A Study On The Emotion Constructions In Modern Chinese

Emotion is "a positive or negative psychological response to external stimuli,such as like,anger,sadness,fear,love and disgust".The expression forms of emotion are rich and diverse,and human language is one of the most important forms of expressing and transmitting emotions.The so-called"Emotion lies in action and the expression lies in words" has formed a rich and colorful language.Based on the Construction Grammar Theory,this paper makes an overall investigation and case study on the four kinds of emotion constructions of "Joy,Anger,Sadness and Fear" in modern Chinese,and mainly reveals the deep motivation of Chinese emotion constructions from the following three aspects:form,meaning and usage.The full text consists of nine Chapters:The First Chapter is the introduction,which briefly explains the reasons for choosing the topic,research significance,relevant research reviews,the main ideas of this study,the theories and methods used and the source of the corpus.The Second Chapter defines Emotion and Emotion Category.The first section mainly points out the interpretation of emotion in different disciplines.After that,we defined Emotion as a subjective feelings and language expressions in linguistics.Finally,the category of emotions is defined in the four types of "Joy","Anger","Sadness" and "Fear".The second section is about emotion construction and its main types,focusing on its generation mechanism,cognitive mode and development trend,as well as examples of typical emotion constructions;In order to facilitate the discussion,according to the Cognitive Prototype Category Theory,this paper tries to put forward the dichotomy of typical constructions and atypical constructions,which is a new Theory used to support the research of emotion to a new height.From Chapter Three to Chapter Six,we respectively analyze the specific forms of the four most typical emotion constructions:"Joy","Anger","Sadness" and "Fear" in modern Chinese,with a large number of practical corpus as evidence,highlighting the formal composition mechanism and semantic expression characteristics of the four kinds of emotion constructions.We also analyze the formal,semantic and pragmatic characteristics of different emotion constructions.Among them,the third Chapter is a specific analysis of the Joy emotion construction.The first section discusses the basic characteristics of the Joy emotion construction from the concept definition,formal characteristics and basic types.The second and third sections respectively analyze the personality characteristics of the typical construction "Li hai le wo de NP"(厉害了我的NP)and the atypical construction "Wo A,wo B"(我 A,我 B)from three aspects:form,semantic acquisition and pragmatic expression.The Fourth Chapter is a specific analysis of Anger emotion construction.The first section discusses the basic characteristics of Anger emotion construction from the definition,formal characteristics and basic types.The second and third sections make a detailed investigation of the typical construction "Zheng ge yi ge X"(整个一个 X)and the atypical construction "Hao ni ge X"(好你个 X)from the three aspects of component attributes,semantic features and pragmatic functions respectively.The Fifth Chapter is the analysis of sad emotion tendency construction.The first section discusses the basic characteristics of sad emotion construction from the concept definition,formal characteristics and basic types.The second and third sections respectively investigate the typical construction "You yi zhong X jiao zuo Y"(有一种 X 叫 Y)and the atypical construction "S ke neng V le jia N"(S 可能 V 了假 N)from the three aspects of formal construction,semantic characteristics and evolutionary motivation.The Sixth Chapter is the analysis of fear emotion tendency construction.The first section discusses the basic characteristics of fear emotion construction from the concept definition,formal characteristics and basic types.The second and third sections discuss in detail the typical construction"Wo de X ya"(我的 X 呀)and the atypical construction "Xia si X le"(吓死 X 了)from the three aspects of formal change,semantic emergence and emotion expression.The Seventh Chapter mainly investigates the complex emotion construction.The first section talks about the basic characteristics and main types of compound emotion construction from the concept definition,formal characteristics and basic types.It is considered that the so-called compound emotion refers to the fuzzy emotion at the connection of the four emotions of "Joy","Anger","sadness"and "Fear" mainly including "Joy&Cavil","Anger&Self-mockery","Sadness&Depression","Fear&Anxiey","Helpless&Ridicule"and so on.The second and third sections discuss the typical construction "X bing Y zhe"(X 并 Y 着)and the atypical construction "X hai lai buji"(X 还来不及)in detail from three aspects:formal structure,ideographic mechanism and pragmatic inference.Chapter Eight mainly discusses the motivations of emotion construction.The main mechanism of emotion construction includes form,semantics and pragmatics.In the formal motivation,it focuses on the repressive force,iconicization and Grammaticalization.In the semantic motivation,it focuses on the main mechanisms of meaning acquisition of emotion construction,that is,based on experience in meaning,based on usage in emergent meaning and based on context in construal;In pragmatic motivation,it focuses on the main mechanisms of the application of emotion construction,namely contextual motivation,intentional motivation and derivational motivation.Finally,we take sadness and fear as the foothold to discuss the role of real context in promoting the imbalance of emotion constructions,and the role of politeness principle in the mechanism of construction selection.Chapter Nine is the conclusion,which discusses about the inadequacy of the study and the direction for the future improvement.