从认知角度探讨英语文化植物词的意义演变方式

Approaching the Evolution Patterns of English Plant Words’ Meanings from a Cognitive Perspective

在人类漫长的历史发展过程中,植物与人的关系非常密切。一方面,植物对人类的生活具有极其重要的使用价值;另一方面,人们往往由植物的形态、结构、生活习性及其用途等特点而产生种种联想,并借助植物来表达思想观点、寄托情感和理想,这样,植物就具有了不容忽视的文化色彩和美学价值。概括而言,人们对于各种植物的看法、态度以及各种植物所具有的比喻意义和象征意义,是该民族植物文化的基本内容。植物文化体现了民族文化中有关道德情操、民族精神、生活态度、美学观念等多方面的内容,反映了该民族的社会文化背景和心理文化特点。本文通过从认知的角度分析英语中文化植物词的意义演变方式,旨在更好地了解英语民族的社会文化和心理文化。

Plant has been of vital importance to human beings＇ life in the long history of human development. On the one hand, Plant is of great use value to human beings＇ daily life; on the other hand, people usually associate things around them with plant＇s forms, constructions, and living habits as well as its use and express their ideas in virtue of plant and place their sensibility and ideality on it. Thus plant bears unneglectable cultural and aesthetic value. In a word, different views on plant and different attitudes towards it as well as the figurative and indicative meanings consist of the basic content of one people＇s plant culture. Plant culture incarnates moral sentiments, ethos, living attitudes, and aesthetic concepts and so on in the people＇s culture and inflects the background of the people＇s social culture and the characteristics of the mental culture. This thesis approaches the evolution patterns of English plant words＇ meanings from a cognitive perspective so as to further understand the English social and mental culture.