Abstract There are numerous polysemous words in both English and Chinese, and lexical polysemy also is the most common and important semantic phenomenon。 Many linguistic schools were devoted to polysemy study in the past few centuries, but they tended to focus on the external cause of polysemy’s formation and the relation between polysemous words and homonyms, thus neglecting to explore the essence of this linguistic phenomenon。 Based on the fundamental theory of cognitive linguistics, this paper firstly analyzes the theoretical framework of lexical polysemy, and then systematically discusses the essential characteristics in the formation of polysemous words by means of empirical study under the guidance of this theoretical framework。 The thesis finally states the effect of cultural development on the formation of polysemous words in the light of culture。 76696

Keywords: polysemy; cognitive linguistic; theoretical framework;

摘要无论是英语还是汉语中，都存在着大量的同义词，词汇的多义性也是最常见，最重要的语义现象。在过去的几个世纪中，很多语言学派都致力于多义词性的研究，但是他们倾向于关注多义词形成的外在原因以及多义词与同形异义词之间的关系，从而忽视了探索这种语义现象的本质。本文以认知语言学为基础，首先研究了词汇多义性的理论性框架结构，然后在这个框架的指导下，利用实例研究系统化地讨论多义词在形成中的本质特点。最后，本文从文化的角度阐述了文化发展对多义词的形成造成的影响。

毕业论文关键词：多义词；认知语言学；理论框架

Contents

1。Introduction 1

2。Literature review 1

3。Cognitive Research on Polysemy 2

3。1 Prototype in Polysemy 2

3。2 Three schemas for Polysemy forming 3

3。3 Cultural Model 5

4。 Cognitive Process of Polysemization 6

4。1 Polysemization 6

4。2 Advantages of Polysemization 6

4。3 Meaning Relations in Polysemy 6

5。 Case Studies 7

5。1 Forming of “haigui”and “haidai” 8

5。2 Forming of“fensi”and“yumi” 10

6。Conclusion 12

Works Cited 13

1。 Introduction 

The term of polyseme is coined by Breal。 In his opinion, polyseme is a lexical item which carries with it two or more than two related senses that are derived from its core meaning。 (Breal 7-8) That one word is able to denote several senses is one of the basic peculiarities of human speech。 What’s more, we should also distinct polysemy from homonymy。 Homonymy refers to different words with the same form。 Homonymous words have the same spellings and the same pronunciation but they are totally different two words with different cultural background。 Homographs are unrelated words that happen to be represented by the same letters while polysemes are semantically related。 (Brugman 67-68) This paper is intended to explore how they are systematically related。论文网

Polysemy is the most common and most significant semantic phenomenon。 The polysemous words do display the essential features of the languages, such as, efficiency and flexibility。 Without lexical polysemy, we would have to introduce much more new semantic entries。 Then the language learner would be burden with the lexicon excessively。 Therefore, to study the formation of polysemous words from the perspective of cognitive linguistics enables us to understand the essential characteristics of polysemous words, and helps English learners improve their language comprehension and cognitive competence and master the approaches to learn English words。