Cognitive Semantic Approach To Contrastive Studies On Fictive Motion Expressions Between English And Chinese

Fictive motion,as a cognitive semantic category,describing static spatial existence or features by way of using motion verbs and constructions,reflects the subjective construal or dynamic processing of objective situations,states or things,and the mapping from cognition to language.What is noteworthy about fictive motion expressions is that the stationary subject and the motional predicate contradict each other semantically,which unveils the cognitive efforts,such as subjectification and virtualization,in solving syntax-semantics mismatches.Previous cognitive linguistic work on this subject focused on the similarities and universality between or among different languages,to the ignorance of the linguistic and cognitive differences across languages.With regard to this,the present study,based on COCA(Corpus of Contemporary American English)and BCC(BLCU Chinese Corpus),conducted a corpus-based contrastive analysis within the framework of cognitive semantics to systematically compare the essential features and differences in coding and conceptualization between English and Chinese fictive motion expressions,and explores the cognitive motivations behind those linguistic features and differences.Therefore,the paper will center on the following three questions:1)What are the syntactic and semantic features in coding fictive motion in English and Chinese respectively,and what are the differences between them?2)What are the conceptualization features and differences between English and Chinese?3)What are the cognitive motivations behind the formal features and differences?This study approaches the syntactic and semantic features of fictive motion expressions in English and Chinese mainly by examining the major components of fictive motion constructions,especially the predicate verbs and expressions of directions so as to explicate the ways words and constructions of dynamic categories are used to code fictive motion in these two languages,the commonalities and idiosyncrasies of such dynamic categories,and the ways metaphor and metonymy work differently in coding fictive motion in English and Chinese.Major findings are as follows.Fictive motion expressions in English are coded under the rubric of dynamic categories,just as Tamly put it,"the linguistic patterns ascribe motion to a stationary referent"(Talmy 2000a:101).They inherited motion verbs and eventive constructions from dynamic categories to replace stative verbs and existential constructions in canonical static expressions.The category shift from static to dynamic at the coding level also marks the substitutional process of static domain with the dynamic domain on different fronts.The existential schema is replaced by the motion schema,within which the temporal sequence takes the place of spatial sequence.Hence the temporality is more salient than the spatiality.In addition,this conceptual shift reveals the change of construal mode from objective to subjective.The subjective construal indicates the semantic change from descriptive meaning to declarative meaning,and the functional change from propositional to discoursive.The linguistic and conceptual features of fictive motion in English are motivated by the metaphoric conceptualization "EXTENSION AS MOTION”.The category shift from static to dynamic at linguistic and conceptual levels can be seen as largely reconcilable with the "conceptual mapping" of dynamic motion events onto static situations.Besides,the metaphoric conceptualization could also be evidenced by the "opposite and imbalanced”relation and shared motion schema between dynamic and static domains.With respect to Chinese,the coding and conceptualization strategy of fictive motion exhibit a more comprehensive style than that of English.There is some similarity in the way they employ dynamic categories,for the vast quantities of motion verbs and constructions in fictive motion in Chinese as well.Furthermore,the "static to dynamic" category shift can be found at linguistic and conceptual levels.Beyond that,Chinese also recruited verbs and constructions from static domain to encode fictive motion.Stative verbs,such as yǒu(have),shì(be),zài(exist),are found to co-occur with dynamic verbs,which invokes the entanglement of eventive and existential constructions.At the conceptual level,the co-occurrence of both categories calls for the conflation of dynamic and static domains in many respects,such as the conflation of motion schema with existential schema,temporal sequence with spatial sequence,temporality with spatiality as well.Additionally,this double scope integration unveils the bidirectionality of construal mode.The unification of objectivity and subjectivity enables fictive motion expressions in Chinese to convey descriptive and declarative meanings,and to function as propositions and discourse at the same time.The cognitive motivation behind these"spectrum" features of fictive motion in Chinese is "continuum",rather than"unipolar",which manifests the interaction between metonymic conceptualization "EXTENSION IN MOTION" and metaphoric conceptualization "EXTENSION AS MOTION" on account of conflation and de-conflation process between dynamic and static domain.During this process,the relation between these two domains varies gradually from "inclusive and contiguous" to "discrete",which results to the dual feature of schematic structure.On the metonymic side,motion schema unified with location schema.And motion schema prevails on the metaphoric side.Metaphor and metonymy as two cognitive mechanisms have brought tremendous insights on how and why fictive motion expressions in English and Chinese diverged.More importantly,these cognitive preferences unveiled how English and Chinese speakers conceptualize the same category in far more nuanced ways.These findings might also be instructive to further the understandings on the distinguishing features in language and thought between English and Chinese.