An Idealized Cognitive Model Interpretation Of Features And Functions Of English Negation

Negation,as a common language phenomenon,has embraced extensive attention in decades.Negation is a completely opposite concept to affirmation.And different languages have different methods in expression since negation an extensive concept in all languages.Researches on negation attempt to deepen the recognition of negation and multi-discipline researches through the categorization of definition,features and functions of negation.Scholars focus on description of concrete negation phenomenon,however,the categorization of features and functions of negation has not reached consolidated standards yet.Language has been the most significant method in human connections,especially in the age of information.And language has been seen as the main research subject of the burgeoning cognitive science since it positions as significant cognitive capability and a superior cognitive method.Cognitive Linguistics,a newly-developed discipline or a new research method in last decades,connotes the interrelations between language and human bodily experience and cognition.In the meantime,the emergence and evolution of language ability,as the indispensable part of human cognitive abilities,has stimulated the development of human cognition in turn.Linguist Lakoff had launched the Idealized Cognitive Model(hereinafter as ICM)to achieve the interpretation of categorization in 1980 s.According to Lakoff’s theory,ICM theory refers to the abstract and idealized description of speakers’ knowledge structure in certain cultural context and is a complex gestalt on the basis of the construction of many cognitive models.The ICM theory consists of four principles at the beginning: propositional principle,imageschema principle,metaphoric mapping principle and metonymic mapping principle.However,Lakoff stated that the existence of the fifth principle in ICM theory subsequently,that is,symbolic principle.Therefore,the thesis tries to describe the five principles of ICM theory systematically proposed by Lakoff to achieve the interpretation of features and functions of English negation.Research question of the thesis is what are the possibility and feasibility of ICM in interpreting features and functions of English negation.The thesis making arrangements from perspectives of origins,definition,category,features and functions primarily,attempts to combine negation with ICM(Idealized Cognitive Model)theory and sorts out features and functions of negation on the basis of five models of ICM theory at the same time.Thus,this paper attempts to show a more complete understanding of cognitive mechanism behind negation through the synthesis of ICM theory and English negation.In the meantime,the thesis attaches its importance to analysis of negation expression in authoritative journals and literature on the basis of arrangements of category,features and functions of negation.The paper also focuses on helping second language learners on understanding and utilization of negation.The combination of ICM theory and English negation attempts to increase the explanatory power of ICM theory and make the categorization of English negation more clear.The thesis also found that four structures of ICM theory have explanatory power on features and functions of English negation among five structures of the ICM theory.And the cognitive mechanism behind the categorization of features and functions of English negation has been clarified through the application of four structures of ICM theory.However,the result of the thesis still needs to be further certified through strict experiments in terms of some limitations.