A Parallel Corpus-based Study On Theme And Rheme Difference Between Chinese And English

Theme and Rheme Theory is a new method to deconstruct the mystery of different languages and further contribute to domestic English learning and teaching projects, especially to translation. The author has long held an assumption that even describing the same content, there would be a huge difference between Chinese and English regarding Theme and Rheme Theory. In order to further verify the author’s hypothesis, a small-scale parallel corpus has been built, which takes Mo Yan’s works and their translation as the basis of this paper. After taking and carefully seeing through 400 sentences from the parallel corpus, the author has verified her previous hypothesis and summarized these differences into ten major patterns. Besides, the author has figured out that some of these patterns not only demonstrate the difference, but also indicate the difference of information structure between the two languages. Also, a questionnaire targeting domestic English-specialized undergraduates and graduates is also designed to further assess the states quos of Theme and Rheme awareness. Results from 56 targets indicate that still, efforts and attention are needed on Theme and Rheme Theory. Ultimately, the author has located four reasons that may have accounted for Theme and Rheme difference between Chinese and English. Six suggestions are also made on domestic English learning and teaching, and on translation in particular.