A Contrastive Study On Anaphoric Ellipsis Between Modern English And Chinese Texts

Ellipsis,as one of grammatical means of cohesion,plays a significant role in text construction.Previous scholars have done many researches on ellipsis from various perspectives,involving syntax,semantics,pragmatics,cognitive linguistics and philosophy.Based on previous studies,the author finds that quite a few researches are based on Halliday's(1976)classification which divides English ellipsis into nominal ellipsis,verbal ellipsis,and clausal ellipsis,and that Chinese scholar Hu Zhuanglin(1994)claims that ellipsis in Chinese can also fall into the same types as ellipsis in English.Since then,contrastive researches on ellipsis between English and Chinese have been carried out within that framework of classification.Apart from Halliday's classification which applies to both English and Chinese,there has been such a division as that between anaphoric ellipsis and cataphoric ellipsis,a classification equally existing in studies between English and Chinese.Anaphoric ellipsis is far more frequent than cataphoric ellipsis,owing to which and the limitation of text length,this thesis only attempts to make a contrastive study on anaphoric ellipsis between English and Chinese.The early research done by Quirk et al.(1985)is confined to giving its definitions and examples.The previously limited researches on anaphoric ellipsis in Western countries have failed to develop further.At present,contrastive researches on anaphoric ellipsis between English and Chinese is almost none.Inspired by Chinese scholar Li Jinxi and Liu Shiru(1962)who do a research on subject anaphoric ellipsis,predicate anaphoric ellipsis,and object anaphoric ellipsis in Chinese,the author tries to summarize anaphoric ellipsis sentence patterns in English and Chinese.As subject,predicate,and object are the main sentence members,this thesis aims to reveal the patterns of anaphoric ellipsis of those members and make an analysis of the similarities and differences of their ellipsis.Based on the definitions of ellipsis given by previous scholars,this paper summarizes them and gives a definition and criteria of ellipsis that conforms with the data of this thesis.Based on data from publications,chiefly the novel Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austin and the short story collection Call to Arms by Lu Xun,the author discovers ten anaphoric ellipsis sentence patterns and makes a contrastive analysis of them,finding out the similar and different features of those patterns between English and Chinese.The author then explores the reasons for similarities and differences.Anaphoric ellipsis whether in English or in Chinese,can be explained in three theories:(1)the Principle of Economy;(2)Quantity Principle and Relation Principle;(3)Salience Theory.As for the differences,the author explains them from the perspective of influence of different cultures,and that of Hypotaxis-Parataxis theory.Anaphoric ellipsis,as an important linguistic feature,illustrates the trends that language develops towards simplicity.Based on the above analysis,this thesis aims to open up a research area in anaphoric ellipsis and contribute to cataphoric ellipsis in future.