A Data-Based Comparative Study Of Progressive Aspect Between English And Chinese

Being one of the research hotspots and difficulties,aspect category is an important research field of general linguistics.As to the research achievements made in academic circle,there are three types of understandings of aspect,that is,grammatical aspect or viewpoint aspect,lexical aspect or situation aspect,and a combination of both.The research methods and classifications of aspect vary among scholars,but it is generally accepted that progressive aspect is a vital subcategory of aspect.Progressive aspect is a common semantic category both in English and Chinese,which is characterized by the internal observation of a particular situation,namely,observers focus on the internal process of the temporal structure,regardless of the beginning or end of the situation involved.Scholars at home and abroad have been studying progressive aspect for a long time and have achieved great results.Most of them have discussed English and Chinese progressive aspectual markers and the semantic features of English progressive aspect,while paying little attention to the comparative analysis of progressive aspect between English and Chinese,especially in translation practice.Based on the previous studies,this paper attempts to explore the similarities and differences of progressive aspect between English and Chinese via collecting and analyzing data.And thereby the following three questions are proposed.1.What are the general semantic features of progressive aspect in English and Chinese?2.What is the relation between situation types and progressive aspect in English and Chinese?3.How does the progressive aspect of one language transform into another in E-C and C-E translations?Choosing the Chinese novel Fortress Besieged and its English translation,as well as the English novel Wuthering Heights and its Chinese translation as research subjects,this thesis accordingly collects all the clauses which contain progressive aspect,to conduct an exhaustive study within a certain range.Through data collection and discussion,major conclusions are drawn as follows:Firstly,in terms of the semantics of progressive in English and Chinese,both of them share approximately the same features,namely,dynamism,duration and incompleteness.Secondly,whether in English or Chinese,there are significant differences in the combination of four situation types and progressive.And the combination of the four situation types and progressive aspect is arranged in the order from strong to weak:activities>accomplishments>achievements>states.In other words,there is a strong binding force between activities and progressive,while states basically do not use progressive aspect.Thirdly,from the data collected and multiple examples,several results are concluded as to the transformation of progressive aspect in E-C and C-E translations.a.As to type 1(English/Chinese progressive aspect and its corresponding Chinese/English translations),both English and Chinese progressive express similar meaning.Compared with Chinese progressive,English progressive is more frequently used.And the reasons mainly lie in the pragmatic functions of English progressive,which is not applicable to Chinese.In specific,those functions include:a)English progressive can express an action at the initial stage;b)English progressive can represent purposes.b.In terms of type 2(English/Chinese non-progressive aspect and its Chinese/English progressive aspect),there are 217 and 560 tokens respectively.The former can be well explained by the following two reasons:a)in E-C translation,Chinese progressive aspect "zhe" with broad meaning,is vastly used;b)English time adverbial clauses guided by while/when/as,based on their basic meanings,are naturally translated into Chinese progressive.As to the latter,it has a total number of 560 and can also be clarified concerning the pragmatics of English progressive:a)English progressive can convey emotions and attitudes;b)English progressive can convey certain wishes.Another point is when adverbials of time like xianzai/zheshihou/nashihou are used in Chinese sentences,progressive aspect will be naturally used in English translations.c.As for type 3(English progressive forms expressing the future meaning),it is unique to English and is often limited to motion verbs such as go,leave and come,and in collocation with adverbials of time like tomorrow/next year and so on.While Chinese progressive forms cannot represent a future event.