published_or_final_version / Chinese Language and Literature / Master / Master of Arts

University of Macau / Faculty of Arts and Humanities. / Department of English

This dissertation explores the robust confluence of syntactic and cultural factors involved in the structure and content of chéngyǔ. It unpacks a number of structural tendencies in the data sample, and illuminates selected underlying cultural themes. The presence of syntactic and semantic parallelism within chéngyǔ in the dataset, as an expression of the correlative Chinese philosophy of the wǔxíng (五行 ‘Five Phases’ or ‘Five Elements’ of the universe), is a recurring point. Syntactic parallelism is demonstrated via chéngyǔ with invertible elements and by the overwhelming preference for syntactic parallelism, in particular the # N # N structure. Semantic parallelism is demonstrated via content words with related semantic fields or separable content words. The Chinese philosophical concepts of yīn and yáng are shown to have a clear impact on the use of numbers within chéngyǔ. Yīn and yáng are preferably arranged in balance with each other. If only one is present, however, then yáng is considered to be preferable over yīn. The interaction between the numbers within chéngyǔ has several pragmatic effects. For example, the combination of the numbers qī (七 'seven') and bā (八 'eight') is used to suggest disorder, untidiness or physical or emotional disturbance (Pellatt 2007:96). Bàn (半 ‘half’) may be used in chéngyǔ to denote the meaning of ‘a proportion.’ It also may be used together with yī (一 ‘one’) to indicate ‘any at all’ as well as a cluster of closely related concepts generally indicating ‘the existence of a small amount.’ Numbers also often have the effect of highlighting the contrast between two content words. Some chéngyǔ have a clearcut syntactic analysis, others do not. This is due to their highly elliptical and idiomatic nature, the fact that many lexemes can fall into more than one word class, and the fact that chéngyǔ are frozen expressions that often preserve some grammatical structures from Classical Chinese. Additionally, chéngyǔ do include conceptual metaphors, from the standpoint of the conceptual theory of metaphor launched with Lakoff and Johnson (1980). / Department of English

Although it is generally accepted that L2 learners of English need to gain a good grasp of idioms, the teaching and learning of idioms in L2 is no easy task. One of the reasons is that idioms are enormous in number. The Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary (2002) lists over 6,000 idioms which are of contemporary, everyday, use. Another reason is that a considerable number of idioms are figurative in nature---that is, their overall meaning cannot be obtained by simply adding up the literal meanings of the components involved. Added and related to these factors is the fact that the traditional vocabulary listing method adopted in most ESL/EFL textbooks presents each idiom entry and its meaning in such a way that the choice of each single word in the idiom seems random, and the overall figurative meaning deriving from the combination of the constituent words appears inexplicable. Taken together, these factors make idioms one of the most difficult aspects of L2 teaching and learning. / Idioms, which are a type of phraseological unit and are largely figurative in nature, are pervasive and ubiquitous in human language. A significant part of L1 everyday linguistic repertoire is formed by idioms and idiom-like constructions. In fact, the level of command of idioms serves as an important indicator of L2 proficiency. In other words, fluent and native-like language, a concern particularly for many advanced L2 learners, entails a good mastery of idioms. / In the light of the above problems, the present study, founded on Cognitive Linguistics (CL), aims to shed light on a more effective and manageable teaching and learning of L2 idioms by examining the CL theoretical assumptions compatible with L2 pedagogy. The CL feature which possesses the greatest potential for complementing language pedagogy is the notion of 'motivation.' In other words, the author explores, on the one hand, the potential of CL notions such as metaphor and metonymy for providing motivation for L2 idiom pedagogy, and, on the other, the potential of the above notions for comparing L1 and L2 idioms both linguistically and conceptually. Such a linguistic and conceptual comparative analysis of L1 and L2 idioms enables us to anticipate the possible difficulties encountered by L2 learners in learning idioms. / There are three methodologically independent but theoretically coherent research components in the present study. Study One is the elicitation of the body-part idioms in English (L2) and Cantonese (L1). Nine body parts are involved: head, eye/eyes, face, mouth, hand/hands, heart, foot/feet, body and bones. There is an examination of the underlying cognitive motivation (i.e. pure metaphor, pure metonymy, metaphor and metonymy) of each of the elicited idioms in both languages. Study Two is the think-aloud experiment which aims at eliciting from a group of Cantonese advanced L2 learners of English the mental images they produce in response to the English body-part idioms. These mental images should provide insight into the conceptual and linguistic similarities and differences between idioms in the two languages. Study Three is the experimental study. This aims at testing empirically the pedagogical soundness of teaching English idioms using conceptual metaphor and metonymy as well as an English-Cantonese idiom comparison. A total number of 106 Cantonese advanced L2 learners of English majoring in English were invited to participate in the experiment. They were divided into three groups, each of which was treated with a particular L2 idiom learning method. Experimental results show that students receiving the method involving conceptual metaphor, conceptual metonymy and a cross-linguistic comparison (i.e. the '3Cs' method) outperformed students in the other two groups, thus implying the pedagogical soundness of the 3Cs method in enhancing L2 idiom teaching and learning. / Leung, Chung Hong. / Adviser: Peter Crisp. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-09, Section: A, page: . / Thesis submitted in: November 2008. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 351-363). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

University of Macau / Faculty of Arts and Humanities. / Department of English