A STUDY ON COGNITIVE SEMANTIC FEATURES OF MOTION VERBS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE FABLES

Abstract

Cognitive semantics classifies motion verbs based on the sort of semantic information which their verb roots characteristically encode. In general, motion verbs, both transitive and intransitive, typically express only one of the three semantic entities route, manner, or shape, and the general tendency for analyzing motion verbs is to separate manner verbs from path verbs. Talmy’s (1985, 2000) work proposes a three-way typology of motion which distinguishes three main types of lexicalization patterns of motion verbs: Motion + Co-event, Motion + Path, Motion + Figure according to the way the different elements of a motion scene are mapped onto linguistic elements. The study delves into studying the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese motion verbs in fables of the two languages. The comparative analysis points to the important notion of Cognitive Linguistics that speakers of different languages structure their perception of reality in different ways; and language is conceptualized and embodied. The observations and findings also afford significant insights into motion expressions for Vietnamese language teachers and translators, thereby facilitating both teaching and translation. Moreover, the study points out typical cultural features expressed in fables. Then, the similarities and differences between these features are studied.