A Comparative Study Of The Themes And The Thematic Progression Patterns Between Big Breasts And Wide Hips And Its English Version

Mo Yan, an outstanding writer, won the Nobel Prize for literature with his best works,especially Big Breasts and Wide Hips which enjoys a high reputation. Since then, more and more scholars have attached their dramatic enthusiasm to the studies of Big Breasts and Wide Hips. Theoretical studies of Big Breasts and Wide Hips abroad mostly concentrated on symbolic meanings and the comparative literature and so on while in China, studies mainly focused on functional grammar, pragmatics and translation, etc. However, as far as I have studied, I found few studies of Big Breasts and Wide Hips were carried out by applying the Theme-Rheme theory and the Thematic Progression pattern theory. Hence, in consideration of the effect of Theme in message construction as well as the role of TP pattern in text cohesion and coherence, this thesis intends to compare the choice of Themes and the use of Thematic Progression patterns between Big Breasts and Wide Hips and its English version based on Halliday’s Theme-Rheme theory and Danes’ Thematic Progression pattern theory integrated from other scholars’ models, namely the same Theme, the same Rheme, the continuous and the alternative patterns.For the sake of exploring the similarities and differences of the choice of Themes and the use of TP patterns, the author chose both the Chinese version and English version of the novel Big Breasts and Wide Hips to be the subjects.The total number of the chapters in both the two versions are 64 among which 35 chapters of each version were randomly selected by resorting to Black. K’s simple random sampling. This study took the quantitative analysis as the main one and combined it with qualitative analysis. It studied the similarities as well as differences of the choice of Themes and the use of TP patterns between Big Breasts and Wide Hips and its English version. And then the author further explained the possible reasons giving rise to those similarities and differences.After comprehensive research design and earnest analysis, this study draws the following conclusions. In terms of the similarities of the choice of Themes and the use of TP patterns between the English corpus and the Chinese corpus, we can get the following findings. With regard to the use of Themes, firstly, similarities can be located from the perspective of complexity. The simple Themes outnumber the multiple Themes in both of the two corpora. And the choice of interpersonal and topical Themes is relatively rare in the two corpora. And the sequence of the multiple Themes of each corpus is the same, namely, the textual and topical Themes ? the interpersonal and topical Themes. Second of all, from the perspective of markedness, the unmarked Themes dominate the marked Themes in those two corpora. As for the similarities of the overall use of TP Patterns between the English corpus and the Chinese corpus, the author discovers all the four TP patterns can be sought out from the two corpora. And the same Theme and the continuous patterns are two preferable choice for the two corpora. Moreover, the same Rheme patterns and the alternative patterns account for a small proportion.Differences of the choice of the Themes and the use of TP patterns between the English corpus and the Chinese corpus are also obvious and principally consist of the aspects below. First of all, the simple Themes in the Chinese corpus are more preferred than those in the English corpus. And the textual and topical Themes in English triumph over those in Chinese. Besides, the differences of the overall use of TP patterns are noteworthy. The continuous patterns hold the first place in the English corpus while in the Chinese corpus, the same Theme patterns dominate. And the sequences of each corpus are disparate. The sequence in the English corpus is the continuous patterns ? the same Theme patterns ? the alternative patterns ? the same Rheme patterns while in the Chinese corpus is the same Theme patterns ? the continuous patterns ? the same Rheme patterns ? the alternative patterns. As regards to the use of each pattern, the use of the same Theme patterns and the continuous patterns in the Chinese corpus is slightly more than that in the English corpus. The alternative patterns in the English corpus are more preferred than those in the Chinese corpus.It is expected that through the comparative study of Themes and TP patterns between Big Breasts and Wide Hips and its English version, firstly, it will expand the application of Theme-Rheme and TP pattern Theory into the studies of novels. Furthermore, considerable concern should be given to the application of Theme-Rheme and TP pattern theory on the novel writing, the translation of novels and the appreciation of novels.