从标记理论视角对比分析英汉被动句的无标记性_英语论文

Contrastive analysis on unmarkedness of English and Chinese passives from the perspective of markedness theory  

摘要

标记现象指一个语言范畴内的不对称现象。相对于有标记项，无标记项更自然，更基本，更中性，使用频率更高，分布更广泛。近年来，标记理论被越来越多的运用到语言学研究的各个领域中，但有关于英汉被动句的某一标记性对比研究相对较少。本文收集86句英语被动句及85句汉语被动句（包括35句意念被动句和50句被字句），以标记理论视角为出发点，从受事主语的生命度，情感色彩，以及时态三个方面，运用举例和描述论证，对比分析英汉被动句的无标记性。分析显示，英汉被动句的无标记性在三个不同方面表现不同。非生命受事主语在英汉语被动句中使用更频繁，无标记性更强；在人们的自然认知和语用习惯中，英语被动句和汉语意念被动句的情感多为客观中性，这种中性情感无标记性较强，而汉语被字句中，表示“遭受不幸”的消极情感是无标记的；在时态跨度和时态体现方面，英语被动句的时态分布更广，表达结构更加简单，比汉语被动句享有更强的无标记性。最后根据分析结果，试对二语习得和翻译提出可行性建议。

关键词   标记理论  无标记性  英汉被动句  对比分析

Abstract

Markedness refers to the asymmetric phenomenon in a linguistic category. Unmarked item, compared with marked item, is more natural, more neutral, more fundamental, and has higher using frequency and wider distribution. Since it was introduced to China, markedness theory has been applied to many fields of linguistic studies. But the contrastive studies on a certain markedness of English and Chinese passives are relatively lacking. From the perspective of markedness theory, this paper, collecting 86 English passives and 85 Chinese passives (including 35 notional passives and 50 bei-sentences), contrastively analyzes the unmarkedness of English and Chinese passives from the aspects of patient animacy, emotional color, and tense through example-illustration and description. The analysis shows that the unmarkedness of English and Chinese passives has different expressions in the three aspects. Inanimate patient has stronger unmarkedness in both English and Chinese passives, for it is more frequently-used than animate patient. According to people’s cognition and language using habits, the emotional color of English passives and Chinese notional passives is neutral in most cases, so the neutral emotional color is unmarked. But in Chinese bei-sentences, negative emotional color has stronger unmarkedness. As for the tense expression, English passives have wider distributions in time span and simpler structure than Chinese passives, thus, English passives possess stronger unmarkedness in the light of tense. According to the analysis, this thesis proposes feasible advice for second language acquisition (SLA) and translation.

Keywords  markedness theory  unmarkedness  English and Chinese passives  contrastive analysis

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Reasearch significance 1

1.3 Thesis organization 1

2 Literature review 3

2.1 Markedness theory 3

2.2 Relavent studies from the perspective of markedness theory 4

2.3 English and Chinese passives 5

3 Theoretical foundation and research metholodogy 7

3.1 The marked and the unmarked 7

3.2 Research metholodogy 7

4 Unmarkedness of English and Chinese passives 10

4.1 Patient animacy 10

4.2 Emotional color 11

4.2 Tense 13

Conclusion 15

Acknowledgements 18

References 19