| This present thesis aims to explore the characteristics of the syntactic structure of China English (SSCE) in comparison with the syntactic structure of Standard English (SSSE).English, as an international language, has become a multinational, multicultural, and multifunctional language. The appearance of the term "Englishes" reflects the fact that English is no longer what it used to be. It no longer limits to American English and British English, Canada English, Australian English, etc. in the western countries. We also focus on English in the eastern countries such as Singaporean English, Indian English as well as our own English--China English. In the past two decades, China English has undergone an unstable experience. In 1980, the term China English was used in Mr. Ge Chuangui's article to refer to things and phenomena with Chinese characteristics. The controversial discussion of China English has begun since the end of 1980s, first focusing on the definition of and the attitudes towards it, and gradually shifting to the tentative explorations of its linguistic features, one of which is its syntactic structure. Despite these explorations, the study of the characteristics of SSCE is not a real systematical analysis based on China English and Standard English. First, most features of SSCE are just attached to other more important study targets of China English, so these features are sporadic. Second, these explorations do not base on quantitative analysis. Third, the scholars have just focused on the differences of the syntactic structure of Chinese and English, and according to these differences, they made some conclusions of the differences of the syntax between China English and Standard English. The purpose of this thesis is to give a quantitative study on the characteristics of SSCE.Chapter one is a general review of the development of and the study on China English and the positiveness of the study on China English is confirmed in this thesis.Chapter two is an analysis basis. First, four terms--China English, Chinese English, Standard English and Nonstandard English--are distinguished, and the relationship of this four terns are examined in a prototypical perspective. The distinction and the relation of them are the basis for the corpus design. Then some viewpoints of the Characteristics of SSCE suggested in previous works are presented: 1) short sentences and simple sentences with less subordination; 2) frontal adverbial modifiers; 3) passive structure inferiority; 4) anticipatory it deficiency. At last, there is a corpus design. The two corpora that have been selected for subjects of this study are news reports in China Daily and The New York Times written by their respective native journalists, each with 50 news reports and a total main text vocabulary of 27,677 and 27,674 words. Chapter three is the quantitative analysis of the characteristics of SSCE in comparison with SSSE. The findings in the study do not correspond to the suggested viewpoints. They show: 1) although with less subordination, news reports in China Daily are constructed with sentences almost the same length with those in The New York Times. 2) In the positioning of adverbials in a sentence, news reports in The New York Times have a higher proportion in frontal adverbials. 3) In regard to the specific patterns of passive structure and anticipatory it, both of them has a close frequency in China Daily and The New York Times. 4) Casual findings obtained in different stage are: China Daily favors fewer direct speeches and more clauses with bare relatives (without relatives), and China Daily uses present progressive tense less frequently and uses more expressions of combination of passive voice with understood subject it (take it is estimated…for example). This Chapter finally has a discussion about the internal reasons of the differences and non-differences of SSCE and SSSE found in the study.In conclusion, the study first gives a review of the quantitative analysis, and according to the findings, it makes a concl... |
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