An investigation of the polysemy of open close in english and mở đóng in vietnamese from the cognitive perspective

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ------ BÙI THỊ NGỌC AN INVESTIGATION OF THE POLYSEMY OF ‘O

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

- -

BÙI THỊ NGỌC

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE POLYSEMY OF ‘OPEN/CLOSE’

IN ENGLISH AND ‘MỞ/ĐÓNG’ IN VIETNAMESE

(FROM THE COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE)

(NGHIÊN CỨU TÍNH ĐA NGHĨA CỦA ĐỘNG TỪ ‘MỞ/ĐÓNG’ TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT NHÌN TỪ GÓC ĐỘ

NGỮ NGHĨA HỌC TRI NHẬN)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Hanoi, 2010

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

- -

BÙI THỊ NGỌC

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE POLYSEMY OF ‘OPEN/CLOSE’

IN ENGLISH AND ‘MỞ/ĐÓNG’ IN VIETNAMESE

(FROM THE COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE)

(NGHIÊN CỨU TÍNH ĐA NGHĨA CỦA ĐỘNG TỪ ‘MỞ/ĐÓNG’ TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT NHÌN TỪ GÓC ĐỘ

NGỮ NGHĨA HỌC TRI NHẬN)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Trần Hữu Mạnh

Hanoi, 2010

4

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

6

1 CONCLUSIONS 41

2 IMPLICATIONS 42

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

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

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