對比西班牙文多義詞在中／西心智詞彙中的結構

The representation of polysemous words in the mental lexicon: A contrast between Chinese and Spanish

多義詞普遍存在於語言中。關於其指稱的意思在心智詞彙內如何呈現，分為兩派論點：持多重意義觀點(Multiple senses view)者認為：所有的意思均已儲存於詞語中，當理解或使用詞語時，人們即從許多存記的意思中選取出最符合當時語境的一個；而持單一意義看法(Single sense view)者則主張：一詞所產生的諸多詮釋皆衍生自該詞基本意義，只不過隨出現的語境略有調整罷了。以上兩種意見究竟何者是最接近語言事實的描述至關重要，因為兩者對於「詞彙的語義內容為何？」以及「語言運作過程為何？」所提出的解釋相去逕庭。一個強調詞彙內蓄的豐富意涵；另一個則著重意義推衍的心智活動。
本研究以虛擬詞語為實驗材料，每個虛擬詞語出現在數個不同上、下文中，由中/西各兩組各四十名受試者就每個詞語在不同上、下文所產生的詞義適切性評分(0－3分)。我們探討中/西組就受測詞義使用適切性評分在有/無中介意思(a, b, c,…)時是否有顯著差異?多義詞的意思是因外延產生亦或是已預存在心智詞彙中？上、下文是否是成功理解多義詞的充分要素？對比思維差異並設法提出解釋。我們將數據以統計方法中獨立樣本T考驗分析。
這些實驗結果對解釋詞義儲存及語言運作程序具重要的啟示意義。

Polysemy is a ubiquitous phenomenon of language. There is a debate about the representation of polysemic words in the mind, and two extremist assumptions have been proposed: from the Perspective of Multiple Senses it is believed that all polysemic word senses are stored separately, while from the Perspective of Single Sense it is believed that different interpretations are derived from a basic sense. These two approaches lead to very different conceptions of the semantic content of the lexicon and language processing.
In this research we used invented words as material of the experiment, two groups of Spanish and Chinese participants, respectively, rated the uses of these words on a scale of 0 to 3. We analyzed the data obtained by the T test to reveal the following aspects: Does significant difference exist in the score between the complete questionnaire and the simplified one and between the two groups? Are the senses of polysemic words already stored in the mind or are derived according to the context? Is the context sufficient to infer the proper meaning of a polysemic word? We try to find explanations for these questions. The findings will serve to better understand the subjective lexicon.