| Man's understanding of the world and the self originates from the perception of spatial motion;therefore,in recent decades,studies on representing motion in language and cognition have prevailed.Motion events which highlight dynamic spatial change,manifest large numbers of biological commonalities.However,they also represent plenty of cross-linguistic differences,which has aroused wide interest in the fields of linguistic typology,language acquisition and linguistic cognition.Based on his analysis of motion event lexicalization models,Talmy(1985)proposed his well-known dichotomy of motion event typology,and the following studies largely center on the discussion of motion event lexicalization.Even though a small number of scholars such as Croft et.al.(2010)and Bohnemeyer et.al.(2007)have suggested that studies on motion event representation based on constructions should be necessary,their studies in essence are not divorced from discussions on lexicalization patterns,merely enlarging the scope of study to include constructions,and no studies truly concentrating on the constructional representation of motion events have been seen.We believe,the constructional level of motion event representation has both cross-linguistic similarities and differences,therefore,an empirical study uniting both motion event representation and construction grammar can open up a wide research space for us.Therefore,around this topic,this study intends to answer the following questions(research scope is gradually enlarged from English-specific constructions,to special constructions,and finally to all the constructions including common basic constructions):(1)To what extent can Chinese EFL learners use English-specific “way construction” to encode the particular motion event types? What role does L1 online thinking play in the encoding process?(2)What differences in the use of special construction types have been manifested between Chinese learners and English native speakers? How do typological differences affect learners' online thinking?(3)What mapping regularities from motion event types to construction types are demonstrated by the data collected? What are the underlying cognitive motivations?In view of this,guided by commitments of cognitive linguistics,this study first constructs the theoretical framework of the interactive mapping model of motion event type clusters and construction type clusters,based on our interpretation of the action and reaction relationships of “reality-cognition-language”,integrating Talmy's motion event concept framework and Goldberg's construction grammar.On this basis,adopting induced experiments together with retrospection and interview,this study explores Chinese EFL learners' motion event encoding with constructions,with reference to English native speakers' coding,discussing how one's online thinking pattern restricted by mother tongue influences his motion event encoding with constructions,and then steps further to probe into the mapping regularities of motion event types and construction types,and the cognitive motivations behind.On the basis of corpus data collected by induced experiments,together with the verbal report of stimulated recall and the retrospection data from interviews,this study focuses on the qualitative discussion assisted with quantitative analysis methods.The findings are as follows:(1)Learners' use of way-construction encoding motion events is zero,while native speakers use way-construction systematically;besides,native speakers encode some other English-specific constructions like “make-it-to-shore construction”,while no learner chooses these;learners' choice of constructions reflects L1 online thinking's interference in motion event encoding.Eliminating the factor of learners' insufficient knowledge of way-construction,two fundamental reasons have been found: first,language-specific constructions reflect the language community's unique construal of the world,and since these constructions have no corresponding structures in their mother tongue system,consequently their successful acquisition has to undergo cognitive reconstruction which has created enormous difficulties for SLA.Second,there are systematic syntactic differences in English and Chinese: English favors synthetic/coercive constructions while Chinese favors analytic/ non-coercive constructions.Learners are inclined to encode similar constructions such as intransitive and transitive constructions,as well as coordinate structures.Learners' construction encoding manifests L1 grammatical system's attention to certain details of motion events and shows that mother tongue's information organization has affected event property extraction and construction mapping.(2)Under the influence of mighty categories of one's mother tongue,L1 online thinking influences learners' coding of English special constructions(verbalization/nominalization constructions,static constructions and serial verb constructions),which manifests typological differences' interference in learners' motion event encoding.To be specific,first,the mighty verb category in Chinese and mighty noun category in English have affected learners' coding of verbalization/nominalization constructions,but the influence is not prominent,which echoes the unsolved debate on mightiness of noun/verb in English and Chinese.Though to some degree this study supports the mightiness of verb in Chinese and noun in English,the opposite idea is not denied.Second,the mightiness of topic structure in Chinese leads to the over-coding of there-be construction as an English counterpart of “you” construction,inhibiting the coding of dynamic location construction.Third,the mighty serial verb construction in Chinese needs to be added with extra syntactic marks when mapped into English,which results in over-coding of SVC I and under-coding of SVC II,and over-coding of SVC III is under the influence of Chinese-specific construction “pivotal construction”,consequently leading to under-coding of caused motion construction.This study basically supports the influence of the mighty categories in Chinese on learners' online thinking,further acting on learners' coding of English special constructions,but there are discrepancies in the degree of the influence of mighty categories.(3)The mapping regularities from motion events to constructions and the underlying cognitive motivations are as follows.First,the motion event-construction mapping shows commonality and multiplicity.Commonality lies in two aspects: that of construction selection between learners and native speakers,and that of classification of motion events with simple structure and typical features between learners and native speakers.Multiplicity lies in the multiple choice of constructions or construction compounds depicting complicated events,and native speakers tend to choose constructions with tight syntax,high semantic density and more arguments while learners go the opposite with the influence of Chinese.Second,there is multiple mapping between motion event and construction,but there also exists the typical mapping.Third,with the restriction of attention distribution there exists a universal de-argument phenomenon in construction encoding of motion events,which proves the partial composition of construction.Fourth,compared with verbs,constructions can better generalize the essential features of motion events,whose semantic structure is steady and able to reactivate the core features of motion events,which shows man's intuitive grasp of structural invariants and transformational invariants of events.Fifth,there exists constructional granularity and the division of constructional granularity of basic level and subordinate level is made.In sum,with the analysis of experiment and introspection data,this study tests the basic function of motion event on construction coding and motion event complexity affects the cognitive agent's coding of events with construction.Conversely,one's mother tongue system can act on the establishment of experiential reality via online thinking and ultimately on cognitive agent's coding in constructions.L1 online thinking has screening effects,mutually inverse permitting and restricting effects.To specific construction types,motion event complexity,constructional syntactic/semantic complexity(basic constructions)and L1 online thinking are positively correlated;motion event complexity,construction integration(language-specific constructions)and L1 online thinking are positively correlated.This study's theoretical values and standings are as follows.In the aspect of the correlation between language and thinking,this study supports Slobin's thinking-for-speaking hypothesis.In the aspect of argument structure,this study supports Goldberg's gestalt view of construction,but acknowledges partial compositionality of construction.In the aspect of typology,this study provides empirical evidence for Slobin's view of Chinese as equipollently-framed language. |
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