Lexicalization Typology Of Motion Events In English, Chinese And Japanese

This thesis researches different expressions of human body motion verbs in English, Chinese, and Japanese with a view to examining the lexicalization typology of motion events in the three languages. Taking Red Sorghum by Mo Yan as a case study, the thesis studies the human body motion events translation in English and Japanese in the light of Talmy’s lexicalization typology theory. This thesis tries to find the similarities and differences of lexicalization typology of motion events in the three languages through empirical study. The study is conducted from two aspects:lexicalization pattern and event integration. In the research of lexicalization pattern, this thesis analyzes the semantic components and the linguistic elements of motion events in the three languages and summarizes the lexicalization features of each language. By analyzing and summarizing the three versions, this study aims at finding out the similarities and differences between them. A special attention is paid to the expression of manner and path in motion events in English, Chinese and Japanese. And through a comparison and analysis of the manner verb and the path verbs in motion events, this study researches the event integration of the three languages.There are several discoveries of this research based on the analysis of the three texts of Red sorghum. Firstly, in the expression of human body motion, Chinese uses lots of human body motion verbs while many of the verbs are transformed into phrases and prepositions in the English translation. The Japanese translation keeps the verbs in the Chinese language most of the time in describing the motion. Secondly, in the lexicalization pattern of motion event, Japanese language displays significant differences from Chinese and English. In the expression of motion events, English and Chinese tend to put the ground behind the main motion verb while Japanese is accustomed to use the element of "ground" ahead of motion. The main verb usually comes at the end of a sentence in Japanese. Then through the research and contrast on the manner verbs in the three languages, this thesis finds that English is the most expressive one in the three languages. Based on the finding, this thesis summarizes five patterns of Japanese language in conveying the element of manner in motion events. Lastly, through the study of event integration of the three language, this study finds that English is a typical "satellite-framed language" while Japanese is a typical "verb-framed language". Typical satellite-framed languages contain more vivid manner verbs than typical verb-framed languages. This conclusion is line with Slobin’s idea as he thinks that satellite-framed language is manner-salient. Since there is little research on a contrastive study of motion events between English, Chinese and Japanese, this study has a significant value to the future studies.