学术英语语境中小品词“down”的认知语义分析——基于语料库的研究

A Cognitive Semantic Analysis of the Particle“Down”in Academic English Discourse——A Corpus-Based Study

英语短语动词由一个动词和一个介词或副词组成,是英语语言的重要组成部分。以往研究多聚焦短语动词习得和语义生成加工机制,或具体某一介词探究其认知语义,鲜有研究将理论发现与教学实践相结合,尤其是结合在教学实践中占重要地位的学术英语写作教学。以LinDEAP语料库中的“verb+down”短语动词为研究对象,借助意象图式与隐喻理论探讨学术英语语境中常用的“verb+down”短语动词结构的基本意义与延伸意义。研究发现,在学术英语写作中,常常用到五种基本意象图式,它们投射到数量域、事件域和时间域三个目标域的频率很高。这说明,在教学实践中,可通过此法促进学生对短语动词的系统理解和使用,使学习过程更具科学性与体系化。

English phrasal verbs,which consist of a verb and a preposition or an adverb,are an important part of the English language.Previous studies mostly focused on the mechanism of phras-al verb acquisition and semantic generation,or explored the cognitive meaning of one specific particle,but few studies have combined theoretical findings with teaching practice,especially the teaching of ac-ademic English writing,which is an important part in English teaching.Based on the LinDEAP cor-pus,this study constructs the image schema of the phrasal verb“verb+down”in English academic discourse and explains its extended meanings with conceptual metaphor theory.It is found that five ba-sic image schemas are often used in academic English writing,and they are most frequently projected into three target domains:quantity domain,event domain and time domain.This suggests that this method can be used to promote students’systematic understanding and use of phrasal verbs in teach-ing practice,making the learning process more scientific and systematic.