A Contrastive Study Of Parataxis And Hypotaxis Between Scientific Language And Literary Language

Based on Halliday's illustration of taxis,this study aimed to make a contrast of hypotaxis and parataxis between scientific language and literary language.Three major questions were targeted in the present study: 1.Is there any difference in distributional mode between scientific language and literary language in terms of taxis? 2.Is there any quantitative difference in hypotaxis between scientific language and literary language? 3.Is there any quantitative difference in parataxis between scientific language and literary language?In this thesis,30 scientific research articles,each with a length of 5,000-6,000 words and 30 literary stories,each with a length of 4,500-6,500 were compared in terms of the distributional modes and quantitative uses of hypotaxis and parataxis.Distributional modes of taxis were compared from distributional composition and distributional evenness.Distributional composition refers to the ranking trend of the proportions of the distributed tactic relations.Distributional evenness compares the balances between the proportions of the distributed tactic relations.Proportion was calculated into percentage that every frequency of every tactic relation takes up in the total frequency of taxis in each register.Altogether,the following 16 tactic relations at three ranks were systematically compared: hypotaxis and parataxis at the first rank,hypotactic expansion,paratactic expansion,hypotactic projection and paratactic projection at the second,and hypotactic elaboration,paratactic elaboration,hypotactic extension,paratactic extension,hypotactic enhancement,paratactic enhancement,hypotactic locution,paratactic locution,hypotactic idea and paratactic idea at the third.The quantitative uses of tactic devices in the scientific and literary languages were compared through independent-samples t-test.The results showed that the scientific language and the literary language were generally different in the distributional mode of taxis.Differences were found in the distributional composition of superordinate taxis and paratactic expansion between these registers.Differences were also found in the distributional evenness of superordinate taxis,hypotaxis,parataxis,hypotactic expansion,hypotactic projection,paratactic expansion and paratactic projection between the two registers.The overall distribution of tactic relations was more evenly in the literary language than in the scientific language.As for the quantitative uses,the frequencies of the tactic relations were mainly different between the registers.Most of the frequencies of hypotactic relations in the scientific language were significantly different from that in the literary language,though the superordinate hypotaxis and hypotactic expansion were not.Besides,the quantitative uses of the general and specific paratactic relations showed significant differences between the registers.All of the paratactic devices were used more frequently in the literary language than in the scientific language.This thesis may shed some light on the study of hypotaxis and parataxis,as well as the comprehension of scientific language and literary language.