certain polysemantic verb, there is a correlated semantic or conceptual network. These meanings in the certain network are connected with each other. In the past, a large number of linguists coming from different linguistic schools devoted themselves to studying the semantic structures and the reasons for polysemantic verbs. But they finally paid their attention to social and historical causes, and ignored the cognitive competence of human beings. Thus they did not find out the root cause.This thesis attempts to study the polysmematic verb make based on the frame theory from the cognitive perspective. It aims at finding out the characteristics of polysemantic verbs, processes of meaning construction of polysemantic verbs and the factors that influence the meaning construction. Three research questions are put forward in this thesis, including what the characteristics of polysemantic verbs are, how polysemantic meanings are constructed, and what the factors which influence the meaning construction based on the frame theory are. Through the research, three levels of a polysematic verb’ meanings have been acquired, and these meaning items constitute a interrelated polysemantic network. The processes of meaning constrction consists of construction from prototypical meaning to general meaning, from general meaning to specific meaning, and from prototypical meaning directly to specific meaning. And three sorts of factor have also been concluded. They are perspective, background, and family resemblance.This thesis consists of five sections. Chapter one briefly introduces the purpose, significance and structure of the overall thesis. Chapter two mainly talks about the previous studies on polysemy from the angles of semantics, pragmatics and cognition. In addition, the definition of polysemy and other linguistic terms, and previous studies on verbs will also be covered in this part. Chapter three is devoted to talk about the theoretical foundation and research methodology. The explanation on frame theory consists of definition of frame, nature and features of cognitive frame, and frame and sub-frame. Research methodology contains the research questions, data collection, and data analysis. Chapter four conducts a research on the meaning construction of the polysemantic verbs based on the frame theory and points out their characteristics, the process of meaning construction, and the factors which influence the construction. The chapter five acts as the conclusion section. It presents some major findings and sums up the limitations of this thesis and gives suggestions for further research.If the key points in this thesis can be mastered by English learners, they will make a further progress in their later study of lexicon. It is helpful for them to understand the essence of meaning construction of polysemantic verbs. It will become easier to perceive and memorize the different meaning items for them, especially for these senior high school students who are preparing the examination of college entrance.