A Contrastive Study Of Lexicalization Patterns Of Motion Events In English And Chinese

Based on Leonard Talmy’s typological frame of motion events,this thesis studies the lexicalization patterns of motion events in Chinese novel Hong Lou Meng and its two English versions:The Story of the Stone by David Hawkes;A Dream of Red Mansions by Yang Xianyi and Gladys B.Tayler.Furthermore,based on the differences of lexicalization patterns between Chinese and English,the translation of motion events in the Chinese novel San Ti(The Three-Body Problem)is discussed from the perspective of rhetorical style.Firstly,in the description of motion events,differences between Chinese and English exist with regard to the tokens and types of manner verbs used to express motion events.The manner verbs in the three texts are divided into four main verb categories:WALK,RUN,JUMP,and ClIMB.The results display that,in Hawkes’translation and Yang Xianyi and Tayler’s translation,there are large numbers of the types and tokens of the corresponding manner verbs for the four Chinese verbs "走zou","跑 pao","跳 tiao","爬 pa",the WALK expressions showing the largest numbers.This indicates that the English has a higher degree of lexicalization of manner verbs.Secondly,with regard to the encoding of path,it is found that the types and tokens of path verbs in Chinese are larger than those in English,and that both of them use prepositions to encode departure,traversal,arrival and passing subevents.The major distinction is reflected in the encoding of complex path.English is likely to encode complex motion events within one clause with multiple descriptions of path segments.However,Chinese tends to distribute the path details into several separate VP constructions,creating loosely packaged event descriptions.In addition,the number of grounds accompanying one verb in Chinese text is smaller than that in English.Finally,the translation of motion events expressions in The Three-Body Problem is discussed from the perspective of rhetorical style.The translation strategies of manner are divided into two kinds:equivalent encoding and non-equivalent encoding.The examination reveals that some basic manner verbs in the original can be expressed in the translation in semantically and structurally equivalent ways.However,there are also some basic manner verbs in the original text that the translator has to use manner verbs with refiner manner meanings in order to conform to the rhetorical style of English,especially when there are other modifying components encoding the manner verb at the same time.This results in non-reciprocal encoding at the semantic or structural level.The examination also shows that path encoding is syntactically non-equivalent between the Chinese original and English target text.The multiple path segments distributed in multiple "verb+path" constructions in Chinese are integrated into one clause with one verb accompanying multiple path components in English.This thesis confirms that English typically presents the characteristics of satellite-framed language.By contrast,Chinese presents less typical characteristics of the satellite-framed language.The typological differences further give rise to the differences of rhetorical style between Chinese and English,and the study in this respect is of significance for translation.