英漢人體部位習語的對比研究

1、湖南師范大學(xué)碩士學(xué)位論文英漢人體部位習語的對比研究 姓名:劉利紅申請學(xué)位級別:碩士 專業(yè):英語語言文學(xué) 指導(dǎo)教師:石毓智 20080401摘要習語”是每一個語言學(xué)習者都非常熟悉的術(shù)語,但對它的定義或內(nèi)涵我們不 一定很清楚。因為每個專家和不同的字典對它的定義不完全一致。有些字典里不 包括警句和諺語,僅僅指成語。例如牛津高階英漢雙解詞典定義習語為“成語一。 有些則相反。此外,他們對習語的定義側(cè)重點各異。有的強調(diào)結(jié)構(gòu),有的強調(diào)語 義,有的強調(diào)功能。本文中的習語是指由兩個以上的單詞或四個字符(漢語成語 所組成的固定短語,其語義具有隱含性,不是構(gòu)成詞各意義的簡單相加。本文主 要研究英漢有關(guān)身體部位習語。

2、這里的英語習語僅僅指固定短語,不包括諺語和 警句。而漢語習語指的是固定的四字格結(jié)構(gòu)。習語是人類語言文化的結(jié)晶,正確地使用習語會給我們的話語及交際增添無 窮的色彩。然而,習語語義的隱含性、深刻性和固定性,給人們的理解和運用帶 來了困難。這種困難常常導(dǎo)致跨文化交際中的語用失誤乃至交際失敗。因此,對 于習語的研究引起了國內(nèi)外學(xué)者的廣泛關(guān)注,如Fernando,Kovecses、陳文伯 、楊自儉等。迄今,國內(nèi)外的語言學(xué)家己經(jīng)對習語做了大量的研究,取得了卓越 的成果。西方語言學(xué)家主要研究成語的不可分性(語義角度、生成性(句法角度、 使用條件(語用角度以及理解過程(心理語言學(xué)角度。我國語言學(xué)家卻注重研究

3、習語的特征、分類、來源、形成、應(yīng)用及其修辭作用。毫無疑問,所有這些研究 都為理解和運用習語提供了很大的幫助。我們認為要從根本上解決在跨文化交際中因習語的誤解與誤用所造成的語 用失誤問題,交際者必須深刻了解兩種語言中對應(yīng)習語的異同及其原因。因此從 認知的角度對兩種語言的習語作對比研究是有用的也是十分重要的。雖然也有語 言學(xué)家對習語做過認知研究,但還沒有形成理論體系。尤其是從認知語言學(xué)的角 度對英漢習語進行對比研究的很少,而這種研究對于英漢習語的掌握、運用又是 至關(guān)重要的。鑒于英漢習語的涉及面甚廣,本文只針對英漢語言中有關(guān)人體部位 習語進行對比研究。本研究運用隱喻,轉(zhuǎn)喻,概念整合等認知語言學(xué)的相關(guān)

4、理論分析研究英漢 人體部位習語的異同及其原因,在一定程度上揭示了這種習語的認知機制。我們認為英漢人體部位習語有著相同的認知機制一一隱喻和轉(zhuǎn)喻,這是由于人類的思 維方式具有基于其身體體驗的普遍性。然而,英漢身體部位習語也表現(xiàn)出一定的 差異。在探討引起這種差異的原因時,我們以“商務(wù)出版社"的“成語大辭典" 和“福建人民出版社一的“綜合英語成語詞典的語料為基礎(chǔ),對有關(guān)“心一、 “頭一,“手",“眼的習語做了統(tǒng)計調(diào)查,在.494個中文習語中,有226個習語使用雙源域,而英語一般使用單源域。如“鐵石心腸",中文同時使用“鐵" 和“石一兩個域來形容人的心腸

5、極硬,不為感情所動。而“鐵石心腸"相應(yīng)的 英文是“with a heart of stone",在英文中僅僅使用“stone一這個域,而沒 有同時使用“stone一和“iron一兩個域來形容人的心腸極硬。我們試圖運用 Fauconnier的概念整合理論解釋這一現(xiàn)象。概念整合理論又稱合成理論或合成 空間理論。Fauconnier認為,合成過程是在兩個輸入心理空間的基礎(chǔ)上進行運 演產(chǎn)生第三個空間,即合成空間。它從兩個輸入空間中提取部分結(jié)構(gòu),并形成層 創(chuàng)結(jié)構(gòu)。除此之外,文化也是一個不可忽視的原因。關(guān)鍵詞:身體部位習語:隱喻;轉(zhuǎn)喻;概念整合;文化Abstract"Idio

6、mis the linguistic term familiar to every language learner,but its definition or connotationis not necessarily very clear to every one,for all the experts and the dictionaries do not define it identically.Some dictionaries do not categorize epigrams and proverbs into idiom.And their idioms only incl

7、ude phrasal idioms excluding sentence-idioms like epigrams while some others do.For example,Oxford Advanced LearnerS English-Chinese Dictionary says:Idiom is'phrase or sentence whose meaning is not clear from the meaning of individual words and which must be learnt as a whole unit.”Besides,they

8、emphasize different aspects of idioms.Some put emphasis On the structure of an idiom while some Oll its semantic meaning and some others may emphasize its function.However,in this thesis,idioms we study mainly refer to fixed phrases consisting of two or more than two words or four characters (Chines

9、e idioms而th implied meaning rather than the assembly of the literal meaning of individual words.This thesis mainly studies both English and Chinese idioms connected、itll human body parts.English idioms here include only fixed phrases without proverbs or epigrams,and the Chinese idioms in this thesis

10、 focus on four-character set phrases.Idioms are fruit oflanguageand culture,correct use of idioms Can add great beauty to Our discourse and communication.Nevertheless,the nature of idioms structural fixedness,profound and implied semantic meaning makes it difficult to understand and apply them corre

11、ctly,which often leads to pragmatic failure or unsuccessful communication.Therefore,the study of idioms has attracted interests of experts botll at home and abroad.Up till now,many linguists at home abroad and such as Fernando,Kovecses,Chen Wenbo,Yang Zijian etc,have made a lot of researches and acc

12、omplished a lot in this field.Western linguists have mainly investigated idiomsnoncompositionatity or unanalysability(semantic perspective, productability or generativeness(syntactic perspective , conditions of iusage(pragmatic perspective'and comprehension process(psycholinguistic perspective.I

13、nternal linguistics focus tlleir research on idiomsfea:tll他s,soRrce classification,formation,application and their rhetorical functions.Undoubtedly,all these have laid good foundation for understanding and application of idioms.We believe that to fundamentally solve the problems of pragmatic failure

14、 in cross-cultural communication caused by misuse or misunderstanding of idioms, communicators must know well the similarities and differences of the two corresponding languages and the causes of the differences.So a contrastive study of idioms in the two languages is helpful and very necessary.Alth

15、ough some cognitive studies on idiomatic phrases have been made,they are not theoretically systematic. WhatS more,few people have made contrastive studies on idioms from the perspective of cognition,whereas,this kind of study is essentially important to the mastery and application of English and Chi

16、neso idioms.In view of the fact that English and Chinese idioms touch upona謝de range of things,this thesis aims at the study ofboth English and Chinese idioms connected、璣l human body parts.T11is thesis has analyzed similarities and differences of English and Chinese bodyparts idioms and their causes

17、 in the light of the theories ofmetaphor,metonymy andconceptual blending,relevant theories of cognitive linguistics,which,to some extent, reveals the cognitive mechanism of these idioms.Through the study'we come to realize that English and Chinese body parts idioms share the same cognitive mecha

18、nism-metaphor and metonymy,which is due to the human way of thinking based on common body expeljence.However,the English Chinese body parts idioms also show some differences.To investigate the causes of such differences,we conduct a survey ofidioms concerning'heart",head,'hand'and&#

19、39;eye',taking as the corpora A Comprehensive Dictionary Of English Idioms and Phrases by Fujian PeopleS Pressand Chengyu Da Cidian(Dictionary of Idiomsby Commercial Press. The survey shows that 226out of 494Chinese idioms have two source domains,yet just only one in English.Taking'Tie Shi X

20、in Chang”as an example,the two sourcedomains'Tie'andShidescribe people who are hardhearted withoutany sympathy for anybody on any occasion,while the corresponding English is'with a heart of iistone",in which only one SOUrCe domain-'stone'is used to express the same meaning.W

21、e attempt to expatiate on this phenomenon with Fauconniers ConceptualBlending Theory.Conceptual Blending theory is also knownas'Blending'or 'Blending Space'.Fauconnier explained that the process of blending is made on the basis of two input spaces to form the third space,namely blend

22、ing space.Blending space extracts partial structures from the two input spaces and then forms emergent structure.In addition,the culture is a rP鉑lson not to be ignored.Key Words:body parts idioms;metaphor,metonymy;conceptual blending;culture湖南師范大學(xué)學(xué)位論文版權(quán)使用授權(quán)書本學(xué)位論文作者完全了解學(xué)校有關(guān)保留、使用學(xué)位論文 的規(guī)定,同意學(xué)校保留并向國家有關(guān)部

23、門或機構(gòu)送交論文的 復(fù)印件和電子版,允許論文被查閱和借閱。本人授權(quán)湖南師 范大學(xué)可以將本學(xué)位論文的全部或部分內(nèi)容編入有關(guān)數(shù)據(jù) 庫進行檢索,可以采用印影、縮印或掃描等復(fù)制手段保存和 匯編學(xué)位論文。本學(xué)位論文屬于1、保密口,在年解密后適用本授權(quán)書。2、不保密口。(請在以上相應(yīng)方框內(nèi)打“/"作者簽名:如別導(dǎo)師簽名:辱獺 日期咖彩年日期:沙諺年歹月P日 否月/日IntroductionIdioms are prevalent in any language,which is true to English and Chinese languages."Idiom'is th

24、e linguistic term familiar to every language learner,but its definition or connotation is not necessarily very clear to every one,for all the experts or the dictionaries do not define it identically.Besides,mey emphasize different aspects of idioms.Howover,in this thesis,idioms we study mainly refer

25、 to丘【ed phrases consisting of two or more than two words or four characters(Chinese idioms with implied meaning rather than the assembly of the literal meaning of individual words.This thesis mainly studies both English and Chinese idioms connected with human boay parts.English idioms here include o

26、nly缸cd phras酷without proverbs or epigrams,and the Chinese idioms in this thesis focus 011four-characte,set phrases. Idioms are fruit of language and culture,reflecting the way people nlilll【and behave.Therefore,the study on idioms has attracted interests of experts b0I at home and abroad.Up till now

27、,many linguists at home and abroad have made a lot of researches from the different perspectives and accomplished a lot in this field. Undoubtedly,all these have laid 900d foundation for understanding and application of idioms。Although 80me cognitive studies on idiomatic phrases have been made,they

28、are not theoretically systematic.Whats more。few people have made studies on idioms from the perspective of cognition,whereas,this kind of study is essentially important to the mastery and application of English and Chinese idioms.On the other hand,the nature of idiomsstructural fixedness,profound an

29、d implied semantic meaning makes it difficult to understand and applythem correctly,which often leads to pragmatic failure or unsuccessfulcommunication.We believe that to fundamentally solve this problems,communicators must know well the similarities and differences of the two corresponding language

30、s and the causes of the differences. So a contrastive study of idioms in the two languages is helpful and very necessary.In view of the fact that English and Chinese idioms touch upon a wide range of things,this thesis aims at the study of both English and Chinese idioms connected with human body pa

31、rts.This contrastive study principally adopts a qualitative method.Taking弱the corpora A Comprehensive Dictionary Of English Idiomsand PhraSes by Fujian People's Pressand Chengyn Da Cidian(Dictionary of Idiomsby Commercial Press, this thesis analyzes similarities and differences of English and Ch

32、inese body parts idioms and tlleir causl瞎in the light of the theories of metaphor,mctonymy and conceptual blending,relevant theories of cognitive linguistics,which,to some extent, reveals the cognitive mechanism of these idioms.Through the contrastive study of English-Chinese body parts idioms,it is

33、 hoped that we can further understand and master English-Chinese body parts idioms and reduce the pragmatic failure and unsccccsful communiation caused by misuse or misunderstanding idioms in cross-culture communicaton.Meanwhile,this study will be certain value to OUr English teaching and translatio

34、n in the future.The thesis consists of foUr chapters besides introduction and conclusion.Chapter One reviews the related literamre on the development of the studies 011 idioms,tracking down the development trend in this field.Current studies on idioms Can be categorized into the following two types:

35、traditional approach to research 0n idioms and cognitive approach to research on idioms.Traditionally,western linguists have mainly studied idioms from semantic,syntactic,pragmatic and psycholinguistic perspective.While internal linguistics focus their research on idiomsfeatures,SOUrPM: classificati

36、on,formation,application and tlleir rhetorical functions.In Chapter Two,we deal、航m some basic theories of cognitive linguistics on conceptual metaphor,conceptual metonymy,and conceptual blending,which provides theoretical basis to shore up the analysis.Conceptual Blending theory is also known as'

37、;Blending'or'Blending Space'.The process of blending is made on the basis of two input spaces to form the third space,namely blending space.Blending space extracts partial structures from thetwo input spaces and then forms emergent structure.Chapter Three mainly discusses the definitions

38、 and characteristics of idioms. 2English idioms here include only丘xed phrases excluding proverbs or epigrams,and the Chinese idioms in this thesis focus on four-character set phrases.As the major parts of this thesis,Chapter Four analyzes similarities and differences of English and Chinese body part

39、s idioms and their causes witll relevant theories of cognitive linguistics一-metaphor,metonymy and conceptual blending and reveals the cognitive mechanism of these idioms to someextent.Through the study, we come to realize that English and Chinese body parts idioms share the same cognitive mechanism-

40、metaphor and metonymy,which is due to the human way of thinking based on common body experience.However,the En。glish Chinese body parts idioms also show some differences.Chinese idioms have two sour(;e domains, yet just only oile in English.We attempt to expatiate On this phenomenon with Fauconnier&

41、#39;s Conceptual Blending Theory.In addition,the culture is a reason not to be ignored for the differences between English and Chinese bedy parts idioms. In the conclusion,we sum llp this thesis and reconfirm the reliability of the cognitive approach to idioms and poillt out the limitationsof this t

42、hesis and offers suggestions for further studies in this field.3Chapter OneT -LiteratUre ReviewCurrent studies on idioms Call be categorized into the following two types: traditional approach to research on idioms and cognitive approach to research on idioms.In each type studies by both f.0rei朗and C

43、hinese linguists are presented.1.1Traditional Approaches to Research on IdiomsUntil now,abundant researches have been conducted in this field bottI at home and abroad and remarkable achievements have been made.Linguists in western countries study idioms from the semantic,syntactic,pragmatic and psyc

44、holinguistic perspectives.While Chinelinguists focus chiefly on their features,classification, sources,formation,application.1.1.1Studies of Idioms in Western CountriesWestern linguists have devoted themselves to studying idioms from different aspects,althou曲compared嘶吐l studies of grammar,metaphor a

45、nd rhetoric,there are still fewer ones onidioms.Studies of idioms by western linguists are mainly based on rules,speech act and meanings ofidioms.Different methods of studies emphasize or give priority to different features of idioms.Semantic linguists focus on the meanings of idioms,syntactic lingu

46、ists focus on the structure of idioms,linguists from pragmatic view the usage of idioms,while psycholinguistsemphasize the comprehensive process of idioms.On the whole,previous studies in western countries Can be chiefly classified into four major perspectives,namely,semantic,syntactic, pragmatic an

47、d psycholinguistic.1.1.1.1Semantic ApproachMakkai(1972studies two properties of idioms,i.e.,non-compositionality and unanalysability from semantic perspective.He rescn/es the term竹idiom¨for units realized by at least two words.These units ale glossed asany polylexonic lexeme made up of more tha

48、n one minimal free form or word¨t僵dakkal 1972:122.一He identified two major types of idioms:those of encoding and those ofdecoding.Idioms of decoding such as the non-literal'red herring",'take the bull by the horns'ctc,are the focus ofMakkaiS attention. ,Makkai classifies idioms

49、 of decoding as lexemic and semcmic,paying moreattention to the structure of the lexemicvariety.He argues that the meaning of anidiom is not predictable from its component parts,which ale empty of their usual senses.Disinformation potential adopted by Makkai refers to the potential ambiguity of idio

50、ms of decoding,allowing the possibility that the hearer will decode an idiom in a logical yet sememically erroneous way.Many traditional linguists stIldying idioms have assumed non-compositionality, of phrasal idioms,and what follows ale some influential quotations(Nunberg 1994:498:釓The essential fe

51、ature of an idiom is that its full meaningis not a compositional function of the meanings of the idiom s elementary parts (Katz&Postal 1963:275.b.An idiom is a constituent or a series of constituents for which the semantic interpretation is not a compositional function of the formatives of ,whic

52、h it is composed伊raser 1970:22C.Idiomsdo notget tlleir meanings from the meanings of their syntactic parts(Katz 1973:358d.These ale idiomatic in the sense that their meaning is non-compositional (Chomskyl980:149 。e.Our definition of idioms,or frozen expressions,is rather broad.Ideally, an expression

53、 is frozen if the meaning is not predictable from the composition,that is to say,for example,if the verb and fixed complement(s do not contribute to the meaning of the sentence(e.g.to kick the bucket,to take the bull bY the homsMachonis 1985:306In li#t of all of the traditional views,linguists agree

54、 that idioms are矗Xed expressions of two ormore words,and the meanings of these idioms cannot be predicted fi'om the meanings of their constituent parts,that is to say,they agree on the non-compositionality and unanalysability of idioms.1.1.1.2Syntactic ApproachMany lmguias agree on the non-compo

55、sitionality of idioms.Howler,this view is challenged by some linguists who attempt to study idioms in the fl ame of Transformational Generative Grammar,which studies the productability and generativeness of language.TI圮representative linguists are Katz&Postal(1963, Fraser(1970,and Femando(2000.K

56、atz and Postal(quoted in Zhang Hlli 2003:16distinguish between lexical idioms and phrasal idioms.According to them,lexical idioms include polymorphetriic words and multi-word nouns and verbs,stored in lexicon like most of vocabularies, while phrasal idioms are stored in idiom list together誦m informa

57、tion of their nonproductabilityand inability in transformation.Fraser(1970:39explores the transformational potential of idioms.In order to capture these differences,Fraser proposes aseven-level hierarchy or scale:Level 6-UnrestrictedLevel 5.ReconstimtionLevel 4-ExtractionLevel 3-PermutationLevel 2.I

58、nsertionLevel l-A西unctionLevel 0-Complete frozenAt one end of the scale are frozen idioms 1ike'beat around the bush'and'kick the bucket',which only allow transformation of gerundive nominalization,while at the other end of the scale stand free idioms which can be comparatively transf

59、ormed freely,such as being used in passive voice and undergoing indirect object mowment.For example,if'bring down the house'is classified into level 3,all operations at level 3and below Can be applied.Fernando(2000has studied idioms from transformational views and she holds that most idioms can be manipulated or transformed in various ways according to the language userscommunicative needs.And the transformational variations include substitution,addition,permutation,and deletion which Fernando classifies into two