A Contrastive Study Of The Xing (Action) Preference In The English Classical Novel Le Morte D’arthur And The Xing (form) Orientation In The Chinese Classical Novel Shuihu Zhuan

Two controversial views are always there in the Chinese academic circle: One is that somescholars think Chinese is a verb-determined language and propose the verb superiority theory;another is that a group of researchers maintain that Chinese is a noun-oriented language whileEnglish is verb-prominent. This thesis is in support of the latter and further explains the view asfollows: Chinese is a noun-oriented language characterized by chunkiness and discreteness in itsconstruction representing its spatiality, while English is a verb-prominent language featured bycontinuity and connection in its construction demonstrating its temporal preference.Humboldt (1999) believes that each nation has its own unique view about the world. Andthe thoughts of each nation are naturally shaped into a form which can be reused and displayedin the manifestation of a language. In other words, a language can well illustrate the personalityof a nation.On the basis of Hong Lou Meng, Vanity Fair and their versions, this thesis attempts tofigure out the primary cause of the differences between Chinese and English in the aspect oftheir thinking styles. That is in accordance with Wang Wenbin’s (2012) view: The distinctionsoriginate from the temporal thinking style of the English native and the spatial thinkingorientation of the Chinese people.The chunkiness of Chinese allows omitting and transformation of subjects within asentence while English always demands uniformity of the subject in a sentence because of itscontinuity. Besides, Chinese writers do not always employ conjunctive words to expresscomplete meanings while conjunctive words are necessary in English to make sure that readerscan be clear about the logical relation of elements in a sentence.By analyzing the character description demonstrated in Hong Lou Meng, Vanity Fair andtheir versions, the author tries to prove the assumption that Chinese is spatial in nature andEnglish fundamentally is temporal. And these two features originate from the spatial thinking orientation of Chinese people and the temporal thinking style of the English native. All theseobservations can theoretically and practically contribute to linguistic researches, the contrastivestudy of English and Chinese, English teaching and learning as well as the translation betweenEnglish and Chinese.