英语论文中话语联系语的对比研究

无论在篇章语言学还是在语用学研究中,话语联系语均被认为具有重要功能。篇章语言学家认为,话语联系语是实现篇章语义连贯的重要手段;语用学家认为,话语联系语的作用更多地体现在为话语的理解指路导航。本文运用基于语料库的研究方法,对比分析了中国学习者与英语母语者在英语论文中使用话语联系语的差别,结果显示:(1)中国学习者在论文写作中比母语者倾向于更多地使用联系语;(2)二者使用的联系语在语义分布上大致相同;(3)在每一类别内部具体联系语的使用上二者存在较大差异,主要表现为:学习者机械套用,欠缺必要的文体意识,及在表示列举、总结、转题和推论时,倾向于借助明显的联系语来达到发展主题的目的。本文试从连贯理论与关联理论的角度出发,对可能造成以上差异的原因进行了分析,并进一步对话语联系语的教学提出了一些建议。

A Contrastive Study of Discourse Connectives in English Academic Papers

In both textual linguistics and pragmatics,discourse connectives are considered to have significant functions.Textual linguists believe that connectives are indispensable to textual coherence,while pragmatists emphasize their function in facilitating meaning interpretation.This study has adopted a corpus-based approach to investigate the differences between Chinese learners and English native speakers in connective use.It is found that:(1) Chinese learners tend to use more discourse connectives than native speakers;(2) Chinese learners and native speakers show general consistency in frequency distribution of different semantic categories of discourse connectives;(3) Chinese learners and native speakers display considerable dissimilarities in specific connective use,which is well illustrated by the mechanical use of some connectives,lack of stylistic awareness and semantic properties of some connectives,and preference for certain categories of connectives to introduce new information on the part of Chinese learners.Based on coherence and relevance theories,this paper has analyzed the reasons behind the differences and provided suggestions for foreign language teaching in this aspect.