英语专业开题报告大纲范文.doc

Research Proposal forA Comparative Analysis of Chinese-English Anaphorain A Dream of Red Mansions红楼梦中汉英回指的对比分析开题报告 1. Introduction1.1 BackgroundLanguage is a kind of tool which is used for describing objects, interpreting matter, conveying emotion, exchanging information and maintaining interpersonal relationship. Meanwhile utterance and discourse always center on person, objects or events. Therefore, in an essay or a dialogue, what kind of language components should be used to indicate the same person, object or event when they have been mentioned several times? How we can make readers or listeners better understand our intention? The two questions are related to anaphora in linguistics.Anaphora is a useful grammatical cohesive device for textual coherence which appears in everyday life with high frequency. It is widely used because it is regarded as a useful way of avoiding redundancy of expression. Recent years many scholars have paid more attention on the comparative studies in Chinese and English, finding that anaphora plays a significant role in context cohesion and reference. At the same time, with the development of powerful computer and relevant statistic software, corpus linguistics has quickly flourished as a new linguistic subject. With the help of the corpus analysis, study of anaphora is pushed forward step by step.1.2 Research Rationale and Objective Since the 1980s, an enormous amount of work on anaphora has blossomed in scope and depth from different perspectives, like the syntactic, pragmatic, functional and cognitive studies. As far as anaphora is concerned, we need to develop a pragmatic awareness of this kind of reference.Now this thesis tries to make a tentative study of Chinese-English anaphora from some examples in the masterpiece A Dream of Red Mansion. In this way can we enrich our mind and enhance our communicative abilities. Apart from that, we can deeply understand the quintessence of the culture of Chinese and English, obtain abundant language skills and improve writing and translation abilities. Meanwhile, we can enhance the competence of cross-culture communication.2. Literature ReviewChomsky (1981, 1982) and Aoun (1985) are two outstanding experts who make great contributions to the research into anaphora. In the Government and Binding Theory proposed by Chomsky, he mentions a method to analyze anaphora from the syntactic level. Aoun (1985) focuses on the research of anaphora and constructs grammar of anaphora, indicating that grammar is a symmetric theory of anaphora. Ariel (1990) proposes the Accessibility Theory, which is constructed on human cognitive regularity. She researches anaphora according to peoples accessibility to the expression presented. Halliday and Hasan (1976) study anaphora from the angle of text and function. They emphasize the cohesive function of anaphoric expression in a text. They propose two kinds of reference, and argue that anaphora has crucial function of textual organization. Their research on anaphora has great influence on functional grammar.Some Chinese scholars, such as Huang Guowen(1988), Zhu Yongsheng (2011), etc., have made research on anaphora in their studies. They indicate that anaphora (a kind of reference in their words) has the function of textual cohesion. Xiong Xueliang (1999) analyses the characteristic of zero anaphora and gives a schematic assumption to account for the phenomenon in the theoretical framework of cognitive grammar. Xu Yunlong (2004) points out the confirmation mechanism of textual anaphora on the basis of accessibility and topicality, and defines topic as a cognitive mental entity constructed in textual comprehension for readers.These previous studies have provided theoretical foundation for the present research. 3. Research ContentsThe thesis is inspired by and derived from the following elements:First, this paper starts with brief researches of anaphora, which acts as a premise for our following explorations.Second, the author presents definition, components and classification of anaphora. Third, the thesis analyses some similarities and differences of anaphora both in Chinese and English versions of the masterpiece A Dream of Red Mansion and draw some conclusions. 4. Originative PointsFirstly, through the comparative studies on anaphora in Chinese and English, we can further understand the differences and similarities in Chinese and English language system. Furthermore, our translation competence and communication skills can benefit from the study. Secondly, A Dream of Red Mansion is one of the fabulous works among long novels in China, a masterpiece in the art of literature and the treasure of Chinese. Its language is closer to natural language and the content approach to our real life. As we all know, it reflects the Chinese history, custom and peoples psychology status. Hence, through further study of the work, we can grasp its gist.5. Outline Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Background 1.2 Research Rationale and ObjectiveChapter 2 Literature ReviewChapter 3 Major Concepts Concerning Anaphora 3.1 Definition of Anaphora 3.1.1 Origin of Anaphora 3.1.2 Definition of Anaphora in Rhetoric 3.1.3 Definition of Anaphora in Linguistics 3.2 Components of Anaphora 3.2.1 Antecedents 3.3.2 Anaphors 3.3 Classification of AnaphoraChapter 4 A Comparative Analysis of Chinese-English Anaphora in A Dream of Red Mansion 4.1 Nominal Anaphora 4.1.1 The NA in Chinese 4.1.2 The NA in English 4.1.3 The Differences and Similarities of NA in Chinese and English 4