(Luận văn thạc sĩ) an investigation of the polysemy of openclose in english and mởđóng in vietnamese (from the cognitive perspective)

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

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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/ĐĨNG’
TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT NHÌN TỪ GĨC ĐỘ
NGỮ NGHĨA HỌC TRI NHẬN)

M.A. Minor Thesis

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15

Hanoi, 2010


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/ĐĨNG’
TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT NHÌN TỪ GĨC 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


5
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


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1. CONCLUSIONS ...................................................................................................... 41
2. IMPLICATIONS ...................................................................................................... 42
3. LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER
STUDY.......................................................................................................................... 43
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 44

3

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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