The Comparative Study of the Categories of Semantic Extension of Polysemy between English and Chinese Body Terms “Nose” and “Bi” from the Cognitive Perspective

Vocabulary is the foundation of languages, and the core of vocabulary is meaning, so polysemy is a very important language phenomenon. For a long time, metaphor and metonymy have been studied as rhetorical devices, which failed to reveal the nature of the two. This paper attempts to study the two from the cognitive perspective, in this way, to include the cognitive subjects the person and abandon the enclosed, introspective study of the language. In addition, categorization is an important cognitive means of humans, and body terms, as the cognitive starting point of the world, are the meta-concepts of cognition, so the comparative study of the categories of semantic extension of polysemy between English and Chinese body terms from the cognitive perspective has important cognitive meaning to touch the thinking modes and cognitive means of the cognitive subjects. This study can not only contribute to a deeper understanding to the semantic evolution, but also can contribute to a better understanding to the thinking and cognitive characteristics of the cognitive subjects.