영어 색채어의 의미 연구 -black-white, red-green을 중심으로-

Abstract

Abstract

A Study on the Meanings of English Color Words

Kim, Mi Hye Dept. of English Language and Literature The Graduate School Hanyang University

Cognitive Grammar appeared in the early 1970s as a linguistic model opposite to the theory of Generative Grammar. Since Langacker developed Cognitive Grammar in the middle of 1970's, there have been many insightful attempts to analyze semantic phenomena under the framework of Cognitive Grammar. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the meanings of the English color words black-white and red-green and their relations under the framework of Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1987, 1991a, 1991b, etc.). For this purpose, I will first capture the base meaning of each word from their various meanings and discuss how this base meaning is extended spatially and abstractly. There are some research papers that have dealt with the meanings of various color words, but most of them have focused only on analyzing them in terms of conceptual metaphor. In this thesis, however, what I have especially tried to show is that the uses of the various meanings of the color words like black-white, and red-green are better to be analyzed in terms of meaning extensions, not in terms of conceptual metaphor. The organization of this thesis is as follows: Chapter 1 is the chapter of the purpose and organization of this thesis. Together with the statement of the purpose and organization, I have introduced some notions of Cognitive Grammar, which are thought to be of use to understanding what is discussed in the following chapters. In Chapter 2, I have briefly introduced a summary of Park (2000) and Lee (2005) and the weaknesses of those studies. In Chapters 3 and 4, I have examined the base meanings of the color words black-white and red-green. Then I have shown how these base meanings are extended spatially and abstractly. In Chapter 5, I have discussed meaning shifts between these color words and have shown their cognitive relation. In Chapter 6, I have made a conclusion about what has been discussed. Conceptual metaphor may be a good way of analyzing the meanings of English color words, but it seems to have a weak point that it fails to capture the meaning relations between those words; especially. For example, the words black and white seem not to be always in pure opposition relation, but rather in a neutralized situation, in which the opposite meanings make shifts to bear the similar meaning. This is what has challenged me to write this thesis. I hope this thesis has made a contribution to analyzing the meaning of other color words and their relations.