Separation Of Subject And Object In English And Integration Of Subject And Object In Chinese: A Contrastive Study Based On Mental Process Clauses

Subject and object are an important pair of categories in the study of language,related to the nature of language.This study takes the mental clauses as the research object and uses literature research and contrastive analysis to make a comparative analysis of the subject-object relationship between English and Chinese from three aspects of language context,syntax and semantics,including three kinds of subject-object relationships: the relationship between speaker and discourse,the relationship between syntactic subject and object,and the relationship between communicative subjects and discourse,in hoping of discovering the characteristics of the subject-object relationships between English and Chinese mental process clauses and the thinking patterns behind the differences,and further discovering the essence of the two languages,which also is beneficial to second language teaching and learning.The study shows that English is characterized by the separation of subject and object.From the perspective of the relationship between speaker and discourse,English separates speaker from discourse by switching the perspective of the other and using the distance between speaking time and event time,as well as the distance between the real world and the virtual world.When it comes to the relationship between syntactic subject and object,English constructs mental processes as abstract things independent of the sensors through linking verb “be” and nominalization,and makes the causative verbs reduce the subjectivity in the mental process clauses,so as to construct the separation of the sensor from the mental process itself,perceptual phenomena and environmental elements.As for the relationship between communicative subjects and discourse,English has rigorous structure and clear semantics,which overshadows the interaction between the communicative subjects.English is hypotaxis,with well-organized sentences,discrete categories,and well-organized syntactic functions.It can accurately represent semantic meaning and is independent of context.English is objective.The separation of subject and object in English reflects the dichotomy mode of thinking.Chinese is characterized by the integration of subject and object.In terms of the relationship between speaker and discourse,Chinese tends to construct object events from the perspective of subject and from the inside of events.In addition,the speaker is integrated into the discourse by conveying the speaker’s cognition of the object event through passive sentences and “Ba-Construction”.From the perspective of the relationship between syntactic subject and object,Chinese constructs the subject attribution of the mental process itself through “有”,and creates the transformation between subject and object through compound verbs and structures.From the point of view of the relationship between communicative subjects and discourse,Chinese depends on the interaction between communicative subjects and embodies the inter-subjectivity of communicative subjects.Chinese emphasizes parataxis,with flexible sentence structure,vague category,diversified syntactic functions,semantic dependence on context.Chinese is subjective.The integration of subject and object in Chinese reflects the thinking mode of harmony between heaven and man.