A Metaphorical Study on the Extended Word Meaning of “Koushui”

Abstract

Metaphor is one of the main cognitive ways of word meaning extension. When the meanings are extended by metaphorical thinking, it is a radial extension, and there is a feature of “similarity” between the meanings. This study searched and sifted the relevant corpus of “koushui”, and discussed the extension process of the word “koushui” from the perspective of metaphor. It is found that the extended sense of “koushui” is either directly or indirectly mapped from the original meaning of “koushui”, but no matter which mapping method, the semantic features of each sense are more or less “similar” to the original physiological characteristics of “koushui”. Metaphor makes “koushui” acquire rich meanings and meets the needs of pragmatics.