A Cognitive-topological Research On Coextension Path Fictive Motion Constructions In English And Chinese

Fictive motion is a pervasive phenomenon in language that describes the position or form of static objects in physical space through motion in mental space.It not only reflects the subjectivity of human language,but also mirrors how humans perceive and describe the external static objective world dynamically from their perspective.According to Goldberg’s construction grammar theory,fictive motion is considered as a construction which is a form-meaning pair expressing the spatial orientation relation of an entity.This thesis selects coextension path fictive motion as the research object based on Talmy’s classification.Coextension path fictive motion construction has high research value because of its asymmetry in collocation.Previous studies mainly focus on the semantic and syntactic characteristics of the internal elements of fictive motion,the similarities and differences of the cross-language comparison,and the psychological reality.From the perspective of cognitive topology,the thesis attempts to explore the cognitive representations of spatial categories in Coextension path fictive motion constructions and the cognitive mechanisms behind them.The cognitive topological view is a new attempt in cognitive linguistics.Topological cognition is the most basic cognitive ability of human beings.The study mainly answers the following three questions:（1）What are the similarities and differences in the spatial category representations of English and Chinese coextension path fictive motion constructions?（2）What are the cognitive means of spatial category of English and Chinese coextension path fictive motion constructions?（3）What are the cognitive mechanisms behind English and Chinese coextension path fictive motion constructions?To answer the above questions,the thesis adopts qualitative analysis,comparative analysis,and linguistic introspection to collate and analyze the collected linguistic data based on the theory of cognitive topology.Firstly,the structural characteristics and restricted conditions of coextension path fictive motion constructions are analyzed.Secondly,based on the collected corpus,the thesis analyzes the representation of spatial categories of coextension path fictive motion constructions in English and Chinese.Thirdly,this study discusses the cognitive means in spatial category of English and Chinese coextension path fictive motion constructions.Finally,the cognitive mechanisms of English and Chinese coextension path fictive motion constructions are discussed from the perspective of cognitive topology.Through the above research,the thesis mainly draws the following three conclusions:（1）The spatial category representation means of English and Chinese coextension path fictive motion constructions have similarities and differences.Firstly,both English and Chinese coextension path fictive motion constructions use prepositions to represent spatial shape.Prepositions in English have a relatively specific division of labor,while prepositions in Chinese do not.And Chinese coextension path fictive motion constructions also use localizers to express the spatial shape.In addition,some path verbs in English can also represent spatial shapes.Secondly,in the spatial orientation expressions,English coextension path fictive motion constructions mainly consist of motion verbs and prepositions.However,in the Chinese coextension path fictive motion constructions,in addition to prepositions,many directional words and localizers are also used to express spatial orientation.（2）Spatial schema can explain the cognition of spatial category.There are three basic spatial schemas in fictive motion constructions:“covering” schema,“link” schema,and “crossing and inserting” schema.These three schemata are the cognitive means of spatial category.（3）The reason for the asymmetry of collocation in coextension path fictive motion constructions is that the generation of language needs the processing of the cognitive subject in cognitive space.From the perspective of cognitive topology,there are three cognitive mechanisms behind coextension path fictive motion: metonymy,metaphor,and conceptual blending.These three cognitive mechanisms are interrelated.Metonymy and metaphor are both based on topological equivalence.Conceptual blending topological network is a cognitive mode based on metonymy and metaphor.The study explains the common phenomena in language from the perspective of cognitive topology,which provides a new research dimension for the study of fictive motion constructions.In addition,the analysis of the differences and commonness of the coextension path fictive motion constructions in English and Chinese has the reference significance for their translation and teaching.