A Contrastive Study Of English And Chinese Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns are indispensable components in both English and Chinese. Without them,verbal and written communication would become redundant and inefficient,let alone being beautiful.The systems of personal pronouns in both English and Chinese have gone through different stages during their development,and they both have created features of their own.In China,the research of personal pronouns has been done by many scholars during their contrastive studies of English and Chinese.However,personal pronouns,even pronouns,account for only a small proportion in the whole language system.In addition,the degree of similarity of personal pronouns in different languages is relatively higher.Therefore,most studies concerning the contrastive studies of personal pronouns in English and Chinese are relatively simple and can be further developed.There is comparability between English and Chinese personal pronouns,and the contrastive studies of them are meaningful.Similarities and differences exist in the personal pronouns of the two languages in terms of meaning,reference,usage and other aspects.Consequently,the writer tries to carry out in this thesis a systematic and comprehensive contrastive study of English and Chinese personal pronouns.The thesis consists of five chapters.In Chapter 1,a literature review of Contrastive Linguistics of English and Chinese is presented.The review seeks to shed light on what the Contrastive Linguistics and that of English and Chinese are,what stages they have been through,and how to conduct a contrast of languages.The subject shifts to personal pronouns in Chapter 2 where the definitions and characteristics of pronouns are studied first to give an overall picture of the word class. Afterwards,personal pronouns of English and Chinese,the topic of the thesis,appear on the stage.Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 constitute the main part,the actual process of contrast on the subject.The scopes of these two chapters are different:one of which is microscopic,the other being macroscopic.The last chapter of the thesis,Chapter 5,is mainly about the application of contrast of personal pronouns in translation.It is studied to see what problems one may encounter during translation concerning personal pronouns,and how can the contrast help solve them.