英语词义发展的转喻解释

The Metonymic Interpretation to the Meaning Extension of English Words

对词义发展的原因,传统的词汇语义学偏向于将词义的变化归于历史的、社会的因素。认知语言学认为语言是受认知环境和社会环境制约的,词义发展和变化的内因来源于语言使用者的认知思维,通过人类认知手段(如转喻、隐喻)由一词的基本意义向其他意义延伸。本文拟从认知语言学的角度对词义发展现象进行转喻解释,并讨论其对英语词汇教学的启示。

For the cause of the development of the word meaning, traditional glossary semantics tends to attribute the change of the word meaning to historical and social factors. Cognitive linguistics argues that language is restricted by cognitive surroundings and social surroundings. The internal cause of the development and change of word meaning results from the cognitive thinking of language users to extend primary meanings of a word to more or less other related meanings via metonymic devices like metonymy and metaphor. The paper undertakes metonymic explanation to the phenomenon of the word meaning development from the angle of cognitivelinguistics .