The Study On The Introduction In Chinese Arbitration Discourses Based On Genre And Thematic Theories

With the development of economy, disputes are hard to avoid in variouscommercial and social activities. As a kind of legal documents to solve the controversyand determine the right and duty of parties, arbitration award becomes more and morecommon but important. Making a standard and professional arbitration award is anecessary requirement for excellent legal workers. Therefore, to study themacrostructure and microcosmic language is helpful for making a perfect arbitrationaward. Recent years, genre analysis, as one of the hotspot in linguistics, has gottenstudy enthusiasms of linguistics. Macrostructure can be learnt by analyzing the genreof discourses, if we want to know something about microcosmic aspects, such asconsistency and fluency, other theories should be used. Thematic Progression inSystemic-functional Grammar is a tool of textual coherence, which reflects thedistribution of new and old information. The researches on genre or thematicprogression pattern are gradually mature and deep, and even some experts have begunto study the relationship between these two theories in various areas. However, quitefew studies have been carried out to explore the genre or thematic progression patternsof legal documents and there is no literature about the relationship between genre andthematic progression patterns of legal documents. Therefore, it is necessary to studythe legal documents such as arbitration awards by genre and thematic progressiontheories. The introduction part in arbitration award is a relative important part inarbitration awards because it makes an essential conclusion for the whole document.Based on the status quo mentioned above, this research aims to explore therelationship between genre and thematic progression of the introduction part inarbitration awards from the perspective of these two theories aims to explore thedistribution of moves in the introduction part of Chinese arbitration awards, what kindsof theme and TP patterns does introduction part apply, what is the relationship betweengenre and TP Patters.This research adopts both qualitative and quantitative methods. The samplesinclude20arbitration awards from the court. The research instruments include textanalysis, data coding of Strauss&Corbin (1994) and Freeman’s (1998) data analysismode which is based on the theoretical model established mainly on the basis ofSwales’(1990) CARS Model, Halliday’s (1994) classification of theme, and Huang Yan’s (1985) thematic progression patterns.The findings show that:1) Arbitration award can be divided into prelude part,main body and ending part, and main body can be further divided into introduction,case details, inquisition opinion and award. While introduction part includessummarization of case background, list of trail preparation and resume of trail processbased on the writing criterion of arbitration award (Li Dongmei,2012) and Swales’s(1990) CARS Model.2) Simple Theme, Salutatory and Parallel Patterns, and fewnumber of Continual Pattern are mainly used in introduction part according to Halliday(2000) and Huang Yan (1985). As for the types of theme, except Simple Theme, fewnumber of Multiple Theme is found in step2and3. The Multiple Theme worn in thetexts is mainly Conjunctive Element+Ideational Theme, Structural Element+Ideational Theme, and few number of Finite Element+Ideational Theme.3) Somesimilarities and differences between genre and theme or thematic progression patternsamong each step are found which indicate that there are really some relationshipsbetween theses two theories. For example, because the introduction part is mainnarrative and the theme is simple, Saltatory and Parallel patterns and Simple Themeare frequently used; while for the reason that some important information or topic needto be described in detail, there may be a few number of Continual Pattern and MultipleTheme in step2and3; furthermore, on account of different contents of step2and3,the proportion of Continual Pattern and Multiple Theme is not as the same.Although this study may offer some implications to the writing of arbitrationaward, there are still some limitations, for instance, the number of the samples islimited, the explosion in this study is not deep enough and this research itself might notbe comprehensive enough. Thus this research needs further improvement.