A Cognitive Study Of English "Pretend+X" Constructions:A Construal Approach

Under the framework of Cognitive Linguistics,this thesis concerns itself with a Cognitive Construal approach to English “Pretend+X” constructions.As a universal phenomenon in the human world,“pretending” is an important research topic in psychology,linguistics and even philosophy.Previous studies on English“Pretend+X” constructions have achieved some accomplishments from psychology,philosophy,and semantics,etc.However,the syntactic,semantic features and the corresponding cognitive mechanisms concerning English “Pretend+X” constructions need to be further explored.It is held in Cognitive Linguistics that constructions are form-meaning parings and have strong explanatory power over the syntactic and semantic features and the cognitive mechanisms of linguistic constructions.As an integral component in Cognitive Linguistics,Cognitive Construal Theory includes four dimensions,specificity,perspective,profiling,and mental scanning.The thesis,therefore,employs Cognitive Construal Theory to analyze English “Pretend+X” constructions,specifically devoting itself into the three questions below:（1）What are the syntactic features of English “Pretend+X” constructions?（2）What are the semantic features of English “Pretend+X” constructions?（3）What are the cognitive mechanisms of English “Pretend+X” constructions?The thesis identifies itself as a qualitative study.The data are collected from News on the Web Corpus（NOW）and Corpus of Contemporary American English（COCA）,A New Advanced English Grammar,etc.The research findings are:（1）The syntactic features of English “Pretend+X” constructions include four categories,namely,[PRETEND + VP],[PRETEND + Clause],[PRETEND + as/like NP/Clause],and [PRETEND + NP].（2）The semantic features of English “Pretend+X”constructions include the profiling of the pretender,the process of “pretending”,and the goal of “pretending”.（3）In terms of cognitive mechanisms,English “Pretend+X”constructions are motivated by the Cognitive Construal behind,which embodies the interactions with three worlds,namely,“the physical world”,“the mental world” and“the linguistic world”.The thesis tries to discuss the syntactic,semantic features and cognitive mechanisms of English “Pretend+X” constructions,which is expected to provide reference for the studies on the expressions of universal human “pretending” on one hand,and to shed some light on the English teaching and the related researches of English “Pretend+X” constructions,on the other hand.