English And Chinese Word Formation: From A Cognitive Perspective

Though we human beings have showed interest in word formation for thousandsof years, there still remain many open issues "in this 'most secret' area of languagestudy" (Bauer 1983: 293). This dissertation, following a cognitive approach andtaking argument structure analysis, prototype theory and conceptual blending theoryas its theoretical tools, conducts a contrastive study of English and Chinese wordformation processes, focusing on analyzing their categorization and exploring theircognitive mechanisms with intent to disclose their common characteristics andprinciples.The significance of the research lies in that, first of all, the study of wordformation will give us a better understanding of the nature of human language,because as Stein (1973: 29), a famous German linguist, states that the creativity inword formation is more easily observed and significant than in any other aspects oflanguage. In addition, the research will, we believe, contribute to increasing theexplanatory power of the cognitive linguistic theories concerned, because fewlinguists have investigated English and Chinese word formation processes in asystematic way and explored the mechanism underlying these processes from acognitive perspective.The study synthesizes the quantitative and the qualitative approaches. Thequantitative approach is adopted to count the frequencies of the formation types inEnglish and Chinese neologisms, aiming to reveal the on-going change in English andChinese word formation; the qualitative approach is applied to categorize the variousEnglish and Chinese word formation processes and to explain their cognitivemechanisms.The major findings of our research go as follows:1) The seven popular word formation types in English and Chinese, i.e. creating,onomatopoeia, borrowing, combination, conversion, clipping and blending, can bereduced to three basic procedures, i.e. creation, imitation and reformation. Theoptimal inclination of human cognition approaches the result that reformation will be the most significant and productive of the three, because this procedure draws on thenative existing morphemes as the 'raw material' to create new words so that the leastcognitive efforts are called for to understand and memorize them.2) Under the heading of reformation come the major types of English andChinese formation such as conversion, compounding, affixation, clipping andblending. These formation types, either in English or in Chinese, can be characterizedas a prototype category, presenting a cline from conversion through combination inone direction and clipping in the other to blending, with no clear-cut dividing linebetween, say, conversion and affixation, affixation and compounding, simple cuttingand acronymization, etc.3) The efficiency principle of information transmission requires thatcommunicative intentions be achieved by the most economical means on the premiseof accuracy. From this point of view, blending is a cross-sectional and typical instanceof the word formation types in contemporary English and modern Chinese, for itinvolves both combination and clipping and reflects simultaneously the accurate andeconomical requirements of the efficiency principle.4) English and Chinese word formation processes do not differ from each other incognitive mechanism by nature. In fact, in terms of conceptual blending theory,cognitive mechanisms underlying the various word formation types, whether inEnglish or in Chinese, can boil down to the interaction of different mental spaces inthe conceptual integration network.5) As a result of the interactive effects of the universal cognitive principlesgoverning the formation of words and the increasing amount of language contactbetween English and Chinese, there has been an ever-growing concordance betweenthe word formation processes in the two languages. Emergence of lexicalized phrasesand shortened forms in large numbers and the compromise between compounding andaffixation in the two languages are the most popular expressions of the tendency.In short, though English and Chinese are usually believed to differ tremendouslyfrom each other, much concordance can be found in the word formation between thetwo languages. The concordance manifests itself, first of all, at the cognitive level, namely that the human-universal cognitive principles and mechanisms approach theresult that English and Chinese do not differ by nature in the basic procedures bywhich they produce new words, then, owing to the increasing amount of languagecontact in modem times, an ever-growing concordance can thus be found in the actualword formation types between the two languages.