Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Rationale and Significance of This Study
“There can never be a moment of true standstill in language, just as little as inthe ceaseless flaming thought of men. By nature it is a continuous process ofdevelopment” (Humboldt, 1836，qtd. in Aitchison, 2004: 3).Language has inherent stability, based on which people can mutual understand;while language is flexible at the same time, changing with the development of thetimes. The most obvious change of language is lexical change，one of which is themassive emergence of neologisms. Yang bin (2008) indicates that neologism is theblade point of language, the junction of diachronic and synchronic lexical studies; onone hand, it shows the word-formation rules and meaning features, on the other hand，it reveals the language development trend. With the rapid development of economyand technology, the world has witnessed great changes in all aspects of life, includingpolitics, culture, human thought and life style. Thus a multitude of neologisms emergeto reflect new things and phenomena，drawing extensive attentions from linguisticfield and foreign language teaching.The neologisms are conceptual representations of new things and phenomena; however, the answers towards some problems about neologism seem unclear, such ashow do neologisms reflect the way people conceptualize the new experience? Whatare the cognitive mechanisms in neologism's generative process and meaningconstruction? What are the differences during the course of cognition among differentcategories neologisms? This study plans to give exploratory answers to thesequestions. Neologisms are not created out of thin air, but instead deeply rooted inhuman's experience and perception of material world. Therefore, studying neologismsfrom the perspective of cognitive could reveal the language creativity, uncover theneologisms meaning generation and interpretation mechanisms and decipher thecognitive process of meaning construction.
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1.2 Methodology and Data Collection
Any language phenomenon and die formation of language rules have their deep reasons. Wen Xu (2002) states that the purpose of linguistic analysis is not only todescribe human's speech act, but to explain the mental structure and mental processwhich cause speech act and reveal inherent law behind the speech act. Therefore,when abundant description researches are done, it is the inevitable tend of languageresearch to further explain the phenomena and dig the underlying causes. This thesiscombines description and interpretation, and investigates the meaning construction ofneologisms from the view of cognition to interpret the cognitive mechanism andprocess.English neologisms appearing in recent five years from 2010 to 2014 areresearch objects in this thesis，which cover large scope of lexical topics: business,science and technology, language, computers, sociology, culture, the world, etc. Andall the data come from the website Wordspy (www.wordspy.com). This website is bynature an online real-time update neologism dictionary which tracks new words andphrases as they enter the language and accumulates a large number of Englishneologisms collected and recommended by word lovers, most of which have the dateand source of first occurrence and living examples used in media.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Definition of Neologism
To clarify the definition of neologism is a priority before the study. The definitionof neologisms will be introduced in terms of the viewpoint of some dictionaries andscholars.According to Wikipedia, A neologism (from Greek V60- (neo-), meaning "new"，and loyoq (logos), meaning "speech, utterance") is the name for a newly coined term,word，or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use but that has notyet been accepted into mainstream Ianguage. Thefourth edition of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2004) defines theneologism as a new word or expression，or a word used with a new meaning. TheOxford English Dictionary (2002) offers the following definition: 1. the action ofcoining or using new words or expression; a new word or expression. 2. THEOLOGY.The tendency to or adoption of novel or rationalistic views. The definition fromMerriam-Webster J? Advanced Learner，s English Dictionary (2010) is that neologismis a new word or expression or a new meaning of a word.
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2.2 Previous Studies of Neologism Abroad and at Home
The study of neologism abroad was mainly concentrated on dictionarycompilation. Bamhart published Barnhart Dictionary of New English since 1963 in1982; Webster published 12000 Words: A Supplement to Webster 's Third NewInternational Dictionary in 1986; Ayto published Longman Register of New Wordsin 1989 and Twentieth Century Words in 1999; Knowlesa and Elliotty publishedOxford Dictionary of New Words in 1991; Algeo published Fifty Years among the NewWords: a Dictionary of Neologisms; 20th Century Words in 1993; Reifer publishedDictionary of New Words in 1995，etc.Comparing with the dictionary compilation, the volume of academic compositionwas less，which focused on the formation and characteristics. Word:Coinage，Being anInquiry into Recent Neologisms, Also a Brief Study of Literary Style, Slang, andProvincialisms compiled by Mead in 1902 could be the earliest work on neologismsin the 20th century (Yang Bin, 2008: 17). Mead (1902: 78-141) first proposed theneologisms' research and listed many neologisms created by some American writers.Smith (1919) published New Words Self-defined, which embodied 420 entries andeach one had one or more examples to further explain the meaning and usage.Historical change and English word-formation: Recent Vocabulary was published byCannon (1987)，who classified and inteoduced the formation of certain neologisms.Gozzi (1990) investigated more than 5000 neologisms from 1961 to 1986 in hismonograph New Words and a Changing American Culture. Bauer (1994) publishedWatching English Change and pointed out a mass of neologisms formed by wordformation.
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Chapter Three Theoretical Foundation.........11
3.1 Theoretical Background........ 11
3.2 Summary ........16
Chapter Four Conceptual Integration Theory ........ 17
4.1 CIT for the Interpretation of Derivative Neologism........ 17
4.2 CIT for the Interpretation of Compound Neologism........ 27
4.3 CIT for the Interpretation of Words with Category Extension........ 40
4.4 Summary ........47
Chapter five Conclusion........ 48
5.1 Main Findings of the Present Study........ 48
5.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Studies.........50
Chapter FourConceptual Integration Theory for theInterpretation of Neologisms
4.1 CIT for the Interpretation of Derivative Neologism
Derivative which plays an active part in the course of the development of Englishlanguage is a productive method in English word-building. It is generally defined asthe formation of words by adding word-forming affixes (prefixes and suffixes) tostems (Lin Fumei，1985: 100). The affixations are endowed with its original meaning.For example, the affixations denoting persons or agents include -er, -ee, -ess, -ist, etc;those denoting negation include un-, in-, non-，dis，mis-, -less, etc; those denotingspace and time relations include post-, over-, pre-，fore-, etc. Generally, the meaningconstruction of the derivative words is the combination of the meaning of the affixand the stem; while the meaning construction of derivative neologism involves acomplicated cognitive process depending on the cognitive context. Judging by the lexical evidence，the verb de-elephant is most often used to referto getting off an elephant that one has been riding, the prefix “de”reflects the relationof someone removing someAing, and evokes an event frame which includes the rolesof person，object, action，and result，while the root "elephant" serves as the value andfills into the “de-“frame. But this neologism means discussing an existing butunacknowledged topic in pragmatics.
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Conclusion
In this chapter, the major findings of this paper will be summarized，and thelimitations and suggestions for the further studies will be pointed out. There can never be a moment of true standstill in neologism, which witnessesgreat changes in all aspects of life and draws extensive attentions from linguistic fieldand foreign language teaching. Based on the previous study and data collected,derivative，compound, and the words with category extension are taken as theresearch objects，which have been illustrated with examples from the perspective ofCIT to elaborate the cognitive process of meaning construction.Firstly, according to the cognitive context, the affix or the root of the derivativeneologism undergo projection mappings or pragmatic function mappings, and themeaning construction of the neologism involve a more complex network. However,the meaning construction of a few derivative neologisms involves a simplex network.Root and the affix evoke two input spaces, the affix contains an abstract frame, whilethe root input has no frames but values to fill up the roles of the current frame, and theblend integrates the frame and the values in the simplest way. Besides, some newaffixations are evolved from existing words. They usually undergo the pragmaticfunction mapping or the projection mapping between the two input spaces, which arecharacterized by functional meanings, fixed positions and strong potential ofanalogical innovation in word formation. And then they are partially projected onto afourth space, the blend. The blend has emergent structure not only provided by theinputs，but generates in three operations: composition, completion and elaboration..#p#分页标题#e#
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Reference (omitted)
