A Cognitive Approach to the Word Meaning Extension of Polysemies in English and Chinese

Metonymy and Metaphor are two major types of word meaning extension. This article is about the research on polysemy based on cognitive metonymy and metaphor by analysis of Face both in English and in Chinese. The findings are as follows:The meaning extensions of both words are promoted by metonymy and assisted by metaphor and this general tendency typically reflects the human cognitive preference. On the other hand,some minor disparities in extension can be accounted for by inter-cultural and inter-linguistic differences.