A Contrastive Study Of Collocation In English And Chinese Context From A Cultural Perspective

This study is intended to examine the collocational differences in Chinese and English written texts, and the factors including values, philosophy, thinking patterns, ethical ideology, religion and literary quotations behind these differences. In the frame of the systemic-functional linguistics of Halliday, the study analyzes the collocational differences in two aspects: collocation within a phrase or sentence and collocation within a short span in a text.On the basis of the analysis described above, this article also discusses the application of collocation to teaching of English as a foreign language (TEFL for short, the same herein after) including vocabulary, reading, listening, speaking and translating.Five chapters dealing with different aspects of the research are contained in the thesis.Chapter One explains why the topic "A Contrastive Study of Collocation in English and Chinese Context from A Cultural Perspective" is chosen, the research significance, theoretical background of the study, as well as the research design.Chapters Two and Three present a contrastive study of collocation in Chinese and English texts from two levels: (1) collocation within a phrase or sentence, and (2) collocation within a short span in a text. Cultural factors causing collocationaldifferences are explored. These include values, philosophy, thinking pattern, ethical ideology, religion and literary quotations.Chapter Four discusses the application of collocation to TEFL.The last chapter arrives at the conclusion of the study.This thesis concludes that collocation is an important cohesive tie of a language, a type of syntagmatic lexical relations, which are linguistically predictable to a greater or lesser extent. Because of the cultural differences, the collocation mode is quite different in Chinese and English written texts. Accordingly, a contrastive study of the two cultures is essential to the study of collocation in English and Chinese texts. In the meantime, commanding collocation can be of great value to TEFL including vocabulary, reading, listening, speaking and translating.