A Conceptual Blending Approach To The Cognitive Mechanism Of English Blending Word Formation Process

Conceptual Blending Theory is a milestone in cognitive linguistics. Based on Mental Space Theory, Fauconnier (1997) proposed a network model which contains four mental spaces:two input spaces, a generic space and a blended space. The structures and elements shared by the two input spaces map into the generic space. Based on cross-space mapping, structures and elements are selectively projected into the blended space to be integrated to create an emergent structure by the process of composition, completion and elaboration. There are four types of conceptual blending networks including simplex network, mirror network, single-scope network and double-scope network. These four networks have their own characteristics and are of great explanatory power in the process of concept construction. Word formation process is actually a process of concept construction. For that conceptual blending mechanism plays an important role in concept construction, so it provides an effective method to deal with word formation process.Among the modern English word formation processes, blending word formation process is an active and typical word-building pattern. Therefore, to analyze the cognitive mechanism of English blending word formation process is of great significance. For the above reasons, this paper will apply concept blending theory to analyzing the cognitive mechanism of English blending word formation process.This paper will adopt a data-based analytical approach to investigating blending word formation process from the conceptual blending perspective. The analysis includes three stages. In the first stage, "ebook" will be used as a case of English blends to demonstrate the procedure of conceptual blending. In the second stage, the four conceptual networks will be applied in the case analysis of the cognitive mechanism of English blending word formation process. In the third stage, the latest100English blends collected from Word Spy will be analyzed and categorized based on their conceptual blending networks so as to provide an overall and up-to-date view of the cognitive network types of the latest English blends.Through the three stage investigation, major findings can be summarized as follows. First, an English blend is gradually formed through the connections between the frames and elements provided by the source words, selective projection of the frames and elements and a process of composition, completion and elaboration so as to create an emergent structure which suggests the semantic meaning of the blend. Second, based on the cognitive conceptual network types of blending process, English blends can be classified into four types:simplex blends, mirror blends, single-scope blends and double-scope blends. Third, in the recent English blends, the simplex network is the most active in constructing new words while the other three network types are nearly the same.The findings of the cognitive mechanism of English blending word formation process can give implications to learners, teachers and compilers. First, the findings will help learners to understand and memorize vocabulary, assist them to guess the meanings of unknown words in fast reading and increase their language creativity to make up words to represent a special occasion. Second, the findings implicate teachers to analyze vocabulary to students according to the cognitive network of the vocabulary so that the students can get a better understanding. Third, the findings can enlighten compilers of dictionaries or vocabulary books to compile vocabulary based on their conceptual blending rules so as to make the books more scientific and comprehensible for readers.