A Contrastive Analysis Of English And Chinese Emotional Metaphorical Motion Events

Metaphorical Motion is of great importance in formulating our everyday conception or basic experiences about abstract concepts.This thesis conducts a contrastive analysis on English and Chinese Emotional Metaphorical Motion Events(EMMEs)selected from the texts of the online corpus in Sketch Engine and the texts obtained by an offline experiment,mainly related to "happiness,expectation,anger,disappointment,fear,suspicion and surprise".The research focuses on the similarities and differences in terms of the features,mappings and submappings between English and Chinese EMMEs.In the research,the data are processed according to semantic components.The semantic components are classified into different sub-parameters.Motion is classified into caused Motion and spontaneous Motion;Path is analyzed in terms of direction Path,bounded Path and route Path;Ground is divided into initial Ground,medial Ground and final Ground;Cause is analyzed from emotion and non-emotion,which means the Cause of the event is the emotion itself or non-emotion factors;and Manner is classified from three perspectives:speed(+high;-low),intensity(+high;-low)and persistence(+long;-short).The analysis indicates that the differences mainly lie in the description of Manner,especially in Manner of intensity.To be specific:1)As for MMEs of Happiness,English is more likely to express direction Path,Manner of long persistence and high speed,moreover,direction Path takes up 50.00%of Path expression,Manner of long persistence accounts for 52.00%of expression in Manner of persistence,and Manner of high speed occupies 52.94%of expression in Manner of speed.While Chinese tends to express bounded Path and Manner of short persistence and low speed,and the percentage of bounded Path is 63.64%of Path expression,Manner of short persistence takes up 53.97%of expression in Manner of persistence and Manner of low speed accounts for 51.79%of expression in Manner of speed.2)In terms of Expectation,English MMEs show preference for emotional Cause which occupies 61.29%of Cause expression,but Chinese prefers to contain non-emotion Cause,which takes up 64.71%of Cause expression.3)With regard to Anger,bounded Path,emotional Cause,and initial Ground are more often encoded in English MMEs,and bounded Path occupies 59.38%of Path expression,emotional Cause accounts for 52.94%of Cause expression,and initial Ground takes up 50.00%of Ground expression.While Chinese ones incline to display direction Path,non-emotion Cause and final Ground,and direction Path occupies 53.70%of Path expression,the percentage of non-emotion Cause is 53.13%of Cause expression and final Ground takes up 50.00%of Ground expression.4)The MMEs of Disappointment present most notable divergence in two languages,English shows tendency in caused Motion,direction Path,Manner of low intensity,initial Ground and medial Ground,and caused Motion accounts for 51.52%of Motion expression,direction Path occupies 41.27%of Path expression,Manner of low intensity takes up 57.41%of Manner of intensity expression,and both initial Ground and medial Ground occupy 37.29%of Ground expression.While Chinese ones prefer to express spontaneous Motion,bounded Path,Manner of low intensity and final Ground,and spontaneous Motion takes up 87.30%,bounded Path occupies 50.77%,Manner of high intensity accounts for 51.67%and final Ground takes up 37.26%.5)As for Fear,English MMEs are likely to contain caused Motion and Manner of low intensity and Manner of low speed,and caused Motion occupies 60.66%of Motion expression,Manner of low intensity takes up 56.00%,and Manner of low speed accounts for 61.22%,but spontaneous Motion and Manner of high intensity tend to be encoded in Chinese,moreover,spontaneous Motion occupies 67.74%,Manner of high intensity takes up 57.41%and Manner of high speed occupies 65.79%.6)We also find English MMEs of Suspicion prefer to express spontaneous Motion,bounded Path and Manner of short persistence,and spontaneous Motion accounts for 77.59%of Motion expression,bounded Path takes up 48.84%of Path expression and Manner of long persistence occupies 76.92%of Manner of persistence expression.While Chinese tends to contain caused Motion,direction Path and Manner of long persistence,and caused Motion accounts for 52.46%,direction Path takes up 46.00%and Manner of short persistence occupies 54.05%.7)When it comes to Surprise,the divergent preference lies in Motion and Manner,and English is more likely to express caused Motion,which accounts for 69.49%of Motion expression and Manner of high intensity occupies 60.00%of Manner of intensity expression,but Chinese shows tendency in spontaneous Motion,which takes up 68.85%of Motion expression and Manner of low intensity occupies 54.35%of Manner of intensity expression.Research also shows that the mappings and most submappings of English and Chinese EMMEs act in very similar ways.As for the mappings,we find both"states-locations" and "states-moving entities" are contained in English and Chinese EMMEs.While the submappings of "states-locations" and "changes-movements"present significant differences.As for the former,only 15 cases are found in English,but 62 cases are contained in Chinese EMMEs,and as for the latter,English EMMEs have no big differences between caused Motion and spontaneous Motion,but Chinese prefers spontaneous Motion,which accounts for 67.51%of Motion expression.The inner mechanism is discussed according to the Conceptual Blending Theory,and we find that creative structure in blended mental spaces of various people may lead to similar or different cognition.Factor of similarities is explained by the schema of Force Dynamics.Based on the similar physiological experiences,the interaction between agonist and antagonist is contained in both English and Chinese EMMEs.Besides,as the idioms obtained in our corpora can reflect the culture of a language,we employ idioms to explain the variance.