A Comparative Study Of English And Chinese Supplementary Adversative Adverbial Conjunctions In Thematic Structure

This thesis focuses on comparing the English and Chinese supplementary adversative adverbial conjunctions in the thematic structure.Due to the flexible position of adverbial conjunctions in the clause,it is feasible to compare the English and Chinese thematic structures of the clauses with supplementary adversative adverbial conjunctions.Besides,these adverbial conjunctions are extensively applied in the English and Chinese discourse as cohesive devices,so it is significant to explore the similarities and differences between the English and Chinese supplementary adversative adverbial conjunctions in the different positions of thematic structure.Based on the authentic linguistic materials collected from the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the Corpus of Centre for Chinese Linguistics PKU,the thesis applies the quantitative and qualitative analysis.Through the elaborate analysis of the frequency,semantic features and functions of English and Chinese supplementary adversative adverbial conjunctions in thematic structure,we can draw the following conclusions:1.When actually,certainly,really and qishi(其实),dangran(当然),shijishang(实际上)perform as marked themes,they usually emphasize the adversative semantic relation between the preceding content and the following content and imply there will be a supplement to the preceding clause,which is the similarity between the two groups of adverbial conjunctions.While the adversative forces of these adverbial conjunctions as marked themes vary from one another.Among the English supplementary adversative adverbial conjunctions,the adversative force of actually is the strongest among the three words.2.When these English and Chinese supplementary adversative ACs are in the multiple theme,they are conjunctive adjuncts which are a part of the textual theme,an element of the multiple theme.The difference is that the English supplementary adversative adverbial conjunctions usually go with the other elements in the multiple themes such as continuative,coordinator which are textual themes,the modal adjunct as the interpersonal theme and the topical theme.However,the Chinese supplementary adversative adverbial conjunctions often go together with adversative conjunctions,which is also an element of textual theme and the topical theme.This is the difference between the English and Chinese thematic structures as well.3.Besides,when these supplementary adversative adverbial conjunctions are in the rhemes,English supplementary adversative ACs can appear in the middle of the subject and predicate or at the end of the clause.While the Chinese supplementary adversative ACs only appear in the middle of subject and predicate.In addition,the adversative force of these supplementary adversative adverbial conjunctions in the rheme is weaker than that of these adverbial conjunctions as marked themes.