A Contrastive Study Of The Cognitive And Cultural Model Of Chinese And English Discourse:

The Cognitive Pattern theory is a kernel in the research of cognitive linguists.A Cognitive Pattern refers to a relatively stereotyped mental structure formed by people in the process of comprehending the entity and the world.It is a pattern used for organizing and representing knowledge,which is composed of concepts and relatively fixed relations between them.The formation and fixation of cognitive pattern gradually produce another form,namely,cultural model,which is developed by schema theory in psychology and neurology.At present,the previous researches on cognitive patterns at home and abroad focus on creating cognitive patterns with strong explanatory power.Such models are theoretical models and lack of specific application situations.The cultural model studies abroad follow an identical pattern of the research of cognitive pattern theory and put forward some cultural models with certain explanatory power.However,such explanatory power bears limitations.In China,there is little theoretical research on cultural model at present.Considering the shortcomings of the current research on cognitive patterns and cultural models,on the basis of previous studies,this study attempts to use qualitative and comparative analysis methodology to explore the differences and cultural factors in cognitive patterns within the Sino-US trade media reports context through three steps: model identification,model interpretation and model explanation.This thesis takes 20 pieces of Sino-U.S.trade reports collected in Chinese and American newspapers,radio and TV news scripts as the research objects,and takes the utility of qualitative and contrastive analysis methodology to explore the following three questions:1.What kinds and how many cognitive patterns can be identified in the chinese and us trade media discourses?2.What are the main differences between the cultural models of U.S and China concerning trade discourses?3.What are the significance and implications of these cultural differences?Research suggests that a vast number of cognitive patterns such as CM model,ECM model,schema model and frame model,are presented in the collected media reports discourses on Sino-US trade.Under the same cognitive pattern,the attitude differences in Sino-US trade reports are reflected in the differences within the cognitive pattern.For example,in CM model,the differences in attitude between China and the United States towards trade competitors are reflected in the differences of “context”;in ECM model,the differences in attitude between China and the United States towards negotiation are reflected in the differences of “Actions” and “Beings”;in the schema models and the Frame models,the differences of attitude between China and the United States towards building a global trade environment are mirrored in the differences of schemas and frames.As a result,the differences within the various cognitive patterns have gradually formed the situation that the US launched various initiatives to suppress China and other trade competitors while China insists on maintaining and creating a healthy and free trade environment.The analysis of the cultural differences in Sino-US economic and trade field have explained the phenomena in Sino-US trade frictions from the perspective of culture,in which the analysis of the cognitive differences manifested expands the explanatory power of the existing cognitive models.This study,as a tentative attempt,focusing on international hot issues,tries to explore the deep-seated causes from the perspective of cognition and culture,which will undoubtedly provide useful advice and help for the alleviation of conflicts and the formulation of relevant policies.