Fictive Motion and Its Rhetorical Effect in Chinese Novels

Abstract

Fictive motion is to represent stability by motion; it is first put forward by Talmy, who divided the fictive motion into five categories, that is to say, “emanation,” “pattern paths,” “frame-relative motion,” “advent paths,” “access paths,” and “coextension paths.”. Fictive motion is not only used in English, but also widely used in Chinese, especially in Chinese literary works, in which fictive motion has an intimate relationship with the figure of speech. The use of fictive motion and figure of speech make the works vivid and interesting. This paper intends to discuss the fictive motion and its rhetorical effect in Chinese novels.