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Сравнение китайских и английских речевых связок в устных повествованиях
A comparison between Chinese and English linkages
in oral narratives
Dongtao Yu
College of Foreign Languages, Hunan Institute of Science and Technology
[email protected] DOI: 10.24412/2686-9675-1-2021-22-36
аннотация
В статье представлены современные подходы к определению понятия и изучению слов-связок в англииском и китаиском языках, а также проведен сравнительныи анализ использования слов-связок в устнои речи на англииском и китаиском языках. Выявлены наиболее часто встречающиеся в обоих языках слова-связки, определены речевые ситуации, в которых употребляются эти слова. Материал статьи может быть полезен исследователям, изучающим китаискии и англиискии языки, лингвистам и литературоведам.
Ключевые слова и фразы: устная речь, повествование, китаискии язык, англиискии язык, речевые связки.
Для цитирования: Dongtao Yu. Сравнение китайских и английских связок в устных повествованиях. Современные востоковедческие исследования. 2021; 3(1). 22-36
abstract
The article presents modern approaches to the definition of the concept and the study of linkages in English and Chinese, as well as a comparative analysis of the use of linkages in oral speech in English and Chinese. The most frequently occurring linkages in both languages are identified, and the speech situations in which these words are used are determined. The material of the article may be useful for researchers studying Chinese and English, linguists and literary critics.
Keywords: oral speech, narrative, Chinese, English, linkages
For citation: Dongtao Yu. A comparison between Chinese and English linkages in oral narratives. Modern Oriental Studies. 2021; 3(1). 22-36
ФИЛОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ: ВОПРОСЫ СОВРЕМЕННОГО ЯЗЫКОЗНАНИЯ / DONGTAO YU / [email protected] / УДК 81-25
Introduction
Labov and Waletzky defined narrative as "one verbal technique for recapitulating past experience, in particular a technique of constructing narrative units which match the temporal sequence of that experience" (1967: 13). According to Fina and Georgakopoulou (2012:4), for narratol-ogists, a story (narrative) has to comprise a series of related events, and chronological ordering is the main criterion to distinguish stories from other texts. While in his Dictionary of Narratology, Prince proposed instead that such a link was not only chronological, but also causal. Most of the classical narratologists (Prince 1973; Genette 1980; Bal 1985; Chatman 1990; Prince 2003) held a similar viewpoint and defined narrative as a series of temporally and causally ordered events.
In a narrative a series of related events are represented by a series of related clauses. The connection between clauses can be realized implicitly or explicitly, i.e. without linkages or with linkages. In a narrative task, the narrator has to connect or organize events in a logic sequence by introducing and maintaining reference to the entities and persons involved in the events in a way that is coherent for the interlocutor (Carroll and Natale 2010), and by using proper linkages or "structural means" (Natale 2013) in a coherent text.
Linkages in narratives have been studied by researchers in language acquisition, discourse analysis and syntax. Natale (2013) compared the use of linkage in narratives between monoligual speakers of French and Italian, as well as early and late French-Italian bilinguals, and investigated in how far Italian-French bilinguals acquire the patterns of monolingual speakers of Italian. Arssen et
al. (2001) studied the development of linkage in narratives by comparing Turkish in four different settings, in Australia, France, the Netherlands and Turkey, to shed light on the question whether language contact influences the process of first language acquisition. Li (2009) compared the use of linkages in story-telling by Chinese native speakers and learners of Chinese as a foreign language from the perspective of discourse markers analysis to reveal the implication of the integration of the functions and meanings of discourse markers into L2 instruction. Nir and Berman (2010) studied the complex syntax in the sense of text-embedded clause-combining with 64 narrative texts written by graduate-level university students, native speakers of four different languages (English, French, Hebrew, and Spanish), examined the nature of syntactic architecture in monologic narratives, and compared how speaker-writer of different languages deploy syntactic packaging in the context of extended discourse. Scholars studied the function of M^ ranhou (then; and then) as a discourse marker and linkage in oral Mandarin Chinese. Wang and Zhou (2005) presented the traditional use of M^ ranhou (then; and then) in ancient Chinese and then studied its functional extension in modern Chinese by making a questionnaire investigation and corpus analysis. Xu (2009) identified three discourse function of M^ ranhou (then; and then) according to its prosodic features and position in the flow of discourse based on 8.22 hours of naturally occurring spoken Chinese data. Ma (2010) took M^ ranhdu (then; and then) and fM^ danshi (but) as examples to study the relations between discourse markers and pet phrases, showing that pet phrases are the realization of discourse
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markers, the further grammaticalization of the discourse markers driven by rhetoric intention.
The above mentioned studies on linkages are made from different angles, and they either made a comparison between languages from the perspective of language development, language learning or language contact, or they focus on some specific linkages in a certain language. However, a comparison between linkages in different languages should be based on a comprehensive linguistic analysis, and in turn a comprehensive linguistic analysis of linkages should be based on the study of specific language items. Furthermore, narrative possesses certain universal properties at the same time as presenting cultural specificity (Fina 2012).
In the present study we will examine the use of linkages in oral narratives by English and Chinese native speakers comprehensively and prove the universal properties and cultural specificity of narrative based on 20 Chinese and 20 English texts of Pear Stories, transcripts of narratives of 20 Chinese speakers and 20 English speakers after watching a short simple film made by a team led by Professor Wallace Chafe, a specialist in Native American languages.
Category of linkages in English and Chinese oral narratives
English is a synthetic language and Chinese an analytic one, and there are both similarities and differences in terms of category of linkages used in oral narratives in these two languages.
Conjunctions. Conjunctions are used as linkages in both English and Chinese. For example in the 20 English texts we have cited the following conjunctions, and, but, when, as, while, after, before,
because, so, even though, or, where, that, if, so that, etc.; and in the 20 Chinese texts we have cited the following conjunctions, M^ ranhou (then; and then), f ^ name (then), ^ ^j ieguo (consequently), @ % yinwei (because), ^^suoyi (so), ^^ keshi (but), ^^ buguo (but), ^^ yushi (thus), Mfi erqie (and that), ^Kbingqie (in addition), MM suiran (although), ruguo (if),
etc.. The majority of the linkages used in the texts are conjunctions, which is inconsistent with the characteristic of a narrative. But conjunctions of English and conjunctions of Chinese are still different in their positions and functions in a clause.
Adverbs. Adverbs are usually optional elements to the structure of a clause in both English and Chinese. The major function of an adverb is to modify a verb, a verb phrase, an adjective, another adverb, or a clause. But not all adverbs can serve as linkages in a narrative. In the English texts one such adverb is cited: then. And in the Chinese texts two such adverbs are cited: ^^ houlai (then), and W^ shouxian (firstly). Quirk et al (1985:440) summarized four grammatical functions of adverbs: ajuncts, subjuntcs, disjuncts, and conjuncts, and the last one refers to the expression of "the speaker's assessment of the relation between two linguistic units". Then is an example of adverbs serving the function of conjuncts. Similar to adverbs like then in English, ^^ houlai (then), and W^ shouxian (firstly) are used to show the relation between linguistic units, i.e. clauses or even greater units like texts, and they provide a temporal or sequential background for the following clause or text. According to the classification of adverbs made by Li
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and Thompson, "movable adverbs" are those which "may occur either before or after the topic or subject of a sentence" and "provide a semantic frame within which the event described by the sentence occurs" (Li and Thompson 1991: 320). ^^ houlai (then), and shouxian (firstly) are examples of this type.
Relative pronouns/adverbs. Relative clauses are common in English and they appear after the linguistic unit they modify and are usually linked by relative pronouns or relative adverbs with the main clause, serving as modifiers. In the 20 English oral narratives 123 cases of relative pronouns/ adverbs are cited. In Chinese a clause can also be used as a modifier, but it is only embedded in the main clause before the linguistic unit that it modifies, without any special formal linkage. In 20 Chinese texts two such examples are cited: one is used by narrator 10, the other by narrator 12.
(1) mMm^tmftmmm^-m......-
iSSt^To
Suoyi ta ba ta yijing zhaihao de manman de yilou ...yilou bale nazou le.
So he takes away that full basket ... that basket of guavas that he has already picked.
(2)
rnrnp^mm^o
Wo juede ta yinxiang xiaoguo henhao ya. Ta shang nage loutide shengyin dou hen qingchu.
I think its sound effect is really good. The sound (that is made when) he is climbing the ladder is very clear.
In example (1) there are two modifiers be-
fore the noun phrase -iSS yilou bale (a basket of guavas): one is a clause, ^BM^^ ta yijing zhaihao (he has already picked), the other is a reduplicated adjective, ^ man (full). Both of them show that they are modifiers of the noun phrase by just using a structural particle de. It is the same with the clause-modifier Ta shang
nage louti (he climes that ladder) in example (2).
Locatives: The locative is a special word category in Chinese, which refers to location originally. But they can also be used to refer to time through metaphor. For example, in the present research there are two locatives which are used as linkages in the 20 Chinese texts: ^^ yihou (later; after), and ¿fa zhihdu (later; after). Fundamentally both of them mean a physical position or location of something or somebody, i.e. being behind or after another thing or person. But now they are mainly used to show "the time after..." and serve as a linkage, providing a temporal background for a consecutive event or act. Following are two examples taken from Text 5.
(3) mM^^^fa,
Ta zou guoqu yihou, cong nabian guolaiyige xiao haizi, uh...qi...qi...qi yiliang jiaotache.
After he goes over, a boy comes over there, uh...riding...riding...riding a bike.
(4)
Nage zai shushang zhai... zhaishuiguo de nage lao xiansheng xialai zhihou, moming-qimiao de.
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After that old man who is picking...picking fruit comes down, (he) appears baffled.
Obviously, ^^ yihou (later; after) and ¿^ zhihdu (later; after) in the above examples link two clauses and provide a temporal background for the event or act narrated in the second clause.
Phrases. Phrases in both English and Chinese can be used as linkages between neighboring clauses in oral narratives, providing information of time, cause, sequence, etc. for the following clause. But the phrasal linkages in English and Chinese belong to different categories. In the 20 English texts two prepositional phrases are cited: by that time, and about the time; while in Chinese two noun phrases: ..IBff ...deshihou (when; the time when), and ^/IP(^) BBff zhe/na (ge) shihou (at this/that moment), and four verb phrases: ^T
guo le bujiu (soon; after a while), guo le yixia (soon; after a while), ( — (yi)
kaishi (at the (very) beginning), and jie
xialai (then; next), are cited. It is interesting to note that though the phrasal linkages in these two languages belong to different categories they are all related to temporal sequences.
Position of linkages in English and Chinese oral narratives
In the present research we have found that the position of the linkages of the English oral narratives is fixed, that is, all English linkages appear in the initial position of a clause: the initial position of a coordinate clause or a subordinate clause. So, linkages in English oral narratives can be classified into inter-clausal linkages and intra-clausal linkages.
Inter-clausal linkages are those which can link two or more clauses which are "constituents at the same level of constituent structure" (Quirk et al 1985: 918). And they are used between two or more independent clauses to link them together. Typical inter-clausal linkages in English include coordinators like and, but and or, and conjunct adverbs like then, so, yet and however. Preposition-phrasal linkages like by that time, about the time, and for some reason are also inter-clausal linkages.
Intra-clausal linkages are those which can introduce a subordinate clause to a superodinate clause (Quirk et al 1985: 918), that is, they demonstrate the clausal relation within a complex sentence. Typical intra-clausal linkages in English include subordinators like after, before, as, when, where, though/although, because, since, etc., and relative pronouns and adverbs like which, that, who, whom, where, when, etc.
Contrary to the English linkages, the Chinese linkages can take a flexible position in a clause, namely clause-initial, -middle, and -final positions. Some linkages can only take the the clause-final position, for example, ...lBl ...de shihou (when), ^ fa yihou (later; after), ¿^ zhihdu (later; after), etc., as shown in examples (3), (4), and (22). And other linkages can be positioned either in the cluase -initial position or after the topic/subject. In Text 15 the narrator uses the linkage ^/fP(^) Bff zhe/na (ge)shihou ((at) this/that moment) 10 times. Some are in the clause-initial position, and some are in the clause-middle position. For example,
(5)
ffi............
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Zhè shihàu, zhègè qfchë de xiâohâizi ne, ya, jiù bâ...ya, jiù ...ya, hen gânxiè ta bâ màozi nâ huilât
At this moment, the child riding a bike, oh, then ... oh, thanks him for bringing the hat back.
(6)
Zhègè nongrén ne, zhègè shihàuye xiàlâi.
The farmer climbs down at the moment.
So linkages in Chinese oral narratives can be classified into two groups: linkages in clause-final position and linkages in non-clause-final position. Among the linkages cited in the 20 Chinese oral narratives only two clause-final linkages: ... Eft^fl^ ...de
shfhàu (when) and ^/¿^ yï/zhïhàu (after), and the majority are non-clause-final linkages.
Function of linkages in English and Chinese oral narratives
Narrative is basically defined as a series of temporally and causally ordered events. So in order to put the events in a logical order in a narrative, the linkages are used to show the temporal or causal orders.
In 20 English texts 1239 cases of linkages have been counted. Table 1 shows the top five most frequently used linkages in these 20 texts, which is about 79.9% of all the linkages used.
Text And 1 and then that (functional) so which/ that (attributive)
1 60 16 5 1
2 47 9 6 5
3 15 4 2 4 3
4 22 4 2 4 4
5 26 7 2 5
6 32 4 4 1 2
7 33 3 10 2 8
8 20 4 1
9 34 2 6 5 2
10 46 7 19 9 10
11 41 10 6 4 4
12 29 3 5 7 7
13 31 12 5 5 5
14 38 7 2 3
15 42 2 11 1 3
16 4 7 1
17 46 6 5 5 10
18 22 2 6 3 1
19 28 2 2 1 3
20 22 5 2 4 3
Total 638 109 101 72 70
Таблица 1. Пять наиболее часто используемых связок в 20 английских текстах Table 1. Five most frequently used linkages in 20 English texts
1 And that is used to link words or phrases are excluded here.
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According to Table 1, and tops the five most frequently used linkages, and it takes about 56.06% of all the linkages counted in the 20 texts. Quirk et al (1985: 930) stated that "(a)nd is the coordinator which has the most general meaning and use. The only restriction on the use of and as coordinator is the pragmatic one that the clauses should have sufficient in common to justify their combination", which can be proved by our findings in the present study. Quirk et al (1985: 930-932) summarized eight different uses of and as a coordinator. In the following part we will illustrate the functions of and in oral narratives with examples taken from Text 1, which has the highest frequency of and among the 20 texts, based on the summary of Quirk et al.
(7) And as a consecutive linkage. And is
used to link two clauses of consecutive events or scenes. For example,
(8) And there's a ladder coming out ..o of the tree, and there's a man at the top of the ladder, ...
(9) And you watch him pluck a few pears, and he'd drop them into his thing, ...
And they help him get his bike up, and one kid takes the rock that he tripped on and he throws it off to the side of the road, and they set him upright, ...
And as a resultive linkage. And is used to link two clauses, and the second one is the consequence or result of the first. Just as Quirk et al (1985: 930) said that "[t]he second clause is a CONSEQUENCE or RESULT of the first; ie, the first conjoin presents the circumstance (frequently the circumstantial background) enabling the event described in the second conjoin to take place". For example,
(10) ... one of the pears drops down to the floor, and he picks it up, ...
(11) ... the guy walks by. And you watch the goat, disappearing all the way, ...
(12) ... you see him riding off and the next scene you see him, like at a at a distance, a pan shot.
(13) And then ..they walk ..the three boys walk down the road and they see ..the kid's hat. And so one of them whistles. And the kid on the bike turns around, and then he brings his hat to him, and the guy on the bike gives the other kid ..gives the kid that returns his hat ..three pears to share with his buddies.
And as a linkage showing hesitation. In
a task of oral narration, it is common to find a narrator hesitating in thinking about what to say next or in searching proper words or expressions to express what the narrator intends to say. Usually the narrator will use a prolonged and to buy some time. For example,
(14) A--nd u--h and then he gets down out of the tree, ...
(15) A--nd u--m then he climbs back up the ladder, ...
(16) A--nd.. U--m the bicycle's way too big for the kid.
And as an additive linkage. And links two clauses, and the second one just adds some extra information to the first one. For example,
(17) U--m the movie was in color. And the movie had sound track.
(18) ... and that's the end of the movie. And there's no ..no language ..used, ..throughout the whole thing.
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And as a contrast linkage. And is used to The uses of the 60 ands in Text 1 can be sum-
link two clauses, and the second clause shows marized with the following pie chart. a contrast against the first one. For example,
(19) And the goat's aaarrr but ..and they don't talk to each other, they don't .. I don't think they even look at each other, and ..the guy ..walks by.
Chart 1. The percentage of the uses of and in Text 1
Диаграмма 1. Процентное соотношение использований and в тексте 1
In these 60 ands 43 are used as consecutive linkages, taking about 72% of the total; nine are used as consequent linkages, taking about 15%; five are used as linkages showing hesitation, taking about 8%; 2 are used as additive linkages, taking about 3%; and one is used as a contrast linkage, taking about 2%.
And as a consecutive linkage obviously shows the temporal order of the events or scenes in an oral narrative. And actually the uses as re-sultive linkages also demonstrate the temporal order of the clauses, as Qurik et al (1985: 930) stated "[t]his entails that the order of the clauses also reflects chronological sequence". As a result 51 out of 60 uses of and in Text 1, i.e. 86.7% of the total uses, are actually showing the temporal order of the events or scenes in the oral narrative.
Furthermore, the second frequently used linkage in the 20 English oral narratives is and then, which is an overt demonstration of the temporal relation between the two clauses linked. Taking this into consideration about 66.9% of the top five linkages in 20 English oral narratives reveals the temporal sequence of the events or scenes.
In the present research we find a similar situation of the uses of linkages in Chinese oral narratives. In 20 Chinese oral narratives 436 cases of linkages have been cited. The following table shows the top five most frequently used linkages in these 20 Chinese texts, which is about 69% of all the linkages used.
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ЯШ
Text ranhdu ...de shihdu jieguö zhe/na (ge)shihdu suoyi
(then) (when) (as a result) ((at) this/that moment) (so)
1 6 3 8
2 4 6 1
3 1 1 4
4 4 3 3 2 1
5 12 3 9 9
6 17 4 5 1
7 9 3 6 3
8 5 3 5 2
9 10
10 12 1 2 6
11 5 2 2
12 1 1 2 1
13 9 4
14 4 1
15 12 2 3 10 3
16 9 2
17 8 2 1
18 4
19 7 4 8 1 4
20 8 1 1 2 3
Total 143 49 41 35 33
Таблица 2. Пять наиболее часто используемых Table 2. Five most frequently used linkages in 20
Among the top five linkages in 20 Chinese oral narratives, MM ranhou, ...IBff ...de shihou
and Ж/SCt) Biff zhe/na (ge)shihou are basically expressions of time, i.e., about 75.4% of the linkages are used to show the temporal sequence of events or scenes.
The core meaning of MM ranhou is "then", "what happens next", and it fundamentally shows the temporal sequence of events or actions. For example, in Text 6 the narrator describes how the
связок в 20 китайских текстах Chinese texts
three boys found a hat on the ground and returned it to the boy riding a bike by using several MM ranhou.
(20) Hf^iii^Ti^tasts
Ш......
ffilft^^o MM, мт-^ппйо
^-t, ......mm, жадте
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Sange xiáohái jixu zou xiáqu jiu kándáo náge
nánhái......ganggang diedáo náge nánháizi de máozi
zái disháng. Ránhou, jiu bá máozi jián qilái. Ránhou, jiu chuile yi sheng kousháo. Ta jiu huítóu yí
kán, ta huí...... ta jiu huítóu yí kán. Ránhou, ná
jiándáo máozi de nánhái jiu bá máozi
jiaogei ta.
The three boys go on with their way and see that boy ... the hat of the boy who just fell off on the ground. Then, (one of the boys) picks up the hat. Then, (he) whistles. He turns round. He turns ... he turns round. Then, the boy picking up the hat gives him the hat.
Just like and, ^fa ranhou is also multifunctional. Li (2009) proposed that Mfa ranhou "can function as a verbal filler and hesitation device, providing the narrator with linguistic planning time"; Xu (2009) held that Mfa ranhou can be used as a topic-starter. We can take the opening part of Text 6 as the example.
(21) -msrn-
Ж
^шшо тшш......
MB ...... ÍWHSÜol^Kfelffi ......
............ftttílítti.
Yi kaishí diyígé huámián jiushi, you lusé, háoxiáng you shan a, shu. Ránhou háiyou lusé de dáolu. Zenme jiáng? Yánsé mán xianyán de. Ránhou jiushi... kándáo yí ge rén zái zhai balé. En, ránhou ... zái shusháng zhai balé. Zhaiwán yíhóu jiu bá ... en, cóng shusháng ... ta nágé ... you ge tízi dazái shusháng.
In the first picture at the beginning, all is green, and as if there are mountains, trees. Then there is a green road. How to say it? It is bright in color. Then there is ... (you can) see a man picking guava. Um, then ... picking guava in a tree. After picking (he) then ... um, from the tree ... there is a ladder in the tree.
In Example (21) the narrator firstly introduces the first picture shown in the movie. After that she wants to describe something else, i.e., to start a new topic, so she uses the first Mfa ranhou to change the topic. But she later finds it is hard to go on with this topic and says How to say
it?". Then she starts another topic - the man picking guava - by using the second Mfa ranhou. But later she cannot find proper words or expressions to go on with her narration, so she employs the third ffl fa ranhou, a verbal filler and hesitation device, with a pause after it to buy some time to think about what to say next. From this example we can also see whether Mfa ranhou functions as a topic-starter or a hesitation device, it is still based on its core meaning and shows a temporal order.
...l№ ...de shihou and №
zhe/na (ge)shihou are basically synonymous. Both of them indicate that two or more events happen almost at the same time and provide a background for what is presented in the following clause or section of the same clause. But ...l^flf ...de shihou is usually attached to the end of a clause; ^/f (^)^flf zhe/na (ge)shihou appears at the beginning of a clause, and usually there is a pause after it. The following example shows us the features of these two linkages clearly. In describing how the
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boy riding a bike meets a girl and falls off the bike the narrator of Text 15 uses both ...lBl ...de shihou and ^/fP(^) Bff zhe/na (ge)shihou.
(22) ft-« ...... ffl^ ...... ^tlBl
^a^xffiw-^^, «»a......
......im......mw&ftfmaTo^,»......
m ......
......
Zaiyige lu... ya, tianye... luzhong de shihou ne, pengdao le yige nuhaizi. En, zhege shihou ne, zhege xiaohaizi dagai you yidian ne, ya kandao qianmian ... ya, jiushi nage ... gang ... ganghao zhe shihou, feng chuidao le. O, ba ta ... maozi chuizou le. Ya, suoyi ya, zhege shihou, zhege xiaohaizi you kan le nage nuhaizi, kan le yi yan. Meiyou zhuyidao luzhong you yige shitou. Ta ba ... zhe chezi you kai guoqu la. Ranhou, pengdao nage shitou, chezi jiu
diao ... ya, shuai xialai le. Zhe shihou, zhengge shuiguo quanbu sande mandi doushi.
When (he is riding) on a road ... oh, a road ... (in a) field, (he) meets a girl. Um, at this moment, this boy has a kind of ... oh (he) looks ahead ... oh, just at that ... just at this moment, a wind blows. O, he ... his hat is blown away. Oh, so, at this moment, this boy looks at that girl again, looks at her again. (He) doesn't notice there's a stone in the road. He goes on ... riding his bike. And then, (his bike) hits that stone, his bike falls ... oh, he falls off. At this moment, all the fruits are scattered everywhere.
The above comparison between the five most frequently used linkages in 20 English and Chinese texts reveals that both English and Chinese narratives tend to employ a similar device, i.e. temporal linkages, in connecting events or scenes together. This can also be supported by the following two tables summarizing the linkages used in 20 English and 20 Chinese texts respectively. Altogether 1239 linkages have been cited in the 20 English texts and 436 linkages have been cited in the 20 Chinese texts.
temporal consequent attributive functional adversative causal others
652 168 123 111 61 18 106
52.6% 13.6% 9.9% 9% 4.9% 1.5% 8.6%
Таблица 3. Классификация и процентное соотношение использований связок в 20 английских текстах
Table 3. Classification and percentage of the linkages used in 20 English texts2
2 In this table the 638 ands cited in 20 texts are divided mainly into temporal, consequent and others (including and used to show hesitation, addition and contrast) according to the percentage of Chart 1. Besides, under the title "others" some other minor linkages are included, like concessive (even though), selective (or), locative (where), conditional (if), etc.
ФИЛОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ: ВОПРОСЫ СОВРЕМЕННОГО ЯЗЫКОЗНАНИЯ / DONGTAO YU / [email protected] / УДК 81-25
temporal consequent adversative causal progressive others
278 76 49 22 5 6
68.1% 17.4% 6.9% 5% 1% 1%
Таблица 4. Классификация и процентное соотношение использований связок в 20 китайских текстах Table 4 Classification and percentage of the linkages used in 20 Chinese texts
The two tables show that in both English and Chinese oral narratives the most frequently used linkages are temporal ones, taking more than half of the linkages used, which is in consistent with the most important feature of a narrative. The second important feature of narratives is the causal order of events. In these two tables we can find that the second most frequently used linkages are consequent ones, taking 13.6% and 17.4% of the total in English and Chinese respectively. If we take the causal linkages into consideration the percentage of the linkages showing the causal order is 15.1% in English and 22.4% in Chinese.
In the rest of the linkages used in English, 9.9% is attributive linkages, such as which, that, where, who, etc., and 9% is functional linkages. In this research the functional linkage cited is mainly that used to introduce object or predicative clauses in traditional sense. Because of the syntactic difference between English and Chinese these linkages are not found in Chinese narratives.
Conclusion
The backbone of a narrative resides in the narrative clauses (Labov and Waletzky 1967), i.e. clauses temporally or causally linked with each other. The comparison between the top five linkages in 20 English and 20 Chinese oral narratives on the same topic shows that about 66.9% of the link-
ages in English and about 75.4% of the linkages in Chinese reveal the temporal sequence of the events or scenes. In the further semantic function analysis of all the 1239 linkages cited in the 20 English texts and 436 linkages cited in the 20 Chinese texts reveals a similar result, more than 50% of the linkages used is temporal. The second frequently used linkages are causal ones, taking 15.1% in English and 22.4% in Chinese. The comparative study between the linkages in English and Chinese proves this linguistic universality of narratives well.
On the other hand, English and Chinese are very different languages, so surely there are differences between them. The majority of the linkages in both English and Chinese is conjunction, but there are conjunctions only found in English but not in Chinese, for example, the functional linkage that, which is used to introduce object or predictive clauses in traditional sense. Besides, there are categories of linkages which can only be found in one language but not in the other. To make a clause complex and more informative a clause can be used to modify a noun, or another clause both in English and Chinese, but the modifying clause is linked to the main clause in different ways. In English usually a formal linkage, i.e. a relative pronoun/adverb is used, while in Chinese no formal linkage is required. In Chinese locatives can be used as linkages to link the neighboring clauses
INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE JOURNAL / МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫЙ НАУЧНЫЙ ЖУРНАЛ
and to show the temporal relation between them. In English the category which is closest to Chinese locative is preposition, though the two examples cited in the 20 Chinese texts I^M yihou (later; after), and ¿M zhihdu (later; after) are generally post-positioned. Furthermore, the position of narrative linkages in a clause also reflects the the syntactic difference between English and Chinese. The word order of English is more rigid or fixed compared with that of Chinese. The narrative linkages in English are generally appear in the clause-initial position, no matter it is an inter-linkage, linking two or more independent clauses, or intra-clausal linkage, introducing a subordinate clause to a su-perodinate clause. While narrative linkages in Chinese can take a much freer position. In analyzing the relationship of the clauses in a Chinese text Li and Thompson (1981: 631-656) held that there are essentially two kinds of sentence linking in Chinese, forward linking and backward linking, based on the dependency between the neighboring clauses, which can be realized by forward-linking elements in clause-final position, adverbial forward-linking elements which may be movable or non-movable elements that can be positioned after the topic/subject or in clause-initial position, perfective aspect, adverbial back-linking elements in clause-initial position, and nonmovable adverbs. As analyzed in the present study narrative linkages in Chinese may take a clause-initial, clause-middle, or clause-final position, and they can be classified into linkages in clause-final position and linkages in non -clause-final position.
The aims of the present research are to reveal the similarities and differences between English and Chinese linkages in oral narratives and to
prove the universal properties and cultural specificity of narrative. The data used in the study can provide sufficient evidence to fulfill the first task, but as to the second task the data should be expanded to include more languages samples, so relevant studies are needed to further the present research.
Литература
1. Aarssen, Jeroen, Mehmet-Ali Akinci, and Kutlay Yagmur. 2001. "Development of clause linkage in narratives: a comparison of Turkish children in Australia, France, the Netherlands and Turkey." In Margareta Almgren, et al.(eds.) Research on Child Language Acquisition: Prodeedings of the 8th Conference of the International Association for the Study of Child Language, 41-56. Som-erville: Cascadilla Press.
2. Bal, M. 1985. Narratology: Introduction to the theory of narrative. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
3. Carroll, Mary and Silvia Natale. 2010. "Macrostructural perspective taking and reference management in narratives in German, Italian and L1 German - L2 Italian." In Marina Chini(ed.) Topic, structura dell'informazione e acquisizione linguistica, 197-217. Milano: Franco Angeli.
4. Chatman, S. 1990. Coming to terms: The rhetoric of narrative in fiction and film. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
5. Fina, Anna D. and Alexandra Georgakopou-lou. 2012. Analyzing Narrative: Discourse and Sociolinguistic Perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press.
6. Genette, G. 1980. Narrative discourse. J. E. Lewin (trans.) Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
7. Labov, W. And J. Waletzky. 1967. Narrative analysis: oral versions of personal experi-
ФИЛОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ: ВОПРОСЫ СОВРЕМЕННОГО ЯЗЫКОЗНАНИЯ / DONGTAO YU / [email protected] / УДК 81-25
ence. In J. Helm (ed.) Essays on the verbal and visual arts, 63-83. Seattle/London: University of Washington Press.
8. Li, Charles N. And Sandra A. Thompson. 1989. Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley and Los Angles: University of California Press.
9. Li, Xiaoshi. 2009. Do they tell stories Differently?: discourse marker use by Chinese native speakers and nonnative speakers. Intercultural Communication Studies 18(2): 150170.
10. Ma, Guoyan. 2010. Discourse markers and pet phrases: taking "ranhou" and "danshi" as examples. Language Teaching and Research 4: 69-76. --
2010(4): 69-76.)
11. Natale, Silvia. 2013. Linkage in narratives: A comparison between monolingual speakers of French and Italian, and early and late French-Italian bilinguals. IRAL 51: 151-169.
12. Nir, Bracha and Ruth A. Berman. 2010. Complex syntax as a window on contrastive rhetoric. Journal of Pragmatics 42(3): 744-765.
13. Prince, G. 1973. A grammar of stories. The Hague: Mouton.
14. Prince, G. 2003. A dictionary of narratology. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
15. Quirk, Randolph et. Al. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London and New York: Longman.
16. Wang, Wei and Zhou Weihong. 2005. On extension of the word "ranhou" in modern spoken Chinese and its mechanism. Chinese Language Learning 4: 31- 39. (ift, "E
p rnawr*
2005(4): 31-39.)
17. Xu, Jiajin. 2009. The discourse marker "ranhou" and its functions in spoken Chinese.
Foreign Language Research 2: 9-15. (ii^^.
2009(2): 9-15.)
References
1. Aarssen, Jeroen, Mehmet-Ali Akinci, and Kutlay Yagmur. 2001. "Development of clause linkage in narratives: a comparison of Turkish children in Australia, France, the Netherlands and Turkey." In Margareta Almgren, et al.(eds.) Research on Child Language Acquisition: Prodeedings of the 8th Conference of the International Association for the Study of Child Language, 41-56. Som-erville: Cascadilla Press.
2. Bal, M. 1985. Narratology: Introduction to the theory of narrative. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
3. Carroll, Mary and Silvia Natale. 2010. "Macrostructural perspective taking and reference management in narratives in German, Italian and L1 German - L2 Italian." In Marina Chini(ed.) Topic, structura dell'informazione e acquisizione linguistica, 197-217. Milano: Franco Angeli.
4. Chatman, S. 1990. Coming to terms: The rhetoric of narrative in fiction and film. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
5. Fina, Anna D. and Alexandra Georgakopou-lou. 2012. Analyzing Narrative: Discourse and Sociolinguistic Perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press.
6. Genette, G. 1980. Narrative discourse. J. E. Lewin (trans.) Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
7. Labov, W. And J. Waletzky. 1967. Narrative analysis: oral versions of personal experience. In J. Helm (ed.) Essays on the verbal and visual arts, 63-83. Seattle/London: University of Washington Press.
8. Li, Charles N. And Sandra A. Thompson.
INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE JOURNAL I МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫЙ НАУЧНЫЙ ЖУРНАЛ
1989. Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley and Los Angles: University of California Press.
9. Li, Xiaoshi. 2009. Do they tell stories Differently?: discourse marker use by Chinese native speakers and nonnative speakers. Intercultural Communication Studies 18(2): 150-170.
10. Ma, Guoyan. 2010. Discourse markers and pet phrases: taking "ranhou" and "danshi" as examples. Language Teaching and Research 4: 69-76. --
2010(4): 69-76.)
11. Natale, Silvia. 2013. Linkage in narratives: A comparison between monolingual speakers of French and Italian, and early and late French-Italian bilinguals. IRAL 51: 151-169.
12. Nir, Bracha and Ruth A. Berman. 2010. Complex syntax as a window on contrastive rhetoric. Journal of Pragmatics 42(3): 744-765.
13. Prince, G. 1973. A grammar of stories. The Hague: Mouton.
14. Prince, G. 2003. A dictionary of narratology. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
15. Quirk, Randolph et. Al. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London and New York: Longman.
16. Wang, Wei and Zhou Weihong. 2005. On extension of the word "ranhou" in modern spoken Chinese and its mechanism. Chinese Language Learning 4: 31- 39. (ift, "M
2005(4): 31-39.)
17. Xu, Jiajin. 2009. The discourse marker "ranhou" and its functions in spoken Chinese. Foreign Language Research 2: 9-15. (ii^^.
©fflft, 2009(2): 9-15.)
Информация об авторе
Dongtao Yu
Хунаньский институт науки и технологий [email protected]
Information about the Author
Dongtao Yu
College of Foreign Languages, Hunan Institute of Science and Technology. [email protected]
Статья одобрена рецензентами: 18.02.2021 Статья принята к публикации: 15.03.2021
Reviewed: 18.02.2021 Accepted: 15.03.2021
