A Corpus-based Comparative Study On The Expressions Of Fictive Motion Of Emanation Between English And Chinese

Fictive motion is a cognitive representation model that describes non-real phenomena.It refers to the language phenomenon that systematically and extensively describes static scenes with the structure of productive things as the essential ground point(Talmy,2000a: 104).In fictive motion expressions,motion verbs are used to describe inherently static scenes.Emanation is a kind of fictive motion which is common in language.It relates to the fictive motion that the invisible thing from the original thing arrives at the object to be determined along a specific path.It contains four kinds of fictive motion,which are the sensory path,radiation path,orientation path,and shadow path.The corpus of this thesis is 20 famous modern and contemporary novels in both Chinese and English.There are 10 novels in English and 10 novels in Chinese.After reading the full text,the thesis selects the corpus by hand and selects 200 example sentences from Chinese and English novels as the research corpus of this thesis.Based on the theory of Talmy’s lexicalization patterns,this thesis selects English-Chinese emanation expression in the fictive motion as a comparison point,figure,and ground and adopts the method of combining description and explanation.Firstly,the characteristics of the expression of fictive motion of expressions in English and Chinese are described separately to find out the similarities and differences,and then the similarities and differences are explained accordingly.After comparing and analyzing the similarities and differences between the fictive motion expression of emanation in English and Chinese,this thesis attempts to apply the relevant results of fictive motion obtained in the thesis to foreign language teaching.It is found that there are similarities and differences in the construction of the fictive motion expressions of emanation between English and Chinese.The similarities are as follows: first,the figure and ground mainly reflect the nominal components in the expression of emanation in English and Chinese.Secondly,the figure and ground to some extent abide by the principle of "the figure of motion takes precedence over the ground" in language expression both in English and Chinese.Thirdly,the figure is generally the subject in the sentence,while the ground is usually the minor nominal part of the sentence.Fourth,the ground is often omitted in the expression of the emanation in English and Chinese.Fifth,path semantic featureshave the same semantic category in English and Chinese.The difference lies in: first,in English,the figure and ground are generally placed after the moving verb.In Chinese,the figure of motion and the position of ground have two situations respectively,one is the ground representing the starting point basically placed after the verb as the object,the other is ground representing the ending point generally in the position of adverbial.Second,from the expression and form of expression,English uses both general and passive methods.In Chinese,there are not only general expression method but also passive expressions with "ba".Thirdly,from the perspective of path,there are more moving verbs in Chinese than in English,and the movement events in Chinese are often the results of the combination of path and mode.In English,the verb can express both the move and the path directly.The thesis analyzes the reasons for the similarities and differences of emanation expressions of English and Chinese.They are as follows: from the perspective of similarity,first of all,although English and Chinese are two different languages,they share the same cognitive principles.Secondly,this linguistic phenomenon reflects the figurative will of human beings.From the perspective of difference,English native speakers usually adopt the sequential comprehension method,while Chinese native speakers usually adopt the focused comprehension method.After comparing and analyzing the similarities and differences in the expressions of fictive motion of emanation between English and Chinese,this thesis attempts to apply the results of the analysis to the guidance of foreign language teaching.First,the view of language acquisition and foreign language teaching in cognitive linguistics should be established to add new vitality to the teaching of such grammatical phenomena as fictive motion.Secondly,in terms of teaching content,the theoretical research of fictive motion and the results of empirical research have certain enlightenment on foreign language vocabulary teaching,helping students to learn the diversity of language expression.Thirdly,in terms of pedagogy,the theory and practice are combined through the study of the phenomenon of fictive motion language,and the teaching of "construction-chunk" is assisted by the theory through expansion,so as to consolidate the teaching of "construction-chunk" through experience.