| The relationship between meaning and form has been an important subject in the linguistic field.Broadly speaking,the process of conversion from meaning to form is called lexicalization.In other words,lexicalization is the internal matching relationship between meaning and form.One semantic element can be expressed by several words,and several semantic elements can also be represented by one word.Research on lexicalization has been carried out at different levels by linguists — from lexical,syntactic to textual and the thesis is a study from the perspective of words.Motion,as one of the most basic experiences and cognitive categories,is an indispensible subject in the cognitive linguistics.So it is of great significance to do research on motion verbs.The typological theory of motion verbs proposed by Leonard Talmy,a famous American cognitive linguist,offers us a new perspective to do research on the relationship between meaning and form.He classifies the lexicalization patterns of motion verbs into three types: [Motion + Manner/Cause],[Motion + Path],and [Motion + Figure].This leads to a series of research on motion events and lexicalization patterns of motion verbs by numerous linguists.However,their research seldom touches upon Chinese motion verbs and lacks systematization.Based on Talmy's typological theory,this thesis probes into the lexicalization patterns of Chinese motion verbs and intends to find out the similarities and differences between English and Chinese in this respect,which is believed to be able to improve the accuracy of language use.The thesis selects six contemporary novels(three English and three Chinese)and two dictionaries(one English and the other Chinese)as the sources of research data,and then makes a statistic analysis of the selected examples,combining the quantitative and qualitative research method.By the quantitative study,we identify the Chinese lexicalization patterns of motion verbs;by the qualitative study,we find out the similarities and differences between English and Chinese and the underlying causes.The thesis consists of three parts.The first part is an introduction to the whole thesis,involving the research background,significance and objectives.The second part is the main body of the paper,made up of three chapters.The first chapter is literature review,introducing the relevant studies at home and abroad.The second chapter is theoretical background,presenting the componential theory and different descriptions of motion events.And in this chapter Talmy's typological theory is elaborated in great detail.The third chapter compares the similarities and differences in lexicalization patterns of English and Chinese motion verbs,and accounts for their causes.The third part is a summarization of the whole thesis,including the major findings,implications,limitations and prospects of the research.The study finds that Chinese motion verbs not only belong to the type of [Motion + Manner/Cause] but also to [Motion + path].And there are similarities and differences between English and Chinese motion verbs.The similarities lie in the similar domains in both languages,and manner verbs are preferred in both languages.The differences are that the kinds of English manner verbs are more than that of Chinese,and English has many onomatopoetic verbs to express motion,whereas Chinese uses adverbial phrases.What's more,English path verbs are not colloquially used,while Chinese are.And English path verbs can only be used as main verbs in motion event descriptions,while in Chinese they can not only be used independently as main verbs,but also be employed as sub-main verbs to the manner verb.The study deepens Talmy's research of linguistic typology. |
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