A Study On The Meaning Construction Of English Compound Neologisms From The Perspective Of Conceptual Blending Theory

Vocabulary is the most sensitive and active part of the language.Neologisms reflect not only the latest features of vocabulary and innovations of language,but also the laws of language development and language change.Neologisms have important cognitive meaning and their creation and comprehension involve a large number of cognitive operations.As far as English neologisms are concerned,most research focus on the collection,introduction and description of neologisms or on the classification of neologisms from the perspective of word-formation,but there are fewer research on how to construct the meaning of neologisms.Some scholars have studied English neologisms in recent years,and some scholars have studied English neologisms in certain domains.Compound is one of the most dominant word-formations in English,and some articles have studied different types of English compound neologisms,focusing on compound verbs,compound adjectives,and noun + noun compounds.This thesis tries to explore the meaning construction of English compound neologisms from 2018 to 2020.The generation of neologisms involves not only the construction of meaning,but also the creation and combination of forms.Meaning construction belongs tothe inner and deep layer of words,while constitution belongs to the form andsurface layer of words,which are two inseparable aspects of words.Therefore,it isnecessary to conduct qualitative and quantitative research on the surface and deeplayer of compound neologisms simultaneously.There are various ways and types of meaning construction and formcombination of compounds.It is also worth studying which ways and types Englishusers prefer when creating a neologism,because it involves the universality ofcognitive ways and the productivity of form combination.Therefore,it is alsonecessary to study the main cognitive ways of meaning construction and therelationship between the processing ways and forms of meaning cognition.In short,this thesis aims to answer the following research questions:1.What are the types and constitution of English compound neologisms?2.How is the meaning of English compound neologisms constructed?3.What is the relationship between the types and constitution of English compound neologisms and the conceptual integration networks?The neologisms studied in this thesis come from the “A 21 st Century English-Chinese Dictionary of Neologisms” published by Fudan University Press in March 2021.In this study,all compound neologisms in this dictionary,a total of 415 from 2018 to 2020,were selected to construct a closed corpus.In this thesis,qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis are used to study the collected English compound neologisms.The qualitative method is mainly used to analyze the meaning construction of English compound neologisms.The quantitative method mainly analyzes the statistics and classification of 415 English compound neologisms collected and explores the relationship between the types and constitution of English compound neologisms and the conceptual integration networks of meaning construction.Based on conceptual blending theory,this thesis analyzes the meaning construction of every word in the corpus and gives a detailed explanation of every constitution with an example word.Through analysis and research,the author draws the following conclusions:1.Compound nouns are the main type of English compound neologisms.Compound adjectives are the second largest type of English compound neologisms.And compound verbs constitute less compound neologisms.No matter it is compound noun,compound adjective,or compound verb,the most important way of constitution is to add one noun to another part-of-speech word,and the part of speech of this word is basically the same as that of compound.2.Four kinds of conceptual integration networks are all involved in the meaning construction of English compound neologisms and every neologism adopts a conceptual integration network to construct its meaning.“Simplex network” is the main approach to construct the meaning of English compound neologisms in the four kinds of conceptual integration networks;“single-scope network” is the second major approach to construct the meaning of English compound neologisms;“mirror network”followed;“double-scope network” is very rare,and some English compound neologisms do not involve “double-scope network” in meaning construction.3.There is no absolute correspondence between the types and constitution of English compound neologisms and the conceptual integration networks of meaning construction,but there is a certain blending law.Compound nouns and compound verbs use more diverse networks,involving four and three networks respectively,while compound adjectives use fewer networks,with only two networks.In compound nouns,the more typical the constitution is,the more diverse the networks used are.Among compound verbs and compound adjectives,most of the various types of constitution use simplex network.The study of neologism from the perspective of cognition can reveal the creativity of language,help us to understand the way that people think,psychological mechanism and cognitive characteristics in creating neologisms.This research can help English learners maintain the relationship between the original image and every constitution when translating English compound neologisms,so as to reflect the characteristics of English culture and the changes of English.In vocabulary teaching,it can help teachers to suggest the connections of metaphor among the meaning of words,analyze the rationality of word meaning and promote the teaching and learning of English compound neologisms.When compiling the dictionary of neologisms,it can help lexicographers analyze the rationality of neologisms,reveal the trend of word creation,the law of word development and provide references for people to create neologisms.