Frames Of Reference And Spatial Expressions In Chinese And English: A Comparative Study

Spatial expression or spatial language has been a hotspot for cognitive studies for decades and there has been a series of research and projects on language and spatial cognition in terms of topological relationships and Fo Rs abroad. However, comparisons between major and/or ‘popular’ languages like Chinese and English are relatively rare. The focus of the present study is on the use of frames of reference and the spatial expressions employed in Chinese and English discourse, which come from a corpus of travelling-related texts.The present study adopts as its analytical framework the four-frame typology of frames of reference proposed by Danziger(2010) which is in turn based on Levinson’s three-frame typology. These four are absolute, relative, object-centered and direct frames of reference, which seem to be more tailored, on our part, to conduct a comparative study. Also, the important notion Figure and Ground defined by Talmy(2000) is introduced into the analytical framework.Altogether 350 units of data are collected including 183 Chinese texts and 167 English texts from 15 books(Dayong and Xiaohua’s Travelling Journal Series, Travelling Notes of Spain, Walking into Europe, Travelling in Southeast Asia,South Asia, Tracing a Trail through Western Europe Life, Travelling around North Europe, Experiencing the Old Europe, Neither Here Nor There:Travels in Europe, It’s Not About the Tapas: Around Spain on Two Wheels, Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian) and travel logs published on several websites(www.travellog.com; www. crazyguyonabike.com; www.dayong.name) for both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The data analysis is conducted using a modified methodology based on the Contrastive Functional Analysis proposed by Chesterman(1998). In conformity with the research questions we posed, the major findings are summed up as follows.First of all, the similarities between Chinese and English spatial expressions, found via data analysis, are that both languages use F-G and G-F orderings and exploit all four Fo Rs proposed by Danziger(2010) – absolute, relative, object-centered, and direct(with eight subtypes, in terms of F/G ordering and Fo Rs using, existing in the languages: G-F-absolute, G-F-relative, G-F-object-centered, G-F-direct, F-G-absolute, F-G-relative, F-G-object-centered and F-G-direct) – to describe the location of an object.Secondly, the differences deriving from the data are more valuable and they are found to fall into three aspects: in the case of F/G orderings, the G-F construction occurs more prevailingly in Chinese while the F-G does so in English. Moreover, the Chinese phrasal patterns are in G-F sequence only, structured as “(Prep)+G+Postp+(De/的)+F”; by contrast the English phrasal patterns are arranged solely in F-G precedence, structured as “F+Prep+G”. And regarding the use of adpositions, a postposition/localizer is typically required, optionally alongside with a preposition, in Chinese(as indicated in the pattern “(Prep)+G+Postp+VLoc+F” or “F+VLoc(+Prep)+G+Postp”); but in English a preposition is always used with no choice(as in the form of “F+Vloc(VThere-be+F)+ Prep+G” or “Prep+G+VLoc /VThere-be +F”).In the case of Fo R uses, the absolute Fo R is strongly preferred in Chinese whereas the object-centered is so in English.Finally, following a scrutiny of the data, the cognitive and semantic motivations for the findings, especially about the differences, are in order as follows.1. It can be argued that the superficially similar occurrences of, e.g., F/G organization and Fo R expressions in Chinese and English spatial description are driven by human universal cognition in space.2. The cognitive and semantic motivations for the differences are found to be diverse and peculiar – which we outline briefly in the following.1) The different occurrences of prevailing F/G constructions in the data are motivated very likely by the fact that, in terms of the associated characteristics of F/G as listed in Talmy(2000), the Chinese speakers are more concerned about the physical magnitude of Ground but the English are more concerned about the functional salience of Figure.2) The different preferred uses of Fo Rs are caused by the fact that Chinese and English speakers use distinct ways to increase accessibility of the entities in reference point constructions.3) The different uses of adpositions are largely associated with semantic factors: in constructing spatial expressions, a Chinese postposition is typically obligatory because it is supposed to signal locational information that a preposition does not afford; yet an English spatial preposition is used nearly at all times, as it explicitly conveys information about an object’s location.This study has provided evidence for the neo-Whorfian theories in the aspect of spatial cognition and language: Chinese and English have linguistic differences in the use of Fo Rs in spatial description, and the linguistic differences are shown to correlate with perceptual and cognitive difference. Practically, the primary differences thus found in the use of Fo Rs and spatial expressions in our data will provide new and useful insights into language teaching and learning, particularly Chinese and English teaching.