A Cognitive Study Of English And Chinese Denominal Verbs

Denominal verb is one of the universal linguistic phenomena in English and Chinese. In the present decades, it is the traits of denominal verbs in English and Chinese that have attracted much attention from many perspectives like rhetoric, semantics, and pragmatics. Nonetheless, it is less stressed from cognitive linguistic perspective, especially from the perspective of conceptual blending theory. As a result, it provides an interesting realm of inquiry to clear the cognitive nature of English and Chinese denominal verbs.The aim of the study is to uncover the cognitive mechanisms that underlie English and Chinese denominal verbs by concentrating on their metaphor and metonymy, which will help language learners master this linguistic phenomenon. Thus a cognitive linguistic framework, is adopted, with theories of conceptual metaphor, metonymy, conceptual blending, image schema, basic-level category and perceptual prominence, to carry out a comparative analysis of English and Chinese denominal verbs.With an introduction and discussion of the relevant results: that is, the definitions of denominal verbs, the semantic, pragmatic, rhetorical and other perspectives, the research makes a brief introduction to the conceptual metaphor theory and conceptual blending theory. Based on the data collected from dictionaries, newspapers and the internet, the metaphors and metonymies, the two main cognitive models in denominal verbs, are addressed separately, in which classifications of different types and comparative study between English and Chinese denominal verbs are made. The metaphorical and metonymic usage of denominal verbs in the two languages are ranked in light of quantities of occurrence in the data gathered, after the analysis and comparison of the data, significant results are revealed and a reconsideration of denominal verbs in both English and Chinese are presented. The main results of the cognitive study can be summarized as follows:Firstly, from the results of data collection, two facts are revealed: a) In terms of quantities, English denominal verbs preponderate over Chinese ones.b) Metaphors and metonymies in English denominal verbs mainly concentrate on animal, instrument, human body part, clothes. However, metaphors and metonymies in Chinese denominal verbs mostly constrain into instrument and animal. Secondly, on the basis of data collection, with the guidance of CMT and CBT (Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Conceptual Blending Theory), we comparatively analyzed metaphors in denominal verbs of the two languages. The result is that although denominal verbs belong to different language systems with distinct cultures and other factors, their operating and conceptual blending mechanisms of metaphors are somewhat similar in English and Chinese denominal verbs.Thirdly, a comparative and cognitive study is carried out to examine the similarities and differences of English and Chinese denominal verbs in CBT framework. On the basis of data collection and Thing-Act metonymy, English and Chinese denominal verbs are classified into seven types: INSTRUMENT FOR ACT, DESTINATION FOR ACT, AGENT FOR ACT, OBJECT FOR ACT, RESULT FOR ACT, MANNER FOR ACT, and TIME FOR ACT. More similarities are exposed, through comparing the operating and conceptual blending mechanisms of metonymies in English and Chinese denominal verbs within the framework of CBT.Fourthly, a groping study is made to analyze English and Chinese denominal verbs by adopting the theories of image schema, basic-level categories and perceptual prominence, aimed to be furtherance to the parts of metaphor and metonymy. From the current study, CONTAINER, PATH and PART/WHOLE schemas have been found to be very productive in connection to English and Chinese denominal verbs. It is also found that English and Chinese denominal verbs are often derived from their corresponding nouns on the basic-level category. In addition, denominal verbs are often found to be highlighting the prominent part of the whole dynamic activity or process involved in the event described. Therefore, image schema, basic-level categories and perceptual prominence have influence on the producing and understanding mechanisms of English and Chinese denominal verbs. In short, we find that denominal verb is not only the reflection of people's metaphorical and metonymic cognitive mode, but also is the common reflection of blending of relevant concepts and other cognitive mechanisms in certain context. The present study provides theoretical gist for understanding the cognitive motivation of denominal verbs, which is very helpful for us to master this kind of linguistic phenomenon. These findings may have practicable significance in foreign language learning and teaching, translation and intercultural communication.