A Contrastive Study On Theme And Thematic Progression Patterns Between English And Chinese Narrative Texts

The notions of Theme and Thematic progression are first proposed by Prague School. After being studied and developed by numerous linguistic scholars through years, they are gradually applied to discourse analysis and considered as effective methods in discourse analysis. There have been a number of linguists at home and abroad dedicated to the study of the Theme and Thematic Progression in texts of various genres, and the results of their studies suggest that there is some kind of interrelation between Theme and Thematic progression and the genre of the text, and that the distribution and application of thematic structure in a text is not in random, instead, it has its own distinct feature.Inspired by the results of previous researches, the present study, with Halliday’s thematic theory, Danes’thematic progression hypothesis and Zhu Yongsheng’s four thematic progression patterns as the theoretical framework, is designed to make a contrastive study of Theme and Thematic Progression patterns between English and Chinese narrative texts. As a case study, the thesis chooses Faulkner’s short story A Rose for Emily, which is a mostly narrative text, and its Chinese translation by Yang Qishen, as study samples. Contrastive analysis, together with quantitative analysis, is taken as the main methodology to conduct the study. The purpose is to find out how the choices of Themes and Thematic Progression patterns in the two versions are similar to and differ from each other, and what are the responsible factors for such similarities and differences.The result of the present study indicates that similarities and differences co-exist in the comparison of the choice of Theme and Thematic Progression patterns between English and Chinese narrative texts. With respect to such a result, the thesis conducts a further discussion to explore what are underlying factors responsible for similarities and differences respectively, and draws some basic conclusions. The discussion reveals that these similarities are mainly related to the narrative genre of the two sample texts, and that typological divergence is the main factor responsible for differences between the thematic structure of the two sample texts. Focusing on the relation between thematic structure and the narrative genre, the present study is expected to enhance language learners’understanding of the importance of the relevant knowledge and to provide a new perspective to study and appreciate the narrative text. Meanwhile, it is instructive to domestic English teaching and could help English learners to improve their English writing and English-Chinese translation.