Motion-Event Frame And Its Application To Traslation

This work adopts Fillmore's frame semantics and Talmy's motion-event frame.Talmy's motion-event frame componential analysis provides a cross-linguistic schema in which motion is analyzed into a set of semantic components,and languages are compared and grouped according to how they package these into linguistic forms.The frame is a unit of analysis applicable in all languages.After an intensive comparison and study of the similarities and the differences between English and Chinese motion event-frames(the expressions of MANNER,MOTION and PATH),a conclusion can be achieved:the manner expressions of English and Chinese are the same,but when it comes to some specific verbs,there are great differences.There are many verbs encoded manner in Chinese,but,compared with English,the verbs encoded manner are much less than those in English and some can't find its counterparts in English.When it comes to PATH,in English,we often use particles of direction "up,down,off,to,along,across,out" to express PATH,which have the aspect of stability.In Chinese,we often use the directional verbs "进,出,上,下,回,过,起" to express PATH,which have the aspect of dynamics.With a view of the limitation of traditional translation theory,the illusion of equivalence and the untranslatability of languages,it is a trend to combine translation with cognitive linguistics.In this paper,after an intensive study about the motion-event frame and translation theories and problems,I summarize some of the rules for translation of English and Chinese verbs.They are:(A)V[motion]+ P[Path]→V[motion,Path].(B)V[motion,manner]+ P[Path]→V[motion,manner]+V[Path](C)V[motion,manner]+P[goal]→V[motion,manner]+V[goal](D)V[cause]→V[cause]+Vi[-causative](E)V[motion,manner]→AP[manner]+V[motion]From the rules listed above,we must pay attention to the following aspects in the process of translating:when translating English into Chinese,we should lay emphasis on the Chinese idiomatic expressions of motion-event frame to show the Chinese style of narratives;when translating Chinese into English,we should lay emphasis on the English idiomatic expressions of motion-event frame to show the English style of narratives.We should change our mind to form a translation theory to guide motion-event,explaining and solving all kinds of translation phenomena actively.We should turn passivism to activism and use theory to guide our translation practice.There are four chapters in this thesis.Chapter 1 points out the feasibility of application of motion-event frame to translation by mentioning problems in the course of translating and the recent trend of translation study.Chapter 2 introduces theoretical preliminaries of Fillmore's frame semantics and Talmy's motion-event frame,including expressions of MANNER,MOTION and PATH.Chapter 3 compares the similarities and the differences between English and Chinese motion event-frames,which cause many problems in the course of translating. Chapter 4 puts forward with a solution to the problems in translation in the field of motion-event frame.