A Contrastive Analysis Of The Semantic Structure Differences Between Chinese And English From The Perspective Of Thinking Mode

The relationship between language and thinking has been a hot issue among the linguists, philosophers and other scholars. But there is still no universally accepted theory about this issue up till now. The most representative foreign theories about this hot issue include the language determinism and language relativity theory of the linguists Sapir and Whorf, the thinking determinism theory of the Swiss psychologist J. Piaget and the theory of the former Soviet Union psychologist Lev S. Vygotsky claiming that language and thinking are independent but interplay with each other. The Chinese philosophers and scholars from the ancient times to the modern age pay attention to the influences of thinking on language but never say that the former determines the latter. They think of language as a tool to express thinking. The widely agreed household classic Chinese sayings"language speaks out one's heart (the ancient Chinese used to think that heart is the organ for thinking)"and"there are things that can be understood in mind but cannot be transformed into words"fully demonstrates the attitudes of the Chinese towards the relationship between language and thinking. In general, the Chinese think differently from the native English speakers who represent the western people. The differences of thinking mode between Chinese and the native English speakers result from many factors such as the different geographic and environmental features, philosophical and ideological tendencies, social histories and traditional economical and political systems.This thesis systematically summarizes and discusses the theories of the linguists, philosophers and other scholars home and abroad about the relationship between language and thinking and provides the later discussion with theoretical basis. The thesis also summarizes the different thinking modes between the Chinese and the westerners and analyzes the reasons of these differences to pave the way for the later discussion of the semantic structure differences between Chinese and English. The major thinking mode differences between Chinese and the English native speakers are the following ones: Holistic Thinking vs. Analytic Thinking, Ethical Thinking vs. Cognitive Thinking, Intuitive Thinking vs. Logic Thinking, Figurative Thinking vs. Abstract Thinking, Gyre Thinking vs. Linear Thinking, Obscure Thinking vs. Accurate Thinking, Backward Thinking vs. Forward Thinking and Subject Conscious Thinking vs. Object Conscious Thinking.Based on the thinking mode differences between Chinese and the westerners and the different culture traditions, the thesis contrastively compares the different semantic structures between Chinese and English from the word level to the discourse level from the perspective of thinking mode in order to help the Chinese English learners to understand and learn English more efficiently and effectively.