A Contrastive Study On The Cohesion And Coherence Of English And Chinese Text Messages

Text message(also short message in the following thesis) is a new language form along with the prevalence of mobile phones.This thesis aims to explore the discourse features of this specific discourse from the perspective of discourse contrastive study and ultimately discover the similarities and differences of English and Chinese text messages in the features of cohesion and coherence.Cohesion and coherence theory is the core theory of discourse study and the important topic in discourse analysis.Since its appearance,this theory has gained unprecedented development in the last decades;meanwhile contrastive discourse around this theory has developed quickly.It is shown in our country that the contrastive study of English and Chinese discourse has become the focus of linguistic scholars,and they mainly adopt theoretical framework of Western linguistics.Text message,as a new and hot language form,is worth our study.It will help our understanding of text messages and the knowledge of cohesion and coherence theory.Chapter one is the literature review of the present study.As a native Chinese, when doing the contrastive study of text message on cohesion and coherence,the author of this thesis adopts methodology created by Chinese linguistic scholars; therefore in the literature part the author mainly introduces some important research in our Chinese contrastive linguistic history.Chapter two is the general introduction of the current research of text messages. No matter English or Chinese text message(ETM or CTM),they belong to the category of text message,so they have many common features.Therefore in this chapter,first,this thesis carries out a research on the definition of text message,the reason of its appearance,the main function,and the main characteristics of common text messages.Because of its strong advantage—short but to the point,humorous and in fashion,quick and in time,the use of a lot of rhetoric devices,the combination of English and Chinese words,text messages have greatly changed people's way of communication.Nowadays the researches on text message are carried out mostly from sociological perspective,rhetoric perspective and linguistic perspective.This thesis focuses on discourse analysis from linguistic perspective.Chapter three adopts Halliday and Hasan's cohesion and coherence theory which is adopted by many scholars and explores the similarities and differences of English and Chinese text messages in this aspect.In this part,the author introduces why text message can be seen as a text;the concept of cohesion and coherence;five cohesive devices:reference,substitution,ellipsis,conjunction,and lexical ties,three coherent devices:semantic,pragmatic,and cognitive;and the relationship between cohesion and coherence.Chapter four is the contrastive analysis of English and Chinese text messages. Through statistical analysis,it is found that five cohesive devices take different parts and play different roles in ETM and CTM.ETM adopts more cohesive roles than CTM.Both in ETM and in CTM,reference is the mostly adopted cohesive device, while the second device is conjunction in ETM and lexical ties in CTM.Reference and conjunction are used more often in ETM than in CTM while lexical ties are more common to see in CTM.Substitution and ellipsis are seldom used both in ETM and CTM.And usually,no matter in English or Chinese text messages,coherence is achieved semantically,pragmatically and cognitively.But some causes contribute to the concrete difference.Chapter five illustrates the implication and suggestions of the thesis.The implication part includes that this study tests and proves Halliday and Hasan's cohesion and coherence theory,spreads the research field of the theory,and the study will direct people's actual sending procedure of text messages.The suggestion part includes suggestion to text message writers and to the senders.The last part is the conclusion of the thesis.It is consisted of the major findings and limitations of the research,and suggestions for the future study.