Abstract

Polysemy is a common and important phenomenon of linguistics. In English, single-meaning words are very few. Most words are polysemants. Therefore, polysemy makes it difficult for students to learn English because so many meanings are needed to remember. In addition, metaphor is the cause of polysemy. In other words, constant produce of the metaphorical meanings leads to polysemy, and polysemy is the result of metaphorical produce. So English learners can try to use metaphor as a bridge in the process of vocabulary learning and have a metaphorical thinking.
This thesis attempts to analyze the polysemy based on metaphor, the aim of which is to explain the formation of the polysemy, make people know the metaphorical analysis of polysemy, and find some ways to help English learners learn vocabulary well.
    
Key Words:  Metaphor  Polysemy  vocabulary learning

摘要

在语言学中一词多义是一个普遍而又重要的现象。而在英语的词汇中，多数的词都为多义词，单义词并不多见。因此，一词多义经常让学生在学习英语词汇时遇到困难,因为它有太多的意义需要去记忆。另外，隐喻是一词多义产生的重要原因，换句话说，不断产生的隐喻意义导致了一词多义，而且一词多义是隐喻产生的结果。因此，英语学习者在学习时应将隐喻作为桥梁，更要具备隐喻思维。
本文将在介绍隐喻、一词多义定义和相关研究的基础上，分析一词多义中的隐喻现象，解释一词多义的形成过程，通过一词多义的隐喻分析，本文希望能为英语学习者的词汇学习提供一些启示。

关键词：一词多义  隐喻  词汇学习

1 Introduction
As we all know, today’s world is becoming smaller and smaller. What’s more, language is the necessary tool to communicate with each other. On this condition, people come to realize that an increasing number of students are showing great interest in studying English. Through many years of study students have known that language is dynamic rather than static. Therefore language should be learned in the process of using. Metaphor, previously known as a figure of speech only, while now known as an important cognitive tool, in which one thing, idea, or action is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting another thing, idea, or action, so as to suggest some common quality shared by the two, plays a very important role in learning English. In simpler terms, a metaphor compared two objects or things without using the words “like” or “as”. The following is a typical example about metaphor from As You Like It: