Real Meaning Of Segmentation Positioning Of The Theory And Its Embodiment In Discourse

The theory of actual division of the sentence was proposed by V. Mathesius, a Czechic linguist, founder of the Prague school, in 1929. It has got a lot of attention since it came forth. The theory differs from traditional grammatical analysis in that it studies language from the perspective of objective language use. It pays attention to the communicative structure and function of sentence and internal rules of discourse. It broke away from the restriction of traditional grammar on syntactic study and became a new subject in modern linguistic theories. And on its basis, some linguists proposed their own theories, such as "communicative drive" approach by Firbas (Firbas, 1964), and "thematische progression" approach by F. Danes (F. Danes, 1969). However, the theory of actual division of the sentence reveals some problems with further study on the theory. Its definition is not clear. The measures are infeasible. As a result, the quality is difficult to define and its application shows conflicts with the theory itself. This thesis is oriented to explore the root of the problems in perspective of communication participants.Through the discussion, we can conclude that the theory of actual division of the sentence, unlike traditional grammar and syntactic structure which concern relations on levels of word, phrase and sentence, is a theory of discourse level, no matter in terms of object or interpretation capacity. Its application in discourse lies in two aspects: the first is from the addresser's point of view, concerning the deep semantic structure of a sentence; the second is from the addressee's point of view, concerning content of a discourse with emphasis on distribution of new and given information in it.As a one concerning human cognition, the theory of actual division of the sentence has great directive function for analysis and comprehension of discourse, and meanwhile, is significant for development of discourse teaching. The thesis includes six parts:Part one introduces the emergence, development and current literature of the theory of actual division of the sentence.Part two analyzes the problems of the theory, discovers the root and puts forward solutions for the problems.Part three defines the orientation of the theory of actual division of the sentence.Part 4 expounds the application of the theory in discourse respectively from addresser's and addressee's point of view. Part 5 discusses the practical significance of the theory of actual division of the sentence.Part 6 is the conclusion.