Orientation path in Vietnamese: a cognitive-linguistic description

Over the past few decades, motion in general, and fictive motion in particular, have been central topics in cognitive linguistics. Numerous cognitive linguists have explored these topics across many languages. Their research has provided us with profound insights into the relationship between language and the mind, as well as into human cognitive abilities. However, research on these topics in Vietnam remains a significant gap that needs to be filled. The primary purpose of this paper is to apply Talmy’s typology of motion events and fictive motion to provide an overall description of the cognitive and linguistic facets of the orientation subcategory in Vietnamese within the framework of cognitive linguistics. Through the description and analysis of data from the VIETLEX Vietnamese Corpus, the results demonstrate that (i) Vietnamese also has orientation subcategory and its types as in Talmy’s classification schema and (ii) the cognitive and linguistic similarities and differences of orientation subcategory and its types between Vietnamese and ones in Talmy’s classification schema reflect, on the one hand, the universality of human cognition and language, and on the other hand, the distinctive linguistic-cognitive characteristics of Vietnamese. Based on this, the paper suggests a few directions for investigating this subcategory in Vietnamese.