 |
[email protected] |
 |
3275638434 |
 |
 |
| Paper Publishing WeChat |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Spatial Cognition of Chinese “Shang/Xia” and English “Up/Down”
LIU Jingfei
Full-Text PDF
XML 481 Views
DOI:10.17265/1539-8080/2019.09.004
Beijing International Studies University, Beijing, China
In spatial cognition, there are great differences between Chinese “shang/xia” and English “up/down”, being obvious subjectivity in both of them. While expressing the same spatial concept, Chinese “shang/xia” does not make a specific spatial dimension distinction but usually focuses on the two-dimensional plane of the “ground” and neglects the features of “point”, “line”, or “volume”. Therefore, when expressing the specific spatial relations, Chinese“shang/xia” has relatively broader semantic meanings and a wider range of spatial concepts. In terms of internal symmetry of language, there exists semantic asymmetry between Chinese“shang” and “xia”, and “shang”has a broader scope of application than “xia”, which is the result of the interaction of linguistic prominence andprinciple of linguistic economy. The semantics of English “up” and “down” in spatial relations are basically symmetrical.
spatial cognition, Chinese “shang/xia”, English “up/down”
Clark, H. (1973). Space, time, semantics and the child.In E. M. Timothy (Eds.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language(pp. 27-63). New York: Academic Press.
Ge,T. (2004).Cognitive Analysis of “X Shang” and “X Li”. Journal of College of Chinese Language and Culture, Jinan University, (1), 59-68.
Lakoff, G.,& Johnson, M. (1980).Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Langacker, R. W. (1991). Foundations of cognitive grammar (Vol. 2). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Levinson, S. C. (2003).Space in language and cognition: Explorations in cognitive diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Talmy, L. (1978). Figure and ground in complex sentences. In H. G. Joseph, A. F. Charles, and A. M. Edith (Eds.),Universals of human language (Vol. 4,pp. 625-649). Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Ungerer, F.,&Sehmid, H. J. (1996).An Introduction to cognitive linguistics. London: Longman.