The Contrastive Analysis Of The Visual Verbs Both In Chinese And English

This paper is finished based on the contrastive language theory, semantic field theory, cognitive language theory. Visual category is the basic category of human perception. There are lots of verbs of vision in Chinese and English. Others have studied visual verbs from different points, but still need further study. This paper is mainly studied from semantic field and semantic extension of visual verbs.The semantic field theory makes it possible to study vocabulary systematically. Through the study of semantic field of vocabulary in one period, we can find out one word how to associate with and distinguish from the others. Based on the semantic field theory, we first divided the semantic field of the visual verbs both in Chinese and English macroscopically, and then contrasted the division: taking Tongyici Cilin(《同义词词林》), Jianming Hanyu Yilei Cidian(《简明汉语义类词典》), Xiandai Hanyu Fenlei Cidian(《现代汉语分类词典》) and《Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases》as the reference, there are 142 glosseme and 75 glosseme in the semantic field of the visual verbs in Chinese and English respectively, which are divided into two basic semantic fields: semantic field of action of visual verbs and semantic field of perception of visual verbs. According to the lexical distinguishing features, we divided the semantic field at great length. Through the contrast of the semantic fields of the visual verbs in Chinese and English, we clearly understand this kind of words on the whole. The semantic fields of the visual verbs in Chinese and English have both the universality and the individuality. The universality of the semantic fields of the visual verbs in the two languages is that the internal levels of the semantic field of the visual verbs are roughly same. They are both divided into basic fields and sub-fields. The individuality is that there are some semantic fields of the visual verbs are vacant in English. Relatively speaking, there is no vacant semantic field in Chinese. This is not mean there is no lexical gap in Chinese. The phenomenon of lexical gap exists in the corresponding semantic fields of visual verbs in Chinese and English.We made sememe analysis of the glosseme in the corresponding semantic fields with reference to some dictionaries. It finds that there are universals and particulars in the visual verbs of Chinese and English. The key semantic component determines the semantic field of the word and the minor components differentiate synonyms. Both in Chinese and English, there are two general seme in the semantic field of the visual verbs: [part of the body] (eyes/sight), [semantic core] (perceive). There are thirteen specific seme: [reason], [condition], [manner], [direction], [scope], [sight], [intense], [time], [state], [related object], [purpose], [result], [connotation] and so on. The quantity of the glosseme in corresponding semantic fields is incompletely corresponding. There are three relations among the glosseme of the two languages: corresponding glosseme, incompletely corresponding glosseme, lexical gap. This kind of difference comes from the difference of language system and national culture. After knowing the specific manifestations of the glosseme in corresponding semantic fields, we can use lexical or syntactic method to solve the problems of the incompletely corresponding glosseme as well as lexical gap, which will contribute to language study,translation as well as compilation of bilingual dictionary.Polysemy is a kind of universal linguistic phenomenon. Numbers of visual verbs in Chinese and English have not only one sense. Kan(看) and look, jian(见) and see as visual verbs of the basic category not only have rich and varied senses, but also have lexeme correspondence in high degree respectively. So we made a contrast among the four verbs. It finds that there are universality and individuality in the course of semantic extension. The universality is that visual verbs in Chinese and English both have the phenomena of semantic extension from visual category to mental category and other perceptive category. The discrepancy is that the meanings of kan(看) are richer than look, the meanings of see are richer than jian(见). This difference comes from the thinking and culture of Chinese and British. The semantic extension of these verbs from visual domain to cognitive domain can be explained by the cognitive devices of metonymy and metaphor. Metonymy and metaphor closely interconnected. Semantic extension is the result of coaction of metonymy and metaphor. Others'study had attached importance to the effect of metaphor in the semantic extension of visual verbs, but neglected the effect of metonymy. We find that metonymy plays a substratal role. This is why there is so much conventional metaphor in language.