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Journal of Shanghai University (Social Science Edition)

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A Study on Semantic Category Transfer of Body Terms

  

  • Received:2011-06-09 Online:2012-09-15 Published:2012-09-15

Abstract:

The meaning of body terms can transfer from the semantic category of "human limbs" to those of "abstract objects", "thought and emotion", "behavior and activities", "space and position", etc. This is due to two underlying reasons: one is the objective similarities shared by man and things; the other is man's subjective instinct to pursue novelty. While the former enables the category transfer to realize among human beings, animals, plants and nonliving things, the latter makes acceptable the creative metaphors (as well as new metonymies), which appear during the category transfer process and will join the language system as conventional metaphors once sanctioned by usage. With the guidance of related semantic theories and cognitive rules, the current study is of value for researches on lexical meaning evolution, construction of highquality network language, and standardization of network catchwords.

Key words: body terms, semantic category, category transfer, similarities shared by man and things, subjective instinct to pursue novelty

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