A Cognitive Study Of English Blending Neologisms From The Perspective Of Conceptual Blending Theory

As the most typical and productive word-formation in contemporary English,words created by blending accounts for a large portion of English neologisms.According to Algeo, among the hundreds of thousands of English neologisms appeared in the 20th century, 5% to 10% of them are created by blending. In language,the process of generating new words is actually the process of constructing new meanings, namely, new concepts. With the rise of cognitive linguistics, the psychological process of constructing meaning has received more and more attention.In 1997, Gilles Fauconnier formally put forward Conceptual Blending Theory in his book Mappings in Thought and Language. The theory argues that conceptual blending is a basic and universal cognitive pattern of human beings, which plays a significant role in the meaning construction process of natural language. As neologisms formed by blending not only involves the semantic integration of the source words, but also the clipping of their lexical forms, which combines the characteristics of compounding and clipping. Obviously the process of constructing blending neologisms contains the cognitive process of conceptual blending. Thus, Conceptual Blending Theory serves as a perfect tool to explore English blending neologisms, analyzing the cognitive steps of their constructing process and interpreting the cognitive mechanism underlying them.This thesis first reviews the foreign and domestic studies on English blends,summarizing their contributions and shortcomings. Second, by reviewing and analyzing the studies on the definition of English neologisms and English blends, the working definition of English blending neologisms is defined. Then, it comes to the theoretic foundation of this thesis, which includes Conceptual Metaphor, Conceptual Metonymy and Conceptual Blending Theory. And then, the data-based analytic approach is adopted to analyze the 150 latest English blending neologisms randomly collected from the well-known neologism website Word Spay within the last ten years.Through description and case studies,this thesis analyzes the cognitive steps of construing English blending neologisms, classifies them, and interprets the cognitive mechanisms underlying them. The questions this thesis attempted to answer are presented as follows.1) What are the cognitive steps of construing English blending neologisms?2) How to classify English blending neologisms?3) What are the cognitive mechanisms underlying English blending neologisms?Through analysis and investigation, the findings of this study go as follows: to begin with, the cognitive process of construing English blending neologisms goes as follows: first,the source words of the blending neologisms set up two input spaces;then, the corresponding elements of the two inputs are connected through cross-space mapping; next, the common structure form the inputs are located in the generic space;and then, the elements and structures from the two inputs and the generic space are partially projected into the blend space to form an emergent structure through three interrelated process of composition, completion and elaboration. Besides, through analyzing the relationship of their source words,English blending neologisms can be divided into the following four categories on the basis of the conceptual integration network models, namely, simplex blending neologisms, mirror blending neologisms,single-scope blending neologisms and double-scope blending neologisms. Last but not the least, the cognitive mechanisms underlying English blending neologisms is conceptual metaphor, conceptual metonymy and analogy.In light of the theoretic significance, this research demonstrates the explanatory capacity of Conceptual Blending Theory in construing English blending neologisms as well as enriches and perfects the cognitive research of English blending neologisms.In light of the practical significance, the research findings can help English learners and lovers to have a better understanding of English blending neologisms as well as give some implications to English neologisms learning,teaching,and dictionary compiling.