On English Compounds And Chinese Compounds Construction From Perspective Of Cognitive Prominence

The springing up and developing of Cognitive Linguistics deepens people’s cognition oflanguage essence and language meaning. As one of the construe parameters, CognitiveProminence provides an operable instrument for language description and explanation.“Prominence” refers to perception of the most profiled point or side of objects. Differentperspective points of observers and the parts selected in cognitive scope result in differentprominent targets. Therefore, perspective and scope are important parameters reflectingcognitive prominence. Langacker (1987:118;1991:5) distinguished cognitive prominencewith two terms: Profile-Base and Trajector-Landmark. In cognitive linguistics,Figure-Ground describes general characteristics of perception, which embodies mainoperating mechanisms in prominence. The “Ground” is deemed as a background, whichprovides a reference for prominent parts and describes the place, path or direction of figure.Composition is one of the main word-formation means in modern English and modernChinese (Wen&Chen,2005). The composition of English compounds and Chinesecompounds seems simple, only a combination of free morphemes, whereas in fact has acomplicated construction process (Lin&Yang,2007). The cognitive construction of Englishcompounds and Chinese compounds has similarities as well as differences. In order to testifythe explanation of cognitive prominence to construction of English compounds and Chinesecompounds, and research the essence and characteristics of the two languages, thisdissertation collected, classified the EC and CC. In addition, contrasting and analyzing thecognitive construction, we try to answer the three research questions:1) What are the waysthat the EC and CC constructed from perspective of cognitive prominence?2) What are thedifferences of cognitive prominence between EC and CC construction?3) What are thecauses for the differences of cognitive prominence in the EC and CC construction?Firstly, this research finds out: From perspective of cognitive prominence, theconstruction ways of EC and CC are:1) deleting unnecessary information2) precedingprominent element3) profiling certain scope.Secondly, prominence differences of EC and CC construction are:1) The differentdirection of perspective. For instance, the direction of perspective of “southeast” is viewedfrom south to east in EC; whereas in construction of CC “东南” profiles converse perspectivedirection.2) Different scopes are prominent. For instance, in “walking tractor” a processscope is prominent, corresponding CC expression “手扶拖拉机” profiles a force scope (手扶). Certain elements in EC profiles scopes like process scope, body space scope, movementscope or function scope, the corresponding CC express scope as status scope, size scope orfunction scope.3) The differences of “figure” prominence. Different focal points result in prominence of different “figure”. For instance: the “figure” profiled in “mobile phone” is“mobile”, and in CC the figure is “hand” in “手机”.Thirdly, causes for different EC and CC construction are:1) construal. Cognitive waystowards the same environment people have can be different, which results in differentprominent expressions in EC and CC.2) participants are different. The basic principle ofcognitive linguistics is “Reality—Cognition—Language”, from reality to language, theconceptualization process can not be without participation of human being, with differentparticipants in two different languages English and Chinese, comprehensions formed andcognitions are different.3) embodiment and experience. The expression of language andusage lies in people’s perception and conceptualization to the world (Ungerer&Schmid,1996). As experience and embodiment are different, so to the cognition to the reality, whichexplains the differences of EC and CC construction.This dissertation is a study of English compounds and Chinese compounds constructionfrom perspective of cognitive prominence. Owing to the time and capability of the author,data in the research are not abundant, so the explanation to EC and CC prominencedifferences still need testifying by later empirical study.