A Cognitive Contrastive Study of the Meaning of English and Chinese Counterfactuals:A Case Study of If-conditionals and Ruguo-conditionals
Based on semantic and pragmatic meaning,this study conducts a contrastive analysis of the meaning of English and Chinese counterfactuals,with If-conditionals in COCA and Ruguo-conditionals in BCC as examples.The study shows that:1)In terms of se-mantic meaning,English counterfactuals have CF(Counterfactuality)markers,constitute semantic bleaching in the past tense,and tend to reinforce counterfactual meanings by adding sentences,while the Chinese counterparts have HE(Hypotheticality Enhancing)mark-ers,do not constitute semantic bleaching in the past tense,and usually reinforce counterfactual meanings by adding words;2)In terms of pragmatic meaning,English counterfactuals rely less on context,convey weaker subjectivity and make full use of causal inference mechanism.Conversely,the Chinese counterparts rely more on context,convey stronger subjectivity,and take full advantage of the con-trast effect mechanism;3)These contrastive differences are essentially reflective of different kinds of construal in culture and thinking between English and Chinese.This study not only enriches the cognitive contrastive study of English and Chinese counterfactuals but also provides a reference for the acquisition and teaching of the two counterfactuals.
counterfactualscorpuscontrast between English and Chineseconstrual
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