Title: The Analysis of Semantic Expansion of Spatial Adverbs and Prepositions on Perspective of Cognitive Semantics
Abstract: Cognitive semantics provides us a new perspective to explore semantic expansion by arguing that meaning comes from human′s bodily experience and his understanding of the experience.On this basis Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Image Schema Theory are provided,which are helpful in analyzing the correlation of word meanings.Spatial adverbs and prepositions are usually used to indicate human′s fundamental concepts of space and time;therefore they serve as good examples of the realization of words′ metaphorical semantic expansion.Through the analysis of the meanings of two spatial adverbs ′up′ and ′down′ and two prepositions ′in′ and ′at′,the paper gives a clear reveal of the metaphorical mapping between ′physical′ space and ′concepts′ or ′mental′ space.It is of great value for English learners to acquire the metaphorical awareness and competence in polysemy learning for it can help lighten learners′ burden of memory,raise their interest and facilitate their vocabulary acquisition.
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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