A Study Of System-functional Perspective Of The Structure "X Is X"

As a structure which has a much distinguishing feature in modern Chinese language,"X is X"is widely used in social communication among people. Although it is simple, it can deliver abundant language meaning, therefore, this kind of structure has raised broad concern by scholars. The early study on the"X is X"structure mainly focused on the analysis of its format description and effect of rhetoric, but some of these scholars have tried to analyze the structure with the language theory of cognition and interconnection along with the introduction of new related theories.In the 1980's, the introduction of the transformational-generative linguistics to China from abroad caused wide concern to the academe. Different form the former traditional grammars, the transformational-generative linguistics pays close attention to the inner issues of language, which combines the language form itself and language functions organically. In the transformational-generative linguistics, the language is regarded that it possesses three main metafunctions: ideational function, interpersonal functions and textual function. In this test, through the analysis of corpus, the"X is X"structure is considered that there is specificity on its functions; it should be studied in the point of transformational-generation in the hope of getting a whole understanding to the structure.The main four parts of the test are as followings:In the second chapter, the paper analyzes the constructional characteristic of"X is X"structure on the aspect of structure form, and also analyzes the types of the"X", the characters and co-occurrence components of"is/are"separately, while stressing on the analysis of the difference of acceptable degree of the"X", which is in the different subdivision of the same word class. And final part of the second chapter is the discussion about the semantic and language environment restriction to the"X is X"structure.In the third chapter, the test focuses on the discussion of ideational function of the"X is X"structure with the discourse of transitivity function and logical function of it. People can use"X is X"structure widely to express different kinds of experiences in daily life, so the process of relation expression is the main transitivity type of the structure above. As for the"X is X"structure is concise on its form, so sometimes it need the help of information complementarity to make it intact on the meaning, and the relationships between them are as followings: elaboration, extension and enhancement.The fourth chapter is to observe the interpersonal functions of"X is X"structure, including the interpersonal functions of the whole structure and the components before"is/are".The fifth chapter is to analyze the"X is X"structure in the environment of text. This chapter aims to observe the textual function of"X is X"structure and analyze information structure, subject-rheme structure and function of cohesion of"X is X"structure.