Research On English And Chinese Public Emergency News Narratives From The Perspective Of Mental Space

Mental space is a “temporary container” for the speakers to process relevant information in communication.It is often used in the cognitive research of language.The traditional mental space model was created by Fauconnier in his blending theory,which combined input space,blending space,and genetic space.However,this model is not fully applicable to the analysis of public emergency news narratives.On that account,this paper explores the mental space construction(Henceforth MSC)in English and Chinese public emergency news narratives based on Kobie Van Krieken’s mental space model.And makes a narrative analysis of English and Chinese public emergency narrative news.The theme of such narrative news includes natural disasters,accident disasters,public health emergencies,and social security incidents.The research found that the perception verbs,modal verbs,and verbs that express ideas and conditions can achieve the construction and mapping of mental space in English and Chinese public emergency news narratives.Meanwhile,the English and Chinese public emergency news narratives often use quotations from different perspectives to enhance the vividness and objectivity of the news.Besides,there are some differences in the mental space mapping process between English and Chinese public emergency news narratives,but their differences are weak and do not affect readers’ cognition of news events,so this research mainly analysis the consistency of such news narratives in mental space construction.This research analyzes mental space construction and mapping features of English and Chinese public emergency news narratives based on Kobie Van Krieken’s mental space model of news narratives,which provides new thinking for the mental space construction in narrative news.And helps people to understand the relationship between language expression and cognition deeply.This research can be applied to the news writing and reporting of public emergencies in English and Chinese,and can also promote the mutual references between English and Chinese news report about a public emergency.