对英汉时间和空间系统的语法功能的认知语言学研究
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摘要
认知语言学作为一门新兴的语言学流派,源于当代跨学科的认知科学,是认知科学与语言学相结合的产物,是迄今为止最具创新精神的、引人入胜的语言学流派之一。认知语言学以体验哲学为理论基础,主要阐述了人们对世界的感知体验,以及在此基础上形成的语言使用必须参照心智活动的原则。
     根据Lakoff提出的体验哲学,我们的大脑从我们身体其余部份接受信息输入。我们的身体像什么以及它们如何在世界中发挥作用塑造了我们用以思考的恰当的概念。我们根本无法思考任何东西——除了我们的具身大脑允许的那些东西。认知语言学是以体验哲学为理论基础的语言学和认知科学的结合体。认知语言学主要阐述了人们对世界的感知体验,以及在此基础上所形成的认知方式是如何形成和约束语法构造的,并深入解释了语法规则背后的认知方式和心理基础。
     狭义上讲,认知语言学包含认知语义学研究和认知语法研究,即词法和句法。Croft和Cruse(2002:1)提出了认知语法的三个基本假设:(1)语言不是一个自足的认知系统,不能脱离于认知能力,对语言的描写必须参照人的一般认知规律;(2)用基于真值条件的形式逻辑来描写语义是不够的,因为语义描写必须参照开放的、无限的知识系统,句法(和词法)在本质上跟词汇一样是一个约定俗成的象征系统,句法分析不能脱离语义;(3)语言知识不是客观的纯抽象的符号之间的逻辑运算,而是人对客观世界的感知与经验的结果,是人与外部世界相互作用的产物。语言具有实践性。这三个假设表达了认知语言学家们对当时占主导地位的生成语法和语义逻辑表示法的一种反叛。
     本文有3个目的:第一,从认知语言学的角度揭示这两种语言的时空系统的存在并做相应的解释。该目的的达到依赖于我们对认知域的认识。第二,首先运用认知语言学的相似性原则揭示时间系统在英汉两种语言句法中的作用;然后运用认知语言学的意向图式原则揭示空间系统在英汉两种语言介词中的作用以及运用背景、图形理论阐述空间系统在英汉两种语言句法中的作用;第三,借助于隐喻原则和语法化原则阐述在英汉两种语言中时空系统的互相转化。
     通过英汉对比研究我们发现,就时间系统而言,从宏观上看相似性原则中的顺序规律是受时间系统是支配的,它是人类言语在时间轴上先后依次的表达。这反应了客观世界,认知和语言的一致性。但是从语法层面上说,汉语言文字没有英语那种前缀、后缀、时态、语态及性、数、格等工具,故而汉语更一贯支持时间顺序原则。从空间系统而论,英汉两个民族根据各自的不同体验,对空间概念意象进行不同的抽象,表现在空间介词上呈现出静态和动态的共性以及英汉空间介词在诠释动态和静态时各自的个性与区别。而在句法结构上,同样基于人们对外界现实的感知体验和认知加工,背景图形理论提供给我们处理这两种语言的主语和宾语理据,背景与图形之别反映在语句表达中,主要靠主语和非主语来加以区别。总体来看,由于东西方思维方式,哲学传统的差别,造成了汉语句子主要靠词序和语义关系表达,并不追求形式上的完整,往往只求达意而已,重意合;而英语语法成分都有其独立作用,比较注重句子结构形式的完整和逻辑的合理,英语句子重形合。因此汉语较英语更能容忍语句的语法空缺,换句话说更经常省略句子中的主语或宾语甚至两者都省略。就时空关系而言,一般认为,人们对空间的认知优于对时间的认知,有许多时间词本身就是空间词的引申用法。这与语言形成的主观性有关,主要是由实到虚,由具体到抽象,语法化现象正好证明了这一点。不过这也不是绝对的,有时时间关系也可以以空间状态来表达。总之在英汉两种语言中时空系统是相互转化的。
     无论是时间系统还是空间系统,他们在语言中的语法作用是无法穷尽的,随着认知语言学研究的深入,愈来愈多的研究成果必将引起语言学界有关语法研究的一场革命。
Cognitive linguistics that has emerged from within the modern interdisciplinary study known as cognitive science, is a relatively new school of linguistics, and one of the most innovative and exciting approaches to the study of language and thought.
     Based on the embodied philosophy (answer.com, 2007) that usually refers to a set of arguments proposed by Lakoff and his various co-authors, which suggest that the mind can only be well understood by taking into account the body and the more primitive underpinnings of the mind, cognitive linguistics is a school that combines linguistics and cognitive science, which aims to provide accounts of language that mesh well with current understandings of the human mind. The guiding principle behind it is that language use must be explained with reference to the underlying mental processes.
     In its narrow sense cognitive linguistics is divided into two main areas of study: cognitive semantics and cognitive approaches to language grammar. Croft and Cruse (2002: 1) see three hypotheses as guidance to the cognitive approach to language:
     ●language is not an autonomous cognitive faculty
     ●grammar is conceptualization
     ●knowledge of language emerges form language use
     The first principle is opposed to the well known hypothesis of generative grammar that language is an autonomous cognitive faculty or module, separated from nonlinguistic cognitive abilities. The second principle is opposed to truth-conditional semantics, in which a semantics metalanguage is evaluated in terms of truth and falsity related to the world. The third principle is opposed to reductionist tendencies in both generative grammar and truth conditional semantics, in which maximally abstract and general representations of grammatical form and meaning are sought and many grammatical and semantic phenomena are assigned to the periphery.
     There are three purposes in the present thesis. The first is to reveal the existence of and interpret the temporal and spatial systems of the two languages from a theoretical view in cognitive linguistics. This purpose is achieved on the basis of the working principle of cognitive domain. The second is to reveal the functions of the temporal system in syntactic structures of the two languages, which is governed and illustrated by principles of iconicity, and then to reveal the functions of the spatial system in prepositions and syntactic structures of the two languages, which is governed and illustrated by principles of image schema and figure and ground. The third purpose is to find out the way time and space functions are transformed which is governed and illustrated by the metaphor principle and the grammaticalization principle.
     Through the comparative study of the temporal systems of English and Chinese with the iconicity principle we find that Chinese syntactic structure is more consistent in following the temporal sequence than English due to the lack of such means as verb variations indicating tense and temporal conjunctions demonstrating syntactic sequence. Through the comparative study of the spatial systems of English and Chinese with the principles of image schema and figure and ground we find that English spatially static prepositions are more specific in dimension than Chinese prepositions, and Chinese spatially dynamic prepositions are usually derived from their deverbals, and that compared with English, Chinese is more tolerable to spatial gaps in sentence structures, namely, the subjects or objects or even both the subjects and the objects of Chinese sentences are more frequently omitted than English ones due to the different life experience of the two peoples and the distinct characteristics of the two languages. Finally in the two languages the temporal and spatial systems can be reciprocally transformed, though generally speaking people often use the space concept to express time related semantics because the spatial system is more basic and more concrete than the temporal system, therefore the former has the priority to be recognized and used.
     The grammatical functions of either spatial or temporal system are boundless as the research into the cognitive linguistics is deepening. Sooner or later with more and more research efforts and results a revolution in grammar study is going to happen.
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