Abstract:

 This essay aims to explore the meaning system of the body words that are called metaconcepts in the language. By a group analysis of the meaning of body words, a rule can be discovered. Owing to the operation of the cognitive principle of body experiences, the derivative ability of the words concerning "head", "trunk" and "bowels" of human body gradually decreases, displaying a tendency from strong to weak. This fact indicates that meaning as a cognitive one, based on body experiences, and taking comparability and relativity as a joint, is realized by these two cognitive ways of metaphor and metonymy. This also goes further to validate the theory of polysemy in linguistics, which considers the formation of polysemy as the result of human' s cognitive thinking of metaphor and metonymy. But, very often, the universal regulation accompanies with the individual difference. The author finds that "heart" as a body word is an exception. Although it is an inside organ, it has a lot of transferred meanings. By an analysis of the cases concerning the meaning distribution of "heart", a further conclusion is drawn. Meaning is not only rooted in the human experience but also subjected to the cultural mode. It is a cognitive mixture based on the body experience and the cultural model. Therefore, one cannot get a whole picture of the semantic system unless he explores the meaning from a cognitive perspective.

Key words: body words; "heart"; meaning; body experience; cultural mode