ConceptualBlending Analysis of Compound Words in Mandarin Chinese: A CaseStudy of Compound Words ContainingBody-part Terms
Keywords:
Metaphorical process, Body-part Terms, Conceptual Integration Theory, Language and cultureAbstract
Conceptual integration is one of basic cognitive mechanisms in human thinking system,
which plays a significant role in meaning and concept construction. The purpose of this research
paper is to answer the question “What are the characteristics of the metaphorical process of Chinese
compounds that contains words for body part terms?”, which based on conceptual integration
theory of Fauconnier and Turner (2002) . Result of the study found that there were totally 82
compound words which comprise of words for body part terms. The formation this kind of
compound words is not only bringing each part of component to combine together in a simple way,
but it was also generated through conceptual integration process based on existing concepts and
fundamental knowledge of language users. Conceptual integration of compound words referring to
body parts, involves with at least 4 mental spaces of cross-space mapping. In conceptual integration
process, blended space will produce new word meaning structure which is not yet existed in other
three mental spaces. Furthermore, this study also found that there were 5 categories of conceptual
integration networks pattern used for analyzing these special compound words, namely, (1) simplex
networks (2) mirror networks (3) single-scope networks (4) double-scope networks (5) multiple-blend
networks. However, these 5 categories of conceptual integration networks could be used to rationally
explain the process of emergent meaning construction of noun-noun compounds which contain
words describing body parts in Chinese. The results show that conceptual integration theory not only
give suggestion theoretically for studying metaphorical meaning of compound words that contains
words for body part terms, but also provide an interesting cognitive perspective for interpreting
metaphors about human body parts.
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