A Study On The Main Characters Of Chinese Spoken Chinese In Advanced Stage

Recent studies of foreign students’ Chinese have paid much more attention on their written discourse than oral discourse. And most of the studies focus on the non-structural characters of the discourse, such as reference, substitute, and omission. Only a few focuses on structural characters of the discourse, such as theme-rheme structure, and even less aim at oral discourse theme-rheme structure. Thus, figuring out the theme-rheme characters of foreign students’ Chinese is what we try to do in this paper. We collect different types of linguistic corpus of advanced Chinese learners from their speech, spontaneous expression, first semester exam and second semester exam. The purpose is to find out the similarities and difference in different circumstances, which can be shown by the use of theme, marked theme and theme-rheme progression. With this goal in mind, we did the following three different things:First, we discussed the usage of theme in different discourses. The study shows that students tend to share many similarities in the use of theme in their speech and spontaneous expression, which differentiates the use of theme in the two exams. They prefer to use simple theme in speech and spontaneous expression, while prefer to use more multiple theme in the two exams. The majority of simple theme is built by topical theme while a large percent of multiple theme is built by the combination of textual theme and topical theme. The most popular textual themes are "yinwei(因为)’’"suoyi(所以)”,then come "danshi(但是)/ke shi(可是)”and "ranhou(然后)”The most popular personal theme is "wojuede (我觉得)”, then comes "birushuo(比如说)”,and then "keneng(可能)’"’dangran(当然)’”yiding (一定)’’"qishi(其实)". The most widely used topical theme is nominal phrase, then pronoun, and then verbal phrase. Besides, we also find some errors in the choice of theme in foreign students’ oral discourse. The most common errors are theme overuse, theme deficiency, and theme misuse, in which theme overuse takes the greatest percentage.Second, we discussed the usage of marked theme in different discourses. The study shows that speech and spontaneous expression discourse tend to take a similar percentage in the use of marked theme, which exceed the use of that in the two exams a little bit. In different discourses, students show a similar tendency in the use of grammatical and functional item in the marked theme. As for grammatical items, noun and nominal phrase is their favorite, preposition and preposition phrase goes second, verb and verbal phrase as well as adverbial and adverbial phrase come last. As for functional items, time expression are very popular used, students tend to used different ways to expression time. Place expression is also widely used but less than time expression. Target expression is the third. Range expression, accordance expression, condition expression and status expression are not very widely used. We also discussed the pragmatic meaning of marked theme. It helps to balance the sentence structure, emphasize crucial information and enhance the cohesion and coherence of discourse. Using marked theme can help the speaker achieve their different purpose.Third, we discussed the usage of theme-rheme progression in different discourses. The study shows that students have a similar preference in the use of the eight progressions under different circumstances. Constant theme and simple linear are the two most widely used patterns. Concentrated rheme pattern and alternative pattern go second. Combining pattern comes after. Parallel pattern, split rheme pattern and no-conspicuous connection pattern use the least. We also find some connection between theme-rheme pattern and the genre of discourse. Constant theme takes a larger percentage in narrative discourse than in expository discourse and argumentative discourse. Simple linear is very common in argumentative discourse. Concentrated theme shows a distinct preference in expository discourse than in narrative and argumentative discourse. Alternative pattern are more widely used in argumentative discourse than in narrative and expository discourse. Parallel pattern are more common in narrative discourse. Split rheme pattern take an obvious advantage in argumentative discourse. No-conspicuous connection pattern shows a larger percent in expository discourse and argumentative discourse. So does the combing pattern. In addition, we still find some errors in the theme-rheme progression of foreign students’ oral Chinese. The most common errors are theme or rheme deficiency, theme-rheme fault, and theme-rheme redundancy.