A Contrastive Study On Deictic Expressions Among English, Chinese And Korean

There are all three deictic meanings in English, Chinese and Korean languages, i.e."proximal to speaker","distal to speaker and listener","distal to speaker, proximal to listener". In Korean, the three meanings can mainly be expressed by tripartite demonstrative system "(?)". However, in English and Chinese, the same meanings are expressed by binary demonstrative systems. Taking"this/that"、"这/那"、"(?)" as an example, this thesis made a contrastive study on the deictic expressions in English, Chinese and Korean.Through making a contrastive analysis on the expressions of the meaning of "proximal to speaker","distal to speaker and listener","distal to speaker, proximal to listener" from structural and semantic point of view, the author studied how the three kinds of deictic meanings are expressed through two types of demonstratives in English and Chinese, and finds out the structural and semantic similarities and differences among the three, then finds out the correspondences of3deictic meaning in Korean and English, Korean and Chinese.This thesis mainly contains three parts:"proximal to speaker","distal to speaker and listener","distal to speaker, proximal to listener", each making a contrastive analysis in structural and semantic dimension.On structure level, firstly, a summarization is made on the deictic expressions of the three meanings, and demonstratives are divided into two types:demonstrative pronouns and demonstrative determiners. Then the author makes a contrastive analysis on structure level and finds out the similarities and differences among the expressions in three languages. On semantic level, the similarities and differences on the relations between the demonstratives and the relevant in three languages are pointed out through comparison. Finally, the author analyzes the structural and semantic features of Korean demonstrative"(?)"with the meaning of "distal to speaker, proximal to listener", and finds out the the correspondences of3deictic meaning in Korean and English, Korean and Chinese.Through the contrastive analysis, we can see that all the three meanings of "proximal to speaker","distal to speaker and listener","distal to speaker, proximal to listener" can be expressed in languages, but with different way in different languages. Although in English and Chinese there are demonstratives for "proximal to speaker""distal to speaker and listener" only, the meaning of "distal to speaker, proximal to listener" can be expressed by the other two demonstratives, each combined with other components. However. Korean has its special demonstrative for this meaning.