| The thesis sets out to conduct a contrastive analysis of Chinese and English energy news discourses from rhetorical perspective. Based on the energy news discourses from both leading newspapers and magazines in both Chinese and English, the study is intended to make a contrastive analysis of Chinese and English energy news discourses to find sameness and differences of dominant rhetorical relations. After analyzing the implied reasons the thesis tries to establish a global rhetorical relation pattern of Chinese and English energy news discourses in the end.Theories applied in this thesis are Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) and Contrastive Rhetoric (CR). RST is utilized to conduct data analysis to find out sameness and differences in dominant rhetorical relations, and CR has its advantages in analyzing the implied reasons. The former one cannot work well in reason analysis and the latter one doesn't function effectively on data analysis in this study. The two theoretical systems complement each other so well that we call it a combined rhetorical perspective in this thesis.RST has been used in discourse analysis for a period of time, and is the most widely-used approach in discourse analysis from rhetorical perspective. Types of texts under previous studies from rhetorical perspective have experienced a wide range of variation. Argumentative texts, second language writing, novel texts, comments, advertisement texts and essays have been studied by a number of researchers. The study on different types of texts testifies the wide application of RST in discourse analysis. But analysis of energy news discourses under RST has never been conducted.In this thesis, contrastive analysis has been conducted under RST on Chinese and English energy news discourses and four purposes are meant to be achieved: 1) to find out all kinds of rhetorical relations appearing in both Chinese and English energy news discourses; 2) to pick out dominant rhetorical relations in Chinese and English data respectively,and explore the sameness and differences of these dominant ones; 3) to probe the implied reasons hidden in these sameness and differences of dominant rhetorical relations with resort to CR; 4) to establish a global rhetorical relation pattern of Chinese and English energy news discourses respectively, expecting to fill up the gap in discourse analysis, especially on text types..The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is literature review, in which mainstream approaches and theories in discourse analysis from rhetorical perspective are presented. Linguists and scholars have made great contribution to discourse analysis in this field. However, discourse analysis under RST is not so common, and energy news discourse has never been taken as objective of study. At the same time there still exist limitations in their research which have also been noted in this thesis.Chapter two mainly introduces RST and CR which constitute the theoretical framework of this thesis. RST was originally formulated by W. C. Mann and S. A. Thompson in 1983 as part of the studies of computer-based text generation, and now it has a status in linguistics for its independent computational uses. Relation, function, and hierarchy are three main qualities and aspects of this theory. Thirty-two rhetorical relations and their corresponding definitions are thoroughly elaborated in this chapter. CR has its root in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity, and concentrates initially on the different rhetorical conventions demonstrated in the construction of texts in two different languages. Chapter three mainly deals with methodology and sample collection of this thesis. Quantitative and qualitative methods are both applied in the study. Data source is from the online electronic editions of leading newspapers and magazines in both English and Chinese, including The Washington Post, Guardian Unlimited, The New York Times, The Independent in English, and People's Daily in Chinese. From the data collected, sixteen English energy news discourses and ten Chinese energy news discourses are analyzed in this study, with 8383 English words and 8075 Chinese characters respectively.In chapter four, contrastive analysis is made on Chinese and English energy news discourses respectively with a view to exploring sameness and differences in dominant rhetorical relations between Chinese data and the English one. With respect to the number and kinds of rhetorical relations, the sixteen English samples contain 273 relations with twenty-one kinds in total, while ten Chinese ones 134 relations with twenty-one kinds in all. Then dominant rhetorical relations are picked out to be discussed. In English data the first six relations make up 60.5% of all rhetorical relations, and in turn they are: Evidence, Elaboration, Joint, Background, Volitional-result, and Concession; while in Chinese data the first six relations are Elaboration, Evidence, Joint, Background, Concession, and List, accounting for 62.7% in all rhetorical relations. Same rhetorical relations can be found in both Chinese and English dominant ones; however, the percentage these relations take up is not the same. There are some sameness and differences on the kinds and ranking orders of dominant rhetorical relations. Furthermore, the implied Reasons for the sameness and differences in dominant rhetorical relations are explored from several aspects to testify that this rhetorical relation pattern in Chinese and English data is not occasional, but a global one. In the last chapter, a global rhetorical relation pattern of Chinese and English energy news discourses is tried to be established. Besides, the limitations and implications of this study are also expounded. The limitations of this study pertain to the following aspects: Firstly, the sample size is not big enough. Secondly, some subjective factors are inevitable in the study. Finally, due to limited space, the study can not be exhaustive in analyzing every aspect of Chinese and English energy news discourses.The results of this study are of great significance theoretically and practically. Having mastered the global rhetorical relation pattern in English and Chinese energy news discourses, we can obtain some enlightenment on news discourse analysis, teaching and translation. First of all, the major findings in this study can fill the gap of text types and provide a new research perspective for discourse analysis and news discourse analysis. Second, the global rhetorical relation pattern of energy news discourse can be a great help for English teachers in instructing students to read and write energy news in both English and Chinese more effectively. In the end, the findings can also solicit our thinking on translation from English energy news discourses to Chinese or vice versa.
|
PDF Full Text Request