Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Research Objective
Comparison is one of the basic ways to understand linguistic facts. Only bycomparison can the differences as well as similarities of various languages be foundout. In Chinese and English, some adverbs play the connective roles between words,phrases, sentences and linguistic units in addition to the modifying function. Typicalconjunctions have connective functions, indicating various kinds of structuralrelations between sentences, while typical adverbs maintain functions of their own,which is, acting as adverbial modifiers to modify predicative-centered words or clause.These adverbs have both modifying function and connective function, besides, theyare more like conjunctions. Actually, they are in the “transitional zone” of two parts ofspeech, called “adverbial conjunctions”.Yuan Surong (2013: 88) pides adverbial conjunctions in Chinese and Englishinto eight kinds of semantic categories according to the textual cohesive function. Thepaper selects emphative adverbial conjunctions for comparative research. Element Aand element B connected by emphative adverbial conjunctions belong to the samecategory semantically, indicting two main kinds of relationships: 1) inclusion relations,namely A consists of B, and B is a part of A. 2) Non-inclusion relations, namely Aand B belong to the same category rather than containment relationship.As equivalent words in translation, Chinese and English emphative adverbialconjunctions have many similarities. The main task of comparative linguistics is toseek the similarities between different languages. This is also one of the main tasks ofcomparative study between Chinese and English languages.
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1.2 Research Significance
Chinese and English adverbs are relatively complicated and insufficientlystudied in part of speech. Since Ma Shi Wen Tong, adverbs have been the mostcontroversial and problematic part of speech in the research of Chinese. Quirk, R. etal. (1985: 438) point out that as the great heterogeneity of English adverbs, they arethe most ambiguous and confusing part of speech. In fact, adverbs are not like otherparts of speech which have precise definitions.From the previous studies concerned with my topic, there are limitations aboutthe study of adverbial conjunctions. Many researches are just carried in a singlelanguage, the number of comparative study is limited.Up till now, yet, researchers have not carried out an overall and systematic casestudy on the comparison of Chinese and English emphative adverbial conjunctions.The study of adverbial conjunctions from three aspects: syntactic, semantic, andtextual will provide us more accurate research data as well as suggestions forfuture study and language teaching. Besides, this study explores a new way to dothe comparison. It tries to provide a practical approach for researchers to make thecross-linguistic contrast, and hopes to be useful for language teaching, learning andtranslation, etc.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Definition of Adverbial Conjunctions
Adverbial conjunctions refer to adverbs and adverbial expressions which set up aconnective relation in sentences and texts. They are used to link clauses, sentencesand paragraphs, indicating various semantic relations. Adverbial conjunctions cannotbe categorized like adjectives, prepositions, nouns or conjunctions, as they areclassified by their connective function to compose a particular category.There exists a “continuum” between adverbs and conjunctions, while typicalconjunctions have connective function, indicating various kinds of syntactic relations;typical adverbs maintain the function of adverbs, that is, modifying predicate phrasesas adverbial modifier. It’s worth noting that there is a kind of adverbs having bothmodifying function and connective function in transitional zone between adverbs andconjunctions, and those are adverbial conjunctions.
2.2 Definition of Emphative Adverbial Conjunctions
“特别是” is a synonym of “尤其是” in Chinese, and particularly is a synonymof especially in English. The application format of “尤其是”, “特别是”, especially aswell as particularly are: “A 尤其是 B...” , “A 特别是 B...”. And we analysis “尤其是B”, “ 特 别 是 B”, A especially B and A particularly B. as grammatical units andnamed them “emphative phrases”. And there is always a pause before or afteremphative phrases: A comma in written language (full stop at the end of the sentencesotherwise). Chinese academic circle of grammar call them “commentary words” (LvShuxiang, 1979). Lv Shuxiang categorizes these “commentary words” as “pieceshanging in sentences” instead of as composition analysis; Besides, they are alsoanalyzed as “parenthesis” and “interjectional remark” in the research of Chineseteaching. There are also many scholars classified such elements as “adverbials”. Andamong scholars of English teaching and research, they also regard them as“adverbial”, namely adverbial conjunctions.
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Chapter 3 A Comparative Analysis of Syntactic Features of EmphativeAdverbial Conjunctions..........18
3.1 A Comparative Analysis of Syntactic Positions of Emphative AdverbialConjunctions.........18
3.1.1 Syntactic Positions...........19
3.1.2 The Explanation of Distribution and Syntactic Structures...........27
3.2 A Comparative Analysis of Syntactic Features of Emphative Adverbial.......... 33
3.3 The Omitted Form in Emphative Clauses.........49
3.3.1 Subject Omission.....49
3.3.2 Predicate Omission..........50
3.3.3 Subject and Predicate-Centered Words Omission.........52
3.4 The Level of Categorization in Emphative Clauses.........54
Chapter 4 A Comparative Study of Semantic Features of Emphative AdverbialConjunctions.....58
4.1 Comparison of Semantic Relations of Emphative Adverbial Conjunctions inChinese...........59
4.2 Comparison of Semantic Relations of Emphative Adverbial Conjunctions inEnglish......71
Chapter 5 The Application of Emphative Adverbial Conjunctions in Chinese andForeign Classics........82
5.1 The Application of “尤其是”, “特别是” , Especially and Particularly...82
5.2 Cohesive Methods of Chinese and English Adverbial Conjunctions..... 82
Chapter 5 The Application of Emphative AdverbialConjunctions in Chinese and Foreign Classics
5.1 The Application of “尤其是”, “特别是” , Especially andParticularly
Cohesion is a kind of semantic relationship between a component of a text andthe other components that explain it and it can be defined as the links that hold a texttogether and give it meaning. There are two main types of cohesion: grammaticalcohesion, referring to the structural content, and lexical cohesion, referring to thelanguage content of the piece. A cohesive text is created in many different ways. Interms of cohesion in English, Halliday and Hasan identified five general categories ofcohesive devices that create coherence in texts: reference, ellipsis, substitution, lexicalcohesion and conjunction. As a cohesive device, emphative adverbial conjunctions areoften applied to illustrate the semantic relationships between the following clause andthe preceding one, thus configuring the coherence of the whole text. The adverbs instudy are often used to emphasize the more important element in the sentences andmake the speakers’ meaning clear. Without the assistance of these adverbs, it may be alittle hard for readers to figure out how these two sentences are associated with eachother.
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Conclusion
With the help of the theoretical analysis, related research methodologies andcollected data from 19 classics and their corresponding 19 English versions, thisthesis is aimed at exploring the similarities and differences of the applicationof Chinese “尤其是”, “特别是” and English especially as well as particularly inthe perspective of syntactic features and semantic relations of this categorywithin the framework of Cognitive, Cohesion and Discourse Analysis Theories. In theaspect of syntactic characteristics, the thesis employs a quantitative study of thedifferent syntactic positions as well as giving a detailed explanation of syntacticstructures and distribution. Furthermore, the qualitative analyses of their semanticfeatures are carried on with a number of semantic mappings and given detailedinterpretation with examples from established corpus. In addition, the focus is alsogiven to the application of Chinese and English emphative adverbial conjunctions inthe selected classics.
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The reference (omitted)