A Comparative Study on the Combinative Meanings of Happiness in English and Chinese

Abstract

This is a comparative study on the usage of verbs combined with emotion word happiness between English and Chinese speakers. The research questions cover the basic description of the verb types, the verb selection differences, and the potential cultural factors for the verb selection. To address the research questions, 200 sample sentences for each language are collected from corpus and analyzed within four broad verbal categories. It is found that the different cultural contexts may account for the different selection of verbs combined with happiness: (1) the inclination of English speakers to influence others in cultural contexts might account for their preference in explaining happiness than studying the emotion; (2) the cultural value on showing unique thinking mode may help to understand why English speakers would like to pursue such good emotion and even to reduce it, while maintaining such emotion represents a balanced mindset in Chinese culture that emphasizes social harmony; (3) Chinese speakers’ eagerness for happiness may be understood by their expectation in doing things with honor, and their mindset of not wanting to lose face.