摘要
本文试图从修辞学的视角对中英能源新闻语篇进行对比分析。通过对中英主流报刊杂志中的能源新闻语篇进行对比分析,找出在中英能源新闻语篇中各自占主导地位的修辞关系并究其异同,分析造成这种异同的原因,并试图建立中英能源新闻语篇的修辞关系框架。
修辞结构理论和对比修辞是本文的主要理论支撑。修辞结构理论主要用来进行语料分析,找出在中英语料中各自占主导地位的修辞关系并究其异同;导致这些异同的潜在原因则从对比修辞的角度得到了很好的诠释。两大理论体系在本文得到了有机的结合,相得益彰。
修辞结构理论是修辞学视角内的语篇分析中应用最为广泛的方法。该领域内的语篇分析在研究的语篇类型方面经历了漫长的演变过程。论辩型语篇、第二语言写作、小说、评论、广告语篇和小品文都曾是修辞学视角内语篇分析的研究对象,但是运用修辞结构理论对能源新闻语篇进行的分析却从未被涉及。本文就运用该理论对中英能源新闻语篇进行了对比分析,主要达到四个目的:1)找出在中英能源新闻语篇中各自存在的修辞关系。2)进一步挑选出在中英能源新闻语篇中各自占主导地位的修辞关系并究其异同。3)借助对比修辞,分析导致上述异同的原因。4)建立中英能源新闻语篇修辞关系框架。
本文共分五章。第一章首先回顾了修辞学视角内的语篇分析涉及到的主流方法理论,对前人所做的相关研究进行综述并指出仍存在的不足,并发现运用修辞结构理论进行的语篇分析并不是十分常见,且能源新闻语篇还从未被作为研究对象进行过系统研究。第二章理论框架部分主要介绍了修辞结构理论和对比修辞。修辞结构理论最初是在1983年由W. C. Mann和S. A. Thompson创建。关系性、功能性和层次性三大理论要点以及32种修辞关系的名称及定义都在本章进行了详尽的阐述。对比修辞来源于萨皮尔·沃尔夫假说,焦点集中在对两种不同的语言在语篇建构过程中的不同修辞惯例进行相关研究。第三章主要阐述本文的研究方法和语料收集情况。本文在研究方法上采取定性和定量相结合的方式,语料均来自于中英文主流报刊杂志的电子版,其中英文语料主要来自华盛顿邮报、卫报、纽约时报、独立报和路透社,中文语料主要来自《人民日报》和新华社。本文共选取了16篇英文能源语篇和10篇中文能源语篇,共计8383个单词和8075个汉字。
第四章是对中英语料进行的对比分析,研究结果如下:从修辞关系在能源新闻语篇中出现的数量和种类来看,21种修辞关系在16篇英文新闻语篇中共出现273次,21种修辞关系在10篇中文新闻语篇中共出现134次。文章进一步挑选出中英能源新闻语篇中占主导地位的修辞关系。其中,在英文语料中出现频率列前六位的修辞关系占到相当大的比例,达60.5%,各种修辞关系依次排列如下:证据关系、阐述关系、连接关系、背景关系、意愿性结果关系和让步关系;而在中文语料中出现频率列前六位的修辞关系呈如下分布:阐述关系、证据关系、连接关系、背景关系、让步关系和列举关系,在中文语篇所有修辞关系中占62.7%。同一种修辞关系在中英语料中可均有出现,但频率有所不同。在前六位占主导地位的修辞关系中,修辞关系出现的高频位次及种类在中英语料中既有相同点,也存在一些差异。文章进一步对导致这些异同的原因进行分析并发现,这些异同点的存在并不是偶然现象,而是具有一定的普遍意义。最后一章试图建立中英能源新闻语篇的修辞关系框架,讨论了该研究的局限性与启示。由于篇幅有限,本文不可能对中英能源新闻语篇的方方面面都做穷尽的研究;分析过程中的一些主观因素也在所难免。
本文运用修辞结构理论对中英能源新闻语篇进行了对比分析,具有很强的理论意义和现实意义。首先,该研究的主要发现弥补了修辞学视角内的语篇分析在语篇类型方面的空白,为今后的研究提供了新的视角。其次,修辞关系框架的建构对中英能源新闻语篇的组织谋篇提供了借鉴,从而可以更加有效地为能源新闻的阅读、教学与翻译提供指导。最后,该研究也可以引发对中英能源新闻语篇之间互译的进一步思考。
The thesis sets out to conduct a contrastive analysis of Chinese and English energy news discourses from rhetorical perspective. Based on the energy news discourses from both leading newspapers and magazines in both Chinese and English, the study is intended to make a contrastive analysis of Chinese and English energy news discourses to find sameness and differences of dominant rhetorical relations. After analyzing the implied reasons the thesis tries to establish a global rhetorical relation pattern of Chinese and English energy news discourses in the end.
Theories applied in this thesis are Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) and Contrastive Rhetoric (CR). RST is utilized to conduct data analysis to find out sameness and differences in dominant rhetorical relations, and CR has its advantages in analyzing the implied reasons. The former one cannot work well in reason analysis and the latter one doesn’t function effectively on data analysis in this study. The two theoretical systems complement each other so well that we call it a combined rhetorical perspective in this thesis.
RST has been used in discourse analysis for a period of time, and is the most widely-used approach in discourse analysis from rhetorical perspective. Types of texts under previous studies from rhetorical perspective have experienced a wide range of variation. Argumentative texts, second language writing, novel texts, comments, advertisement texts and essays have been studied by a number of researchers. The study on different types of texts testifies the wide application of RST in discourse analysis. But analysis of energy news discourses under RST has never been conducted.
In this thesis, contrastive analysis has been conducted under RST on Chinese and English energy news discourses and four purposes are meant to be achieved: 1) to find out all kinds of rhetorical relations appearing in both Chinese and English energy news discourses; 2) to pick out dominant rhetorical relations in Chinese and English data respectively,and explore the sameness and differences of these dominant ones; 3) to probe the implied reasons hidden in these sameness and differences of dominant rhetorical relations with resort to CR; 4) to establish a global rhetorical relation pattern of Chinese and English energy news discourses respectively, expecting to fill up the gap in discourse analysis, especially on text types..
The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is literature review, in which mainstream approaches and theories in discourse analysis from rhetorical perspective are presented. Linguists and scholars have made great contribution to discourse analysis in this field. However, discourse analysis under RST is not so common, and energy news discourse has never been taken as objective of study. At the same time there still exist limitations in their research which have also been noted in this thesis.
Chapter two mainly introduces RST and CR which constitute the theoretical framework of this thesis. RST was originally formulated by W. C. Mann and S. A. Thompson in 1983 as part of the studies of computer-based text generation, and now it has a status in linguistics for its independent computational uses. Relation, function, and hierarchy are three main qualities and aspects of this theory. Thirty-two rhetorical relations and their corresponding definitions are thoroughly elaborated in this chapter. CR has its root in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity, and concentrates initially on the different rhetorical conventions demonstrated in the construction of texts in two different languages. Chapter three mainly deals with methodology and sample collection of this thesis. Quantitative and qualitative methods are both applied in the study. Data source is from the online electronic editions of leading newspapers and magazines in both English and Chinese, including The Washington Post, Guardian Unlimited, The New York Times, The Independent in English, and People’s Daily in Chinese. From the data collected, sixteen English energy news discourses and ten Chinese energy news discourses are analyzed in this study, with 8383 English words and 8075 Chinese characters respectively.
In chapter four, contrastive analysis is made on Chinese and English energy news discourses respectively with a view to exploring sameness and differences in dominant rhetorical relations between Chinese data and the English one. With respect to the number and kinds of rhetorical relations, the sixteen English samples contain 273 relations with twenty-one kinds in total, while ten Chinese ones 134 relations with twenty-one kinds in all. Then dominant rhetorical relations are picked out to be discussed. In English data the first six relations make up 60.5% of all rhetorical relations, and in turn they are: Evidence, Elaboration, Joint, Background, Volitional-result, and Concession; while in Chinese data the first six relations are Elaboration, Evidence, Joint, Background, Concession, and List, accounting for 62.7% in all rhetorical relations. Same rhetorical relations can be found in both Chinese and English dominant ones; however, the percentage these relations take up is not the same. There are some sameness and differences on the kinds and ranking orders of dominant rhetorical relations. Furthermore, the implied Reasons for the sameness and differences in dominant rhetorical relations are explored from several aspects to testify that this rhetorical relation pattern in Chinese and English data is not occasional, but a global one. In the last chapter, a global rhetorical relation pattern of Chinese and English energy news discourses is tried to be established. Besides, the limitations and implications of this study are also expounded. The limitations of this study pertain to the following aspects: Firstly, the sample size is not big enough. Secondly, some subjective factors are inevitable in the study. Finally, due to limited space, the study can not be exhaustive in analyzing every aspect of Chinese and English energy news discourses.
The results of this study are of great significance theoretically and practically. Having mastered the global rhetorical relation pattern in English and Chinese energy news discourses, we can obtain some enlightenment on news discourse analysis, teaching and translation. First of all, the major findings in this study can fill the gap of text types and provide a new research perspective for discourse analysis and news discourse analysis. Second, the global rhetorical relation pattern of energy news discourse can be a great help for English teachers in instructing students to read and write energy news in both English and Chinese more effectively. In the end, the findings can also solicit our thinking on translation from English energy news discourses to Chinese or vice versa.
引文
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