3.1 The CONVENIENCE frame and fangbian/bianli
3.1.2 One frame, two perspectives
In (21), it can be inferred from the context that the AGENT should be the farmer who wants to improve the soil so that it is easier for himself, the BENEFICIARY,to cultivate and plant the crops. In (22), the AGENTs are probably those in charge of the library affairs and themselves as well as those who use the service of the library can be the
BENEFICIARY of the efficient work rendered by the computer. In brief, the core frame elements MEANS, REASON, and PURPOSE are key to the concept of CONVENIENCE and the interaction between them alone is sufficient for the comprehension of the CONVENIENCE frame. By contrast, the non-core frame elements AGENT and
BENEFICIARY are concomitant or dependent participants naturally derived from this interaction.
3.1.2 One frame, two perspectives
As the analysis unfolds, bianli connotes stronger intentionality than fangbian since bianli permits only direct causation where the PURPOSE must be intended, whereas fangbian allows both direct and indirect causation, i.e. the PURPOSE is not always intended. While both fangbian and bianli evoke the CONVENIENCE frame, they are perspectivized on different subevents of the complex CONVENIENCE event.
To be specific, fangbian highlights the result-subevent and perceives the event of CONVENIENCE from the perspective of the BENEFICIARY benefiting from the attainment of the PURPOSE; bianli emphasizes the cause-subevent of the MEANS
instead of the REASON since bianli involves direct causation and connotes stronger
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fangbian allows various degrees of intentionality connoted in the cause-subevent, which is to be delineated.
In the CONVENIENCE frame, the MEANS is exercised by some AGENT so that convenience arises. However, the MEANS of fangbian is not necessarily exercised by the AGENT with the intention to make it easier for the BENEFICIARY to achieve its
PURPOSE — the AGENT’s employing the MEANS may only accidentally lead to such a result. Put differently, for fangbian, indirect causation is allowed and the PURPOSE is unintended whereas brought about by the AGENT. Consider the following example where fangbian expresses indirect causation.
(23) 大專 體總(AGENT) 辦 七人制 球賽(MEANS)
dazhuan ti-zong ban qi-ren-zhi qiu-sai college athletic-association hold seven-man-rule ball-game 剛好 方便方便方便方便 東吳(BENEFICIARY)
ganghao fangbian dongwu accidentally FANGBIAN Soochow 組隊 參加(PURPOSE)
zu-dui canjia recruit-team participate
‘Thecollegiate athletic association is holding the seven-player rugby game, which happens to facilitate the team recruitment and participation in the game for Soochow University.’
In (23), the collegiate athletic association, the AGENT, happened to hold a seven-player rugby game (instead of the traditional fifteen-player one), a MEANS that accidentally gives rise to the condition where fewer players than expected are required for the
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seven-player game only indirectly or inadvertently cause convenience. This example illustrates that fangbian perceives the event from the BENEFICIARY’s perspective and is more concerned about the result-subevent — the event, as in (23), is encoded by fangbian simply because the BENEFICIARY Soochow University achieves the PURPOSEof participation in the game more easily regardless of the intention of the collegiate athletic association’s holding the game. Specifically, fangbian allows more flexibility as to what counts as a valid cause-subevent, i.e. besides being a direct cause, the
MEANS of fangbian can also be an indirect cause. This is also why bianli connotes stronger intentionality than fangbian since fangbian holds both direct and indirect causation whereas bianli only direct causation, as will be exemplified later.
As mentioned, fangbian highlights the result-subevent of the complex CONVENIENCE event and allows more flexibility as to what counts as a valid cause-subevent; events will be encoded by fangbian as long as the result of convenience arises. As a matter of fact, it is found that even an ill intention connoted in the cause-subevent can be accommodated by fangbian. See the following examples.
(24) 所謂 殺人 利器(MEANS)， 會 給 兇手(BENEFICIARY) suowei sha-ren liqi hui gei xiongshou
so.called kill-man instrument would give murderer 帶來 很多 的 方便方便方便方便
dai-lai henduo de fangbian bring-come much DE FANGBIAN
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‘The so-called man-killing instrument would bring much convenience for the murderer.’
‘(They) even nullify the law to facilitate land-speculation for the conglomerate.’
In (24), the killing instrument made it easier for the killer to fulfill the immoral purpose of killing. In (25), the law is nullified to facilitate land speculation for the conglomerate. In both cases, the BENEFICIARY’s standpoint is taken and the result-subevent is the concern; the ill intention involved in bringing about convenience is tolerated. In other words, for fangbian, it does not bother whether the
AGENT’s employing the MEANS violates the conventional norms of our society if and only if the PURPOSE is fulfilled more effortlessly and someone benefits from that.
In contrast, bianli takes the AGENT’s perspective and holds only direct causation where the PURPOSE must be intended. Unlike the MEANS of fangbian, which can serve as either a direct or indirect cause, the MEANS of bianli leads to convenience only in a direct manner, i.e. the MEANS of bianli is always employed for the BENEFICIARY’s
PURPOSE — the intention of the AGENT is oriented toward the benefits of the
BENEFICIARY.Consequently, the AGENT of bianli is portrayed as an AGENT as well as a
BENEFACTOR, which functions like the AGENT in the cause-subevent. Furthermore, the intention or goodwill of the AGENT/BENEFACTOR is an important property for the events encoded by bianli. Consider the following pair of examples.
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college athletic-association hold seven-man-rule ball-game 剛好 便利便利便利便利 東吳(BENEFICIARY) college athletic-association hold seven-man-rule ball-game 以 便利便利便利便利 東吳(BENEFICIARY)‘Thecollegiate athletic association is holding the seven-player rugby game in order to facilitate the team recruitment and participation of Soochow University.’
In (26), bianli is not appropriate since its MEANS tends to be exercised purposely, i.e.
the AGENT manages to hold the game for the BENEFICIARY, while the adverb ganghao defies this interpretation. On the contrary, as in (27), bianli fits with the context since the MEANS is indeed exercised out of the goodwill of the AGENT/BENEFACTOR. These examples demonstrate that bianli takes the BENEFACTOR’s perspective and is more
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concerned with the cause-subevent since the accidentally resultant convenience is not allowed by bianli but only convenience derived out of goodwill is. This demonstrates why bianli connotes stronger intentionality than fangbian since only direct causation is allowed and the PURPOSE must be intended. As such, it is not surprising that most of the authoritative AGENTsco-occur with bianli as in the following example.
(28) 屏東 縣 政府 消防局(AGENT) 為 便利便利便利便利 pingdong xian zhengfu xiaofangju wei bianli Pingdong county government fire-bureau to BIANLI
瘖啞 人士(BENEFICIARY) 報案(PURPOSE)， 啟用 「瘖啞
yinya renshi baoan qiyong yinya
mute people report.emergency put.to.use mute
人士 簡訊 報案 系統」(MEANS) [UDN2008]
renshi jianxun baoan xitong people short.message emergency.report system
‘In order to make it convenient for the mute citizens to report emergency, the fire bureau of the Pingdong County government starts to operate the
mute-citizen-emergency-reporting SMS system.’
In (28), in order to make it convenient for mute citizens to report emergency, the fire bureau sets up an SMS system for this specific purpose. The frequent co-occurrence of authoritative AGENTs with bianli can be attributed to the fact that the authoritative institutions are supposed to bear the goodwill or responsibility to give benefits as well as the appropriate MEANS to do so. The AGENT/BENEFACTOR perspective taken by bianli meets the semantic requirement of the authoritative AGENTs.
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and indirect causation and bianli permits only direct causation. Therefore, bianli connotes stronger intentionality than fangbian. Moreover, in the frame of CONVENIENCE, fangbian is perspectivized on the result-subevent of the complex CONVENIENCE event and takes the BENEFICIARY’s viewpoint. In contrast, bianli is perspectivized on the cause-subevent of the MEANS and takes theAGENT/BENEFACTOR’s viewpoint. In the following examples, the
BENEFACTOR-BENEFICIARY perspectival distinction proposed in this study also accounts for the distributional differences between fangbian and bianli in other usages.
(29) 這 對 我們 雙方(BENEFICIARY) 都 方便方便方便方便/?便利便利便利便利 zhe dui women shuang-fang dou fangbian/bianli this for us both-side both FANGBIAN/BIANLI
‘This is convenient for both of us.’
(30) 反正 見 隙 就 鑽， 管他 是否 違規
‘(He) forces through whatever narrow passages and does not care about violations as long as he himself feels convenient.’
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(31) 女生 宿舍 的 刷卡 方式(MEANS) 也 在 測試
nüsheng sushi de shua-ka fangshi ye zai ceshi girl dormitory DE swipe-card method also in test 階段， 讓 我們(BENEFICIARY) 非常 的 方便方便方便方便/?便利便利便利便利 jieduan rang women feichang de fangbian/bianli
stage make us very DE FANGBIAN/BIANLI
‘The card-reading method for the girl dormitory is also under test, which makes it very convenient for us (to get in and out).’
In (29), bianli sounds less natural than fangbian in this utterance where the near-synonyms co-occur with the BENEFICIARY women ‘us’. In (30), fangbian but not bianli can be predicated upon the BENEFICIARY ziji ‘self’. These are attributable to the
BENEFACTOR’s perspective assumed by bianli and the BENEFICIARY’s one by fangbian.
In (31), the verb rang ‘make’ takes the BENEFICIARY women ‘us’ as the object and only fangbian can be the complement in this syntactic pattern, which literally means
‘make us convenient.’ It is noteworthy the English counterpart of fangbian and bianli convenient does not occur in the ‘make somebody convenient’ pattern. While fangbian shows an affinity with the BENEFICIARY and PURPOSE, bianli forms compound nouns with the MEANS that is made or arranged by the AGENT. See the following example for lexical compounding.
(32) 便利便利便利便利/?方便方便方便方便 商店/貼/袋(MEANS) [UDN 2008]
bianli/fangbian shangdian/tie/dai
FANGBIAN/BIANLI store/sticker/bag
‘convenience store/ convenience sticker/ convenience bag’
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