On The Expression Of Subjective Perspective In Chinese

Linguistic subjectivity is a common focus of the studies in cognitive linguistics, functional linguistics and pragmatics. Three aspects are mainly concerned with the expression of linguistic subjectivity, and they are a speaker's perspective, affect and epistemic modality. This dissertation aims to study the expression of subjective perspective in Chinese. Based on cognitive, functional and pragmatic theories, the study extracts and discusses some analytic points on the expression of subjective perspective in the areas of subjective quantity, person deixis, time and space. The whole dissertation consists of 5 chapters.Chapter 1 is a general introduction to linguistic subjectivity and perspective. Based on a philosophic discussion of the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity, it first emphasizes that linguistic subjectivity is both a matter of degree and universality. Then it makes a brief survey of the studies on linguistic subjectivity and demonstrates the importance of the study on subjective perspective. At the same time, some preliminary concepts on perspective are also presented in this chapter.Chapter 2 presents two types of perspective causes on subjective quantity: reference and Gestalt. It claims that three kinds of quantity are generally referred from a speaker's perspective in the expression of subjective quantity: the normal quantity, the expected quantity, and the Gestalt quantity. The normal quantity is formed on people's common sense, the expected quantity on a speaker's or a hearer's expectation, and the Gestalt quantity on a speaker's image of Gestalt cognition. Among the three kinds of quantity the normal quantity and the expected quantity can be used as the reference to a speaker's perspective in expressing large or small subjective quantity, while the Gestalt quantity is inclined to express large subjective quantity because of its cognitive nature.Chapter 3 reveals two kinds of subjective phenomena on perspective in the category of person deixis. One is the shift reference and the other is the empty reference. The shift reference is a violation of the consistence between the literal reference and the actual reference, which is mainly reflected on"number"(singular or plural) and"person"(first, second or third person). With the insights from the theories on pragmatic empathy, linguistic adaptation and intersubjectivity, the following expressions on the shift reference are discussed in this chapter: the shift reference of the second person to the first; the shift reference of the plural on the first person to the singular on the second person; the shift reference of the plural to the singular on the first person; the shift reference of the first person to the second; the shift reference of renjia and the shift reference of the discourse markers"X+shuo/xiang/kan". As for the case of the empty reference, the discussion is focused on the ditransitive construction with empty reference"ta", namely the structure of V+ta+P(num).Chapter 4 discusses two kinds of subjective models on perspective in the category of time and space. One of them is on a speaker's perception of movement and the other is on distance. Based on the model of movement, this chapter analyses the subjective expression of"deng mingtian / gan minger""lai / qu""xialai / xiaqu"and the"fictive motion". Within the model of distance the subjective expression of"lai / qu"and"zhe /na"is demonstrated.Chapter 5 is a conclusion to the major views of this dissertation and some suggestions are also made for future study on the topic under investigation.