A Contrastive Study Of Thematic Progression Patterns In English And Chinese Fairy Tales

With the development of functional linguistics and textual linguistics,recent years have witnessed an increasing number of contrastive studies on texts from the perspective of textual analysis.As thematic progression(TP)pattern is an important method to construct the whole text and to achieve textual coherence,a better understanding of the different TP patterns used in a text can serve a clear understanding of the information construction and development.It is,therefore,self-evidently significant in the effective analysis of texts by means of the thematic structure and thematic progression.So far,many scholars at home and abroad have conducted a great number of studies of themes and TP patterns in texts of different genres and have made many fruitful achievements.However,few studies are found on fairy tales from the perspective of TP patterns,and even fewer are based on contrastive analysis.Fairy tales,as a special genre in children literature,play an important role in the children’s growth and education,and therefore it is of great necessity and practical significance to conduct a contrastive study of the TP patterns used in the English and Chinese fairy tales.Based upon the theoretical framework and the themes and TP patterns,this research aims to conduct a contrastive analysis of TP patterns in English and Chinese fairy tales,in an attempt to find out the types of TP patterns in English and Chinese fairy tales respectively,and to explore the similarities as well as differences in terms of TP patterns between them,and what is more,this research tries to discuss the major causes for these differences and further to reveal construction mechanism of fairy tales and information progression.To achieve these research objectives,this research aims to answer the following three questions:(1)What kinds of TP patterns are used in English and Chinese fairy tales respectively?(2)What are the similarities and differences in terms of TP patterns between English and Chinese fairy tales?(3)What are the major causes for the similarities and differences in terms of TP patterns between English and Chinese fairy tales?On the basis of the thematic structure proposed by Halliday(1985)and TP patterns presented by Danes(1974)and Chinese scholars(Xu Shenghuan,1982;Zhu Yongsheng,1995),the present research summarizes six types of TP patterns as the theoretical frame of this research.These patterns include the simple linear pattern,the constant theme,the derived theme pattern,the concentrated pattern,the alternative pattern and the split rheme pattern respectively.The research data are composed of 15 English fairy tale texts and 15 Chinese fairy tale texts,mainly chosen from Selected English Fairy Tales and One Hundred of Chinese Classic Fairy Tales,respectively.Thus a contrastive study has been conducted on the 30 fairy tale texts based on these six TP patterns.The research results firstly show that the frequency of TP patterns in the English fairy tale texts can be described as the simple linear pattern>the constant theme pattern>the concentrated pattern>the combined pattern>the split rheme pattern>the alternative pattern>the derived theme pattern;and that the frequency of the use of TP patterns in the Chinese fairy tale texts can be presented as the constant theme pattern>the simple linear pattern>the concentrated pattern>the combined pattern>the alternative pattern>the derived theme pattern>the split rheme pattern.Secondly,it can be demonstrated that the English and Chinese fairy tales bear some similarities and differences in the use of TP patterns.And the similarities are that both the English and Chinese fairy tale texts use the simple linear pattern,the constant theme pattern and the concentrated pattern more frequently,and that the alternative pattern,the derived theme pattern and the split rheme pattern are used less frequently.And the possible causes for these similarities are mainly explained from the genre and the audience.Thirdly,it also can be seen that the differences are mainly reflected in discrepancies of the frequency of each TP pattern in the English and Chinese fairy tale texts.And these differences are primarily caused by the differences in terms of the linguistic features of the two languages,the Chinese and English cultures and the two different thinking patterns.This study is a tentative study of the contrastive analysis of TP patterns between the English and Chinese fairy tales,which is of significance both in extending the study fields of TP patterns and in providing certain reference for fairy tale teaching,translation and compilation.This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One is holistic and brief Introduction,which involves the research background,the research objectives,the significance of this research and the overview of the thesis.Chapter Two is the Literature Review,which mainly gives a comprehensive review of the thematic structure and the TP patterns and of the previous studies of TP patterns in fairy tales.Chapter Three is Research Design,which includes the proposal of the research questions,the description of data collection,the research methods and procedures,and the theoretical foundation.Chapter Four is the core part of this research,which shows the data results in the use of TP patterns between the English and Chinese fairy tale texts,then finds out the similarities and differences between the English and Chinese fairy tale texts,and finally discusses the major causes for similarities and differences.Chapter Five is the concluding part of this research,which covers a summary of the major research findings,the statement of the implications and limitations of this research and the proposal of suggestions for further study.