| Language is unique to human and permits the information transfer more efficient.And language report breaks the limitation of here and now, making it possible toreport words (even thoughts) said before. During the communication, to achievecertain aims, people sometimes incline to ellipsis the reporting speech and present thereported speech directly. It is very important for the whole communication whetherthis special language report type--zero quotative can be properly understood.Language report has drawn much attention from the scholars to carry on studies fromdifferent perspectives. However, the attention paid to zero quotative is far fromenough. Moreover, although in recent years the research of conversation analysiskeeps heating up domestically, seldom of the scholars conduct a specialized study onzero quotatives in Chinese conversation.The purposes of this thesis are to highlight the importance of zero quotative,reveal its inner principles and facilitate the communication at last.This thesis is an empirical study on zero quotatives in Chinese conversation,based on the Chinese talk show Tell Your Story. It adopts a discourse-based approachand considers conversation analysis as the theoretical framework. This thesis isintended to explain how zero quotative is manifested in conversation. Basing on thecollected data, it also addresses the original voice of zero quotatives and howfrequently zero quotatives are used in language reports. Finally, it discussed thefunctions of zero quotative.Through this study, it is found out that zero quotatives are frequently used incommunication. The hearer can identify the presence of a zero quotative with bothlinguistic and paralinguistic cues. The percentage of zero quotatives in the collectedlanguage reports is over thirty. Most of them are reported from absent specific oneand the reporter him/herself, with the mixed voice and community voice taking thesmallest part. Except for the functions of language report, zero quotative alsopossesses some unique functions to achieve special communicative effects.This thesis is composed of six chapters. Chapter One is the introduction, inwhich the background, research questions, research method, significance and theorganization of this paper are involved. Chapter Two reviews the previous studies onlanguage report, categorizing them into three approaches. The theoretical frameworkis also presented in this chapter. Chapter Three is concerned with the manifestation of zero quotatives, and linguistic cues and paralinguistic cues are illustrated withexamples. Chapter Four discussed the original voice and frequency of zero quotativesbasing on the collected data. Chapter five focuses on the functions of zero quotative,which distinguish it from other language report types. The last chapter summarizesthe major findings of this study. In addition, it illustrates the limitations of this studyand suggests the directions for the further research. |
