Contrastive Studies of English and Chinese Semantics

This innovative work reveals the commonalities and differences between English and Chinese by comparing how they conceptualize time and space, how definiteness and animacy correlate with syntax and semantics, and more. The book clarifies that a contrastive linguistic study from the perspective of cognitive semantics is both theoretical and methodological in nature. It proposes four fundamental principles for such an approach and convincingly argues for the new theoretical hypothesis of "time-space distinction in English and time-space conflation in Chinese." Further, it provides a unified explanation for the historically classic issue of the seeming contradiction of the temporal reference of "front" (qian) and "back" (hou) in Chinese and introduces the new perspective that definiteness is a cognitive category rather than a linguistic one. By helping readers better understand the close connections between thought, language, culture, and cognition, this book will enhance mutual understanding, integration, and cross-cultural learning among different cultures and languages. It will serve as a valuable resource for researchers and students interested in contrastive linguistics, cross-cultural communication, translation, language teaching and learning materials, and natural language processing.