A Cognitive Study Of Emanation Paths In Fictive Motion Of English And Chinese

Fictive motion is a kind of dynamic expression that use motive verbs to describe static scenes.Fictive motion is a common phenomenon.It exists in different languages and has both similarities and characteristics.Emanation paths is one of fictive motion expression,which means the subject move in emanation direction path from source point.The emanation paths of fictive motion includes orientation path,radiation path,shadow path and sensory path.And the emanation paths mostly describe the light and sound.In this thesis,the research objects are emanation path expression in English and Chinese,and the corpus come from COCA and BCC.By selecting motion event as theoretical foundation,the thesis take figure,motion,path and ground as contrast points and make comparison from English and Chinese emanation paths in fictive motion.And then explores the motivations behind these similarities and differences from the perspectives of cognition.The research findings are as follows: emanation path expressions widely exist in English and Chinese,among the whole corpora selected in English and Chinese,radiation path accounts for largest proportion.Through contrastive analysis of English and Chinese emanation path expressions,there are similarities and differences.The similarities are mainly as follows: Firstly,the figure of English and Chinese emanation paths are invisible things,such as sound,light,taste,shadow,etc.And the figure in emanation path are usually expressed in nominal components.Secondly,the ground in English and Chinese emanation paths can be omitted in the sentence without affecting the semantic meaning of entire sentence.Thirdly,English and Chinese emanation paths have the same semantic characteristics.As for the difference in English and Chinese emanation path,the findings are as follows: Firstly,the path in English emanation path is usually expressed with the help of prepositions;while in Chinese emanation path,the directional verb can completely express emanation path.Secondly,Chinese emanation paths sometimes are expressed in abstract language form,such as the rhetorical methods;while English emanation path expressions are more detailed and complete,which is reflected in different prepositions for describing the path direction.After comparing and analysing the similarities and differences of emanation path in English and Chinese,the thesis explores the motivations behind these similarities and differences from the perspectives of cognitive linguistics.The study in this thesis has certain enlightenment on the establishment of related corpora,teaching Chinese as a foreign language,and English-Chinese translation of emanation paths.