A Comparative Study Of Typical Double-marker Simile Construction In Chinese And English

There is no term of "double-marker simile construction" in modern Chinese and modern English originally, the term "double-marker simile construction" in this paper specifically refers to a simile construction with two simile markers , and two simile markers echoing with each other. Chinese and English typical double-marker simile construction are combinations of language meaning,grammatical meaning and the corresponding forms, which have specific markers and fixed linear sequence on the syntactic surface; in the depth of the syntactic structure, the double-marker simile construction expands from known information to unknown information to obtain the knowledge and judgment of another thing by the pair-wise comparison. The current research of the double-marker simile construction mainly focused on some single-item study of individual structures, the division of the hierarchy and some simile markers, lacking systematic phenomenon description and explanation ,the research scope is relatively narrow, the research perspective relatively simple, and the comparative studies based on large-scale Chinese-English corpus is rarely involved. This paper mainly focuses on the typical double-marker simile construction in modern Chinese and English, relying on large English and Chinese corpora, aims to give a cross-language comparison, description and analysis to the semantic structure and grammatical phenomenon of the Chinese and English double-marker simile structures on the level of abstraction and concrete levels, and seeks to examine and explain the similarities and differences between the two from the multiple perspectives of cognition,thought pattern and cultural genes. The research abides by the principle of synchronic study combining with the diachronic study, phenomenon description supporting theoretical exploration, form portray united with content insight, hoping to give a reasonable explanation to the language phenomena related to the study by the integrated use of the research methods.Modern Chinese and modern English double-marker simile construction basically include these components, the tenor, the vehicle, the similarity and the indicator of resemblance. The indicator of resemblance as a symbol is a form factor, the other three components are the semantic elements. The formula of the typical Chinese double-marker simile construction is: X(tenor) ?(indicator of resemblance)Y(vehicle)??(indicator of resemblance) Z (similarity),some components of which can be absent,and this linear structure can be adjusted to deducing other constructions according to the semantic meanings.In this construction,the Chinese indicators of resemblance �?��??� are variant,the typicality of the construction is highlighted through a marker group. While the formula of the typical English double-marker simile construction is: X (tenor) AS (indicator of resemblance) Z (similarity) AS (indicator of resemblance) Y (vehicle), this construction is relatively fixed, sometimes the former marker AS can be omitted, while the other components are not free to move or loom. The typicality of this construction is represented by an isolated frame structure. In essence, the typical Chinese double-marker simile construction is a small sentence, while the typical English double-marker simile construction is a compound subordinate-main clause construction.The position, linear position and grammaticalization of the markers in Chinese and English double-marker simile constructions have some cross-language common points, but the markers in both constructions also reveal their unique traits on the dynamic reason and the end of evolution, the superficial condensation of the syntactic form and the ability of constructing sentences. Firstly,although Chinese language is affected by certain stages of integration of alien language and culture,the internal incentive in Chinese language system is the main factor of the evolution of the lexical meaning and the part of speech of the markers; while English has a complex historicallanguage contact and integration, both the internal incentive and the external contacts cause the evolution. Secondly, according to the law of "grammatical slope" in language evolution,the evolutionary path of both Chinese and English simile markers abide by this slope law, but the final destination of them may not be consistent. Chinese indicators of resemblance may become bleaching but won't become an abstraction of affix form, while English simile markers have the evolution possibility. Then, all Chinese indicators of resemblance can be condensed into a unified framework,and each marker can be substituted flexibly within the framework to form a continuum, while English indicators of resemblance exist independently due to the lack of association and systematization.Finally, Chinese and English indicators of resemblance have different superficial syntactic performances because of their different ability to construct sentences. Chinese indicators can be used jointly or singly, and have substantially equal semantic function, which can connect the sentence components and also possess some grammatical meaning; while English indicators are mostly used as conjunctions and seldom used singly, without many grammatical meanings attached.The tenor and the vehicle of Chinese and English double-marker simile constructions as constructional items have diversity on the object type, constructional component and grammatical function. Due to different limits to the frame structure and the grammatical rules, the tenor and the vehicle of Chinese and English double-marker simile constructions also have different syntactic positions and grammatical forms. The vehicle in Chinese construction is fixed to a slot, while the position of the tenor can be moved back and forth in the construction. Modern Chinese noun (phrase),verb (phrase), pronouns, prepositional phrases, even the sub-clause can serve as a tenor or a vehicle directly in the sentence, while other parts of speech except the noun and the pronoun in modern English serve as a tenor and a vehicle in the sentence, basically having to subject to form changes or by means of an auxiliary grammatical method. Some special components like time-involved or location-involved concepts and some prepositions in Chinese and English may also enter the relevant grammatical position to act as the tenor or the vehicle, but their constructional types may become asymmetry, these differences may rest with different principles of sentence convention in Chinese and English. In some cases, the tenor in English double-marker simile constructions may be vacant or omitted, but the vacancy of the tenor in the simile construction has been solidified in some way,and these constructions may be treated as idioms; while the tenor in Chinese double-marker simile construction can only be omitted but not be vacant. The syntactic environment in which the tenor and the vehicle emerge is also different, the tenor and the vehicle of Chinese simile construction often exist in a small sentence or phrase, and some occasionally in a compound sentence. While in English simile construction the tenor and the vehicle basically scattered in a main-subordinate compound sentence, so it is clear that the adhesive force between the tenor and the vehicle in Chinese double-marker smile construction is stronger,the degree of their contacts is closer. Surely, it also has a big deal of relevance to the way of organizing language,i.e. "meaning harmony" or "form harmony"while signifying meaning.The similarity as the soul of Chinese and English simile construction is a fusion point of the meaning intersection of the tenor and the vehicle, it carries the semantic connection and perforation,and has its own form of expression and looming rule. Seen from the linear structure, the similarity of Chinese simile construction has a flexible position,and almost can appear directly anywhere in the linear sequence as the form of adjective (phrase), verb (phrase), noun, quantifier and even a small sentence, and can act as the grammatical elements of subject, predicate, object, attribute, adverbial modifier, complement, or in the form of an independent clause of compound sentence. In addition, for the need of semantic clarity and simplicity, the similarity can choose not to occur. The grammatical performance of the similarity in Chinese double-marker simile construction is in line with the principle of "stream block construction",i.e. the organizational form of Chinese language,the similarity as a stream block, coupled with appropriate meaning and clear line of thought, can adhere to other stream block without the constraint of morphological components. While the similarity of English double-marker simile construction is fixed to the middle of the frame structure, adjective,adverb can go directly into the sentence to act as the similarity, other parts of speech must act as paradigmatic form or be added to a auxiliary grammatical means before they go into a sentence. Due to the structural limitations, the similarity occurs basically in the sentence as a predicative or adverbial modifier, and can't be omitted or hidden. These are related to the requirement of organizational form of English language,i.e. the English verb is the center of a sentence to form a "core" framework,the link between two sentences must have normative formal marker. Fundamentally, the cross-language differences of the similarities in Chinese and English double-marker simile constructions are caused by the restriction of the principle of information organization.Some Chinese and English double-marker simile constructions are greatly convertible, there are also some mismatched convertible patterns of these two constructions, which is, to some extent,related to the differences between two types of indicators of resemblance in two typical simile constructions, i.e. Chinese indicators of resemblance are group, English one is single. The symmetrical conversion of two constructions lies in the consistency in the semantic components and conception of the constructional items, the similarity, and the indicators of resemblance, the conversion can be achieved simply by grasping the syntactic representation rule of these notional elements in two constructions. The asymmetrical conversion of these two constructions lies in inconsistency in the grammatical forms and the semantic organizational principle of the constructional components, this sort of conversion should adjust the way of expressing ideas, the cultural factors, the original style, etc. in Chinese and English to achieving equivalent conversion. Thus, to see the result of the conversion of two simile constructions from the angle of the marker, there are three types of conversional patterns, i.e. Symmetrical-marker conversion, from-double-marker-to-single-marker conversion and from-double-marker-to-non-simile conversion.