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The Activation Mode of Chinese Plant Idioms

Author(s)

Bingxia Lv

Affiliation(s)

School of Culture and Tourism, Quzhou College of Technology, Quzhou, Zhejiang, China

Abstract

Idiomatic phrases are an important part of Chinese vocabulary, with characteristics of being vivid, popular, and interesting. It often uses words related to daily life to form words, such as plants. This article takes Chinese plant idioms as the research object, and collects 329 pieces of corpus. From the perspective of cognitive linguistics, we explores the activation modes of Chinese plant idioms. According to the number of activations of Chinese plant idioms, it is divided into two categories: single activation and superimposed activation. The number of superimposed activations is more than that of single activation, which we believe is related to the principle of semantic evolution. From the perspective of activation modes, they are divided into similarity activation and "whole-part" associative activation, among which plant idioms involving similarity activation account for the vast majority. We hold that similarity plays a greater role in activation.

Keywords

Cognitive Linguistics; Plant Idioms; Activation

References

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