An investigation of the polysemy of ‘open-close’ in english and ‘mỡ-đóng’ in vietnamese (from the cognitive perspective)

‘open/close’ in english and ‘mỡ/đóng’ in vietnamese from the cognitive perspective Bùi Thị Ngọc Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ Luận văn ThS.. Trần Hữu Mạnh Năm bảo vệ: 2010 Abstract: The o

‘open/close’ in english and ‘mỡ/đóng’ in

vietnamese (from the cognitive perspective)

Bùi Thị Ngọc

Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ Luận văn ThS Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã Số: 60 22 15

Người hướng dẫn: Assoc Prof Dr Trần Hữu Mạnh

Năm bảo vệ: 2010

Abstract: The overall aim of this research is to advance an understanding of polysemy in the

semantic field of the two verbs open and close in English and Vietnamese from cognitive

perspective.Specifically, a review of all related theoretical foundation is done in the first chapter, serving as a background for the study to be carried out in the rest of the part Particularly, the first chapter displays my understanding of contrastive analysis, verbs, cognitive linguistics, cognitive semantics and polysemy Chapter 2 – Methodology – describes the methods and the research procedures of the current study Particularly, it describes the data collection in which considerations in selecting materials and the sources of data are presented Additionally, a description of data analysis is also presented.Chapter 3 – Data Analysis– contains the core part of the study It presents, analyzes and synthesizes data collected This chapter applies the theoretical framework that is established in chapter 2 into analyzing the meanings of the two verbs

open/close and find out Vietnamese equivalents of these English verbs Although there appear to

be some differences in the meanings and in the way in which these languages express meanings, especially different non-prototypical extended meanings, these two languages share the majority

of them And although the same meanings are expressed in different languages, the way in which these different languages convey such meanings can be different.Accordingly, our findings are supposed to be worthwhile to those who are interested in the field of cognitive semantics in

general and polysemy in particular

Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Động từ; Ngữ nghĩa học; Tiếng Việt

Content:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 RATIONALE OF THE STUDY 1

2 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 1

3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 1

4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 2

5 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY 2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 AN OVERVIEW ON CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS 5

2.2 A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF VERBS 7

2.2.1 Verbs in English 7

2.2.2 Verbs in Vietnamese 8

3.3 COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS 9

3.3.1 Definition of terms 9

3.3.2 Major principles of cognitive linguistics 10

3.4 COGNITIVE SEMANTICS 10

3.4.1 Definition 10

3.4.2 Guiding principles of cognitive semantics 11

3.5 POLYSEMY 13

3.5.1 The traditional treatment of polysemy 13

3.5.2 Polysemy in cognitive linguistics 14

3.5.3 Summary 15

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 16

2.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 16

2.2 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHOD 16

2.3 METHOD AND SOURCES OF THE LANGUAGE MATERIAL 17

2.3.1 Sources of the language material 17

2.3.2 Method of data collection 18

2.4 ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK 18

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS 20

3.1 THE POLYSEMY OF OPEN/CLOSE IN ENGLISH 20

3.1.1 Prototypical and non-prototypical meanings of ‘open/close’ 20

3.1.1.1 Physical meanings of ‘open’ and ‘close’ 20

3.1.1.1.1 Physical meanings of the verb ‘open’ 20

3.1.1.1.2 Physical meanings of the verb ‘close’ 21

3.1.1.2 Non-prototypical extended meanings of ‘open/close’ 22

3.1.1.2.1 Non-prototypical extended meanings of the verb ‘open’ 22

3.1.1.2.2 Non-prototypical extended meanings of the verb ‘close’ 24

3.1.1.3 Summary 25

3.1.2 Encyclopaedic knowledge and meanings of ‘open/close’ 26

3.1.3 Radial category of ‘open/close’ 29

3.2 THE ENGLISH VERBS ‘OPEN/CLOSE’ AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 30

3.2.1 ‘Open/close’ in English corresponds to ‘mở/đóng’ in Vietnamese 31

3.2.1.1 ‘Open’ in English corresponds to ‘mở’ in Vietnamese 31

3.2.1.2 ‘Close’ in English corresponds to ‘đóng’ in Vietnamese 32

3.2.2 Some other Vietnamese equivalents of the English verbs ‘open/close’ 33

3.2.2.1 Some other Vietnamese equivalents of the English verb ‘open’ 33

3.2.2.1 Some other Vietnamese equivalents of the English verb ‘close’ 35

3.3 SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERNENCES BETWEEN ‘OPEN/CLOSE’ IN ENGLISH AND ‘MỞ /ĐÓNG’ IN VIETNAMESE 37

3.3.1 Similarities 37

3.3.2 Differences 39

3.4 SUMMARY 39

PART C: CONCLUSION 41

1 CONCLUSIONS 41

2 IMPLICATIONS 42

3 LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 43 REFERENCES 44

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

I had some troubles with the self-referential nature of the material Since the subject is the

"meaning of meaning" at various levels, it's easy to become confused and fall into a "black hole" where text seems meaningless Polysemy is the term widely used in semantic analysis

to describe the situation in which a word has two or more related meanings No matter how simple this definition seems to be, polysemy is not a clear-cut concept For decades, linguists from different universities have been trying to give a sound account of what polysemy is and how it can be accounted for Although polysemy is at the moment a hot topic in cognitive and computational linguistics, unfortunately, it is still true that polysemy remains

a somehow muddy field in linguistic research

Despite this, I feel the self struggle to construct this thesis to try and represent my learning as

a result of interacting with a wide diversity of texts has been a rewarding one It has helped

me develop polysemy in my mind as a referent to apply to my own day-to-day practices and research in communication, teaching and learning

2 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Within a short time and with limited reference materials, it would be too ambitious for this small-scaled study to cover the polysemy of all kinds of verbs, a broad field and the most complex part of speech Therefore, the study is limited to investigating the polysemy of the two verbs ‘OPEN’ and ‘CLOSE’ with their Vietnamese equivalents within cognitive semantic theoretical framework The study focuses on displaying some major principles of cognitive linguistics in general and cognitive semantics in particular which are applied to explore the meanings of these two verbs

3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

Due to time limitation, the study aims to primarily seek for evidences of the polysemy of the

two verbs open/close and their Vietnamese equivalents from cognitive perspective More

specifically, it focuses on:

- displaying major notions of cognitive semantics

- uncovering a semantic description of the English verbs “ open/close” in light of

cognitive semantics

- investigating potential Vietnamese equivalents of the English verbs “open/close”

- finding out the similarities and differences of these two verbs from cross-linguistic point of view

- providing pedagogical implications for teaching and learning as well as language research

More detailed explication as how the aforementioned objectives have been formulated and how these objectives can be attained is specified in chapter 2: Methodology

4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

On the basis of the abovementioned aims and objectives, the study is conducted to answer the following questions:

(1) From a cognitive semantic perspective, what meanings do the English verbs ‘open/close’ have? How are they variedly used in this language?

(2) What are potential Vietnamese equivalents of the English verbs

‘open/close’ in various senses?

(3) How are these verbs similar and different between English and Vietnamese in the light of cognitive semantics?

5 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The study is divided into three main parts: Part A is the Introduction to the study Part B is the Development with the three chapters Part C is the Conclusion

Part A discusses the rationale, the scope of the study, the objectives of the study, methodology used in the study and the organization of the study

Part B includes three chapters as follows;

- Chapter I is Literature Review which presents all related theoretical background that precedes and necessitates the formation of my research: an overview on contrastive analysis, a brief description of verbs, cognitive semantics and polysemy

- Chapter II – Methodology – describes the research procedures that have been utilized

in the study

- Chapter III – Data Analysis – contains the core part of the study It presents, analyzes and synthesizes data collected and gives some findings and discussions

The Conclusion part summarizes the major findings and implications about the polysemy of the verbs ‘open’ and ‘close’ within cognitive semantic theoretical framework and suggestions for further study

REFERENCES

In Vietnamese

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dục

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SOURCE OF DATA

1 http://www.macmillandictionary.com/

2 http://www.oxfordadvancedlearnersdictionary.com/

3 http://vnthuquan.net/

4 English- Vietnamese Dictionary (2006)

5 Stephenie Meyer, (2005), Twilight

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