An Applied Comparative Analysis Of Motion Event Expressions In English And Chinese

From the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics, based on Talmy's theory of lexicalization patterns of motion events, taking English and Chinese motion event expressions and some relevant grammatical phenomena as the investigation subjects, this thesis attempts to investigate into the mapping patterns of motion events from the concept structure to the linguistic forms, that is, how do languages represent the conceptual structure of motion events in different lexical categories or syntactic structure? If the mapping patterns are different across languages, how should translators render meaning elements into linguistic forms according to the distinctive mapping patterns in each language? This thesis focuses on the translational motion event expressions in English and Chinese, special attention is paid to the linguistic encoding of Path and Manner of motion. Based on the analysis and comparison of motion event expressions, this thesis further applies the lexicalization patterns of motion events to translation, and puts forward some methods for dealing with Path and Manner information in translating motion event expressions.First of all, this thesis gives an introduction to the motivation, theoretical foundation and research background of the whole paper. Then the thesis presents the theoretical framework of Motion Event. This thesis adopts Talmy's Figure-Motion-Path-Ground motion schema for the analysis of motion. Based on the understanding of the conceptual structure of motion, this thesis moves on to the lexicalization patterns of motion events, investigating how the semantic components of motion are regularly encoded in the linguistic forms. Languages differ in the ways of mapping the semantic components of motion onto the lexical categories and syntactic structure. Therefore, there are topological differences in the lexicalization of motion events across languages. Based on the mapping patterns of the core element Path, Talmy distinguishes two different types of languages, i.e., satellite-framed and verb-framed languages. Both English and Chinese are satellite-framed languages according to Talmy. However, the typologies reflect tendencies rather than absolute differences among languages. It is expected that English and Chinese as two distinct languages may differ in the mapping patterns of motion events from the concept structure to the linguistic forms in some aspect.Then, the thesis conducts a comparative analysis of Path and Manner expressions between English and Chinese. On the basis of Talmy's motion schema, Path is a conceptual complex which consists of three components: Vector, Conformation, and Deictic. This thesis examines Path-related properties within the three components and observes that English and Chinese manifest certain distinct characteristics. After the detailed explanation of the concept of Path, this thesis focuses on the linguistic devices for the encoding of Path in English and Chinese. It is observed that the concept of Path can be expressed by linguistic forms of Path satellites, prepositions and Path verbs. Despite the similarities, those lexical units of Path do not function exactly the same way in the syntactic arrangement in the two languages. The major differences are: (1) English Path satellites overlap largely with prepositions while Chinese Path satellites overlap largely with verbs. (2) The use of Deictic in motion event expressions is much more pervasive in Chinese than that in English. (3) English and Chinese vary in expressions for a complex Path. After a detailed research on Path of motion, this thesis turns to the examination of Manner. Both English and Chinese typically conflate Manner with Motion, demonstrating the characteristics of Satellite-framed language. However, there are much more fine-grained Manner verbs in English than those in Chinese. To compensate for the lack of fine-grained manner verbs, Chinese tends to use alternative expressions of Manner such as adverbs to encode Manner of motion.The findings of the comparative analysis are expected to be applied to translation practice. The focus of translation is usually on"meaning"and"form"between the source language and the target language. Talmy's theory of lexicalization patterns also focuses on the meaning-form relationship. Thus, from the perspective of lexicalization, one of the translation problems is the mapping differences between semantic elements and linguistic elements across languages. The lexicalization patterns of motion event can serve as a framework for translators to deal with the mapping differences in motion event expressions across languages. Due to the differences in Path and Manner expressions in English and Chinese, it is expected that translators can deal with the Path and Manner information in light of the lexicalization patterns of motion events in translation practice. The major findings, limitations of the thesis and suggestions for further study are presented at last.