A Contrastive Analysis On Topic Composition Between Chinese And English

In recent years, topic is not only a hot spot but a difficult problem in Chinese research experience. Though discussed by many years, the identity of topic in Chinese is still not getting confirmation. In the paper, after the brief introduction of previous literature, the topic composition is divided into two parts-- subject and topic and separately gets a comparative analysis from Chinese to English.This paper firstly investigates the general constitution of topic composition in English and Chinese, and then puts forward the existing problems; The subject gets a contrastive analysis from the aspects of concept, surface structure, deep semantic etc. And the contrastive analysis on topic involves: typical topic, topic marker, the hierarchy and flexibility of topic, origin of the topic etc. This paper also points out the intrinsic characteristics and differences of topic composition between Chinese and English and promulgates the essential origins from the aspects of the world view of language, language philosophy, and cognitive linguistics etc. The author gives his own viewpoints on the other problems and research methods related to topic composition.This paper is divided into four sections:The first chapter defines the research the object of the paper and comparatively recommends the concepts, types and characteristics of"subject","topic"and"theme"and also points out the existing inextricable problems.The second chapter is the main content of this paper. In order to discover the differences and characteristics, this chapter shows a specific and comprehensive contrastive analysis on subject and topic in Chinese and English and tries to discover the differences of topic composition between the two languages. The part of subject involves the concept, surface structure, and deep semantic; and in the part of topic, the author firstly contrasts the common type of the topic of two languages and then investigates details on topic marker, the hierarchy and flexibility of topic, origin of the topic etc, and shows a detailed analysis on Chinese topic. The third chapter promulgates the essential origins from the aspects of the world view of language, national mode of thinking and interprets the reason of the complicated circumstances in cognition.The fourth chapter summarizes the viewpoints of the paper, proposes some existing problems in research on Chinese language, and points out the deficiencies and limitations of this paper.