An investigation of the polysemy of
‘open/close’ in english and ‘mỡ/đóng’ in
vietnamese (from the cognitive perspective) Bùi Thị Ngọc Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ
Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã Số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Trần Hữu Mạnh
Năm bảo vệ: 2010 Abstract: The overall aim of this research is to advance an understanding of polysemy in the
semantic field of the two verbs open and close in English and Vietnamese from cognitive
perspective.Specifically, a review of all related theoretical foundation is done in the first chapter,
serving as a background for the study to be carried out in the rest of the part. Particularly, the
first chapter displays my understanding of contrastive analysis, verbs, cognitive linguistics,
cognitive semantics and polysemy. Chapter 2 – Methodology – describes the methods and the
research procedures of the current study. Particularly, it describes the data collection in which
considerations in selecting materials and the sources of data are presented. Additionally, a
description of data analysis is also presented.Chapter 3 – Data Analysis– contains the core part of
the study. It presents, analyzes and synthesizes data collected. This chapter applies the theoretical
framework that is established in chapter 2 into analyzing the meanings of the two verbs
open/close and find out Vietnamese equivalents of these English verbs. Although there appear to
be some differences in the meanings and in the way in which these languages express meanings,
especially different non-prototypical extended meanings, these two languages share the majority
of them. And although the same meanings are expressed in different languages, the way in which
these different languages convey such meanings can be different.Accordingly, our findings are
supposed to be worthwhile to those who are interested in the field of cognitive semantics in

3.5.2. Polysemy in cognitive linguistics 14
3.5.3. Summary 15
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 16
2.1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS 16
2.2. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHOD 16
2.3. METHOD AND SOURCES OF THE LANGUAGE MATERIAL 17
2.3.1. Sources of the language material 17 5
2.3.2. Method of data collection 18
2.4. ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK 18
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS 20
3.1. THE POLYSEMY OF OPEN/CLOSE IN ENGLISH 20
3.1.1. Prototypical and non-prototypical meanings of ‘open/close’ 20
3.1.1.1 .Physical meanings of ‘open’ and ‘close’ 20
3.1.1.1.1. Physical meanings of the verb ‘open’ 20
3.1.1.1.2. Physical meanings of the verb ‘close’ 21
3.1.1.2. Non-prototypical extended meanings of ‘open/close’ 22
3.1.1.2.1. Non-prototypical extended meanings of the verb ‘open’ 22
3.1.1.2.2. Non-prototypical extended meanings of the verb ‘close’ 24
3.1.1.3. Summary 25
3.1.2. Encyclopaedic knowledge and meanings of ‘open/close’ 26
3.1.3. Radial category of ‘open/close’ 29
3.2. THE ENGLISH VERBS ‘OPEN/CLOSE’ AND THEIR VIETNAMESE
EQUIVALENTS 30
3.2.1. ‘Open/close’ in English corresponds to ‘mở/đóng’ in Vietnamese 31
3.2.1.1. ‘Open’ in English corresponds to ‘mở’ in Vietnamese 31
3.2.1.2. ‘Close’ in English corresponds to ‘đóng’ in Vietnamese 32
3.2.2. Some other Vietnamese equivalents of the English verbs ‘open/close’ 33

7
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
I had some troubles with the self-referential nature of the material. Since the subject is the
"meaning of meaning" at various levels, it's easy to become confused and fall into a "black
hole" where text seems meaningless. Polysemy is the term widely used in semantic analysis
to describe the situation in which a word has two or more related meanings. No matter how
simple this definition seems to be, polysemy is not a clear-cut concept. For decades, linguists
from different universities have been trying to give a sound account of what polysemy is and
how it can be accounted for. Although polysemy is at the moment a hot topic in
cognitive and computational linguistics, unfortunately, it is still true that polysemy remains
a somehow muddy field in linguistic research.
Despite this, I feel the self struggle to construct this thesis to try and represent my learning as
a result of interacting with a wide diversity of texts has been a rewarding one. It has helped
me develop polysemy in my mind as a referent to apply to my own day-to-day practices and
research in communication, teaching and learning.
2. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Within a short time and with limited reference materials, it would be too ambitious for this
small-scaled study to cover the polysemy of all kinds of verbs, a broad field and the most
complex part of speech. Therefore, the study is limited to investigating the polysemy of the
two verbs ‘OPEN’ and ‘CLOSE’ with their Vietnamese equivalents within cognitive
semantic theoretical framework. The study focuses on displaying some major principles of
cognitive linguistics in general and cognitive semantics in particular which are applied to
explore the meanings of these two verbs.

3. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
Due to time limitation, the study aims to primarily seek for evidences of the polysemy of the
two verbs open/close and their Vietnamese equivalents from cognitive perspective. More
specifically, it focuses on:
- displaying major notions of cognitive semantics

- Chapter II – Methodology – describes the research procedures that have been utilized
in the study.
- Chapter III – Data Analysis – contains the core part of the study. It presents, analyzes
and synthesizes data collected and gives some findings and discussions.
The Conclusion part summarizes the major findings and implications about the polysemy of
the verbs ‘open’ and ‘close’ within cognitive semantic theoretical framework and suggestions
for further study. 50
REFERENCES
In Vietnamese
1. Cao Xuân Hạo (1991), Sơ thảo ngữ pháp chức năng, Nxb Giáo dục.
2. Diệp Quang Ban (2001), Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt, Nxb Giáo dục.
3. Diệp Quang Ban & Hoàng Văn Thung (2002), Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt, volume1, Nxb Giáo
dục.
4. Lê Biên (1999), Từ loại tiếng Việt hiện đại, Nxb Giáo dục.
5. Lý Toàn Thắng (2006), Ngôn ngữ học tri nhận, từ lý thuyết đại cương đến thực tiễn tiếng
Việt, Nxb Khoa học Xã hội, Hà Nội.
6. Trần Ngọc Thêm (2004), Tìm về bản sắc văn hóa Việt Nam, Nxb Tổng hợp, Tp Hồ Chí
Minh.
In English
7. Barcelona, A. 1997. Clarifying and Applying the Notions of Metaphor and Metonymy
within Cognitive Linguistics. Atlantis XIX.1: 21-48.
8. Biber D. et al (2007), Grammar of spoken and written English. London: Longman
9. Connor, U (1996), Contrastive Rhetoric: Cross-Cultural Aspects of second-language
writing. Cambridge University Press
10. Croft, W. & Cruse, A. (2004), Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press
11. Crystal, D. 1991. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Oxford: Blackwells.

28. Talmy, L. (2000), Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Volume II: Typology and Process in
Concept Structuring, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
29. Taylor, J. R. (2002), Cognitive Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press
30. Taylor, J. R. (1991), Linguistic Categorization. Prototypes in Linguistics Theory. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
31.
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36. 52
SOURCE OF DATA
1.
2.
3.
4. English- Vietnamese Dictionary (2006)
5. Stephenie Meyer, (2005), Twilight
6. Stephenie Meyer, (2007), Eclipse