北京第二外国语学院学报 ›› 2016, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (2): 1-14.DOI: 10.12002/j.bisu.2016.019

• 语言学研究 •    下一篇

英汉语篇中拓扑关系表达及其理据探析

刘礼进 邓伟平   

  1. 刘礼进,广东外语外贸大学邓伟平,广东外语外贸大学
  • 收稿日期:2015-12-31 出版日期:2016-04-15 发布日期:2018-03-20
  • 作者简介:刘礼进,广东外语外贸大学教授,510420,研究方向:语篇分析、认知语言学、对比语言学。电子邮箱:liulj@gdufs.edu.cn 邓伟平,广东外语外贸大学英文学院硕士生,510420,研究方向:语篇分析、语用学。
  • 基金资助:
    本文为教育部人文社会科学研究规划基金项目“汉英空间语言比较研究”(项目编号:13YJA740033)的研究成果之一。

Exploring the Topological Encodings in Chinese and English Narratives and Their Motivations

LIU Lijin / DENG Weiping   

  1. Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou 510420, China
  • Received:2015-12-31 Online:2016-04-15 Published:2018-03-20

摘要: 本文对比考察英汉叙事语篇中的拓扑关系表达及其认知理据。根据收集的语料,梳理出接近、接触、内含3种拓扑关系,并作了详细分析,发现英汉拓扑关系表达有共性也有差异。共性有二:一是英汉语都使用封闭类介词成分表达拓扑关系,描述目标体位置;二是英汉语料中都包含“目标体—参照物”/“参照物—目标体”两种语序结构。这样的共性被证实是表面而抽象的,可归因于人类空间认知的普遍性。差异性及其理据体现在三方面:其一,英语仅用介词而汉语主要用后置方位词确立目标体位置,究其原因,英语介词本身能完整表达方位义,但汉语介词“在”不能,因此须用方位词表达方位义。其二,句子层拓扑表达,英语中目标体大都先于参照物,而汉语中参照物几乎总是先于目标体,这一差异是由英汉说话者为凸显句子中特定物体所做的认知参照点分析不同造成的。其三,短语层拓扑表达,英语中目标体一律前置于参照物,汉语中参照物一律前置于目标体,这样的对立性被论证是因英汉说话者进行的短语结构参照点分析不同造成的。

关键词: 英汉对比; 拓扑关系; 表达; 认知理据

Abstract: This article contrastively explores the encodings of topological relations in English and Chinese narratives, and their cognitive motivations. With the collected data, we have sorted out three types of topological relation - proximity, contact, and inclusion - and carried out a detailed data analysis. It is found that there are similarities and differences in English and Chinese topological descriptions. The similarities appear in two aspects. Above all, in both Chinese and English, closed-class adpositions are used to express the topological relations and localize the Figure, and then, both sets of data contain “Figure preceding Ground” and “Ground preceding Figure” constructions. As argued, such similarities are generally extracted on an abstract level, and can be attributed to universal human cognition in space. The differences and their motivators emerge in three aspects. First, English prepositions are used, but Chinese postpositions are required, to localize the Figure. This is largely because English prepositions per se can signal locative meaning but the Chinese preposition “zai (在)” cannot, such that the postpositions are required to couch locative meaning. Second, on the sentence level, the Figure mostly precedes the Ground in English, whereas in Chinese the Ground nearly always precedes the Figure. This difference results from their respective speakers’ different doing reference-point analysis for profiling the entities. Third, on phrase level, the Figure always precedes the Ground in English, but the Ground always precedes the Figure in Chinese. It is shown that such a contrast is due to their speakers’ differently doing reference point analysis at the phrasal level.

Keywords: contrastive analysis; topological relation; description; cognitive motivation

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