A Contrastive Study Of Macro-Event Properties Of English And Chinese Motion Event Expressions By High School Students

Talmy（1991）put forward the concept of macro-event,and believed that macro-event is two simple events maintained by a certain relationship,which can be represented as a single sentence in syntax.Bohnemeyer（2007）further proposed the macro-event property to evaluate the event recognition expressed in the construct,especially the“tightness”of the dependent events contained in the construct.The research on the properties of macro-events at home and abroad mainly uses narrative texts or motion pictures to study the macro-event properties of monolingual motion events,while the research on the macro-event properties of English-Chinese bilingual motion events by video is relatively rare.In this study,it chose the cartoon“Boonie Bear”as the experimental material.Also,30 sophomore students from a school in K and 30 high school students from a school in the United States were selected as the experimental materials to investigate the macro-event properties of motion events,and to answer three questions:（1）What are the properties of macro-event properties of English and Chinese motion event expressions?（2）Are there significant differences in macro-event properties between English and Chinese motion event expressions?（3）What are the reasons for the different macro-event properties of English and Chinese motion event expressions?It is found that the macro-event properties of English-Chinese motion event expressions differ in two aspects.One is the difference in combination structure.English motion event expressions mainly includes three forms,such as DE+PE,PE+AE and DE+AE;Chinese has many kinds of sub-event structures,mainly including six forms,such as DE+PE,DE+AE,DE+PE+AE,AE+DE+PE,AE+DE and AE+PE.Second,the internal structure of sub-events is also different in expression.The main structures of DE in English motion events are PP+NPand V_P+PP+NP,while in Chinese motion events,the main structures are PP+NP+V_Mand PP+V_P+NP.The structures of AE in English motion events are PP+NPand V_M+PP+NP,while the structures in Chinese motion events are VP+V_P+NPand V_M+VP+V_P+NP.Although there are the above differences,the internal structure of the macro-event properties sub-events of the English and Chinese motion event expressions are also the same:in the sub-events that represent“passing”,they are both structured as PP+NP.The reason for these similarities and differences is related to the different lexicalization patterns of English and Chinese motion events.According to lexicalization pattern of Talmy（1991）,English is a typical satellite-framed language,while Chinese is a more typical verb-framed language,combining some features of both satellite-framed and verb-framed languages,but differing from the typical satellite-framed and typical verb-framed languages,hence the above dissimilarities.This explanation is in line with the thinking-for-speaking hypothesis proposed by Slobin（1991）,which states that the specific lexicalization patterns of a given language largely determine the way in which native speakers pay attention to certain specific aspects of experience and narrate them in that language-specific manner,thus finding syntactic structural motivations for the cognitive differences in event tangency.This study has some implications for foreign language teaching.In the process of teaching English,teachers should consciously guide students to observe the similarities and differences between English and Chinese expressions,and to summarize the differences and similarities in the macro-level lexicalization patterns of two languages,as well as to analyze the micro-level differences in the combination and internal structure of utterances and even chapters of the two languages,which will help students to learn authentic English expressions.