Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-12T23:53:07.682Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Polysemy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2024

Shu-Ling Wu
Affiliation:
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
Lihong Huang
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
Carl Polley
Affiliation:
University of Hawaii
Get access

Summary

Chapter 6 focuses on polysemy, a common linguistic phenomenon in which a single form is associated with two or more distinct but related senses, as shown in the relatedness of baseball cap and pen cap. Polysemy is a result of meaning extension, which can be triggered by mechanisms such as metaphorical mappings, experiential correlation, or inference. The principled polysemy model proposed by Tyler and Evans (2003) posits that the distinct senses associated with a particular lexical form are related to each other in a systematic and motivated way and are organized around a central or primary sense. Because polysemy is pervasive, the fact that many words have a large number of different senses magnifies the challenge of vocabulary learning. The chapter advocates for L2 instructional approaches that introduce the different senses of a word not in a piecemeal fashion but as a sequence of related meanings starting from the primary sense and continuing to extended senses. Different CL-based pedagogical methods and tasks are presented to showcase how to enable learners to attend to the systematic relationships that exist among the various senses of a lexical form.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Polysemy
  • Shu-Ling Wu, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Lihong Huang, Georgetown University, Washington DC, Carl Polley, University of Hawaii
  • Book: Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition of Chinese
  • Online publication: 01 February 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009186711.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Polysemy
  • Shu-Ling Wu, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Lihong Huang, Georgetown University, Washington DC, Carl Polley, University of Hawaii
  • Book: Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition of Chinese
  • Online publication: 01 February 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009186711.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Polysemy
  • Shu-Ling Wu, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Lihong Huang, Georgetown University, Washington DC, Carl Polley, University of Hawaii
  • Book: Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition of Chinese
  • Online publication: 01 February 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009186711.007
Available formats
×