Contrastive analysis of perception verbs in English and Arabic Thesis - 1

Contrastive analysis of perception verbs in English and Arabic - Thesis Example (Mina smelled the perfume ) (active) (Meher felt a prick in his thumb) (state). (Meher felt sick). (descriptive) Tahir felt his tie (Active) . (Mazi tasted defeat) (descriptive) Lemon tastes bitter (state) (Jack tasted the warm broth) (Active) Chapter 3: Perception verbs in English 3.1  Ã‚   Introduction This chapter presents a discussion on the perception verbs and their usage in English language. It will develop an understanding of the importance and relevance of the correct forms of perception verbs to the meaning of the sentence and will also highlight the basic issues that non-native learners may face when they try to learn the language. This chapter forms an essential background for the conduction of the contrastive analysis between the Arabic and the English language perception verbs.    3.2 What are Perception Verbs Perception verbs are the verbs that define the actions undertaken by our sensory parts. These are an essential element of any languag e as these have the capacity to explain and display a diverse variety of human behavoiurs and nuances. In semantics, perception verbs have been a subject of much debate and research owing to the complexity of their usage as well as their capacity to be modified in language use. The field of perception verbs is one of the important semantic fields that received the attention of linguists since 1970s, along with other semantic fields like basic color terms (Berlin and Kay 1969), body parts (Andersen 1978), cooking verbs (Lehrer 1974), and motion verbs (Talmy 1975). However, while other subjects and aspects of language have been explored in order to assess the richness of the language or to explore the richness with which concepts can be expressed, perception verbs are of interest due to their difficulty to translate into other languages. Perception verbs relate to the active usage of language and portrat not only the perceptions, but often the emotions and the conceptions as well. Thi s makes the usage of the perception verbs complex and difficult to translate in different languages.    Also, other elements of the language like the nouns, vocabulary etc., are easy to learn as these are governed by simple rules of grammar. These semantic fields share universal elements, and exist frequently in many languages. It is a well-known fact that in order to recognize the typological shape of any language, we must be aware of â€Å"the distinctive character of its structure in relation to other languages based mainly on work in general typology, and on contrastive analysis and other types of cross linguistic studies† (Viberg, 2006, p.3). Perception verbs have also â€Å"supplied a rich field of research in linguistics including grammaticalisation, complementation and semantic change† (Ibarretxe-Antunano, 1999, p. 41).      The complexity associated with the perception verbs has its roots in the variety of modes in which perception is understood. Percept ion is a basic human process through which they are able to access external inputs and make sense of their surroundings. However, academic definition of perception is varied as different scholars tend to define perception differently. The definition of perception is essential to understand as it has a direct impact on the development and usage of the perception verbs. Sekuler and Blake defined it as â€Å"a biological process wherein the brain derives descriptions