Comp Stud Trans EN 1

A Contrastive Study of Hypotaxis and Parataxis in English and Chinese 石丽青（202120081521） (The red ellipsis is the part I haven’t figured out yet.)

Abstract: The study of hypotaxis and parataxis is one of the most important research subjects in contrastive linguistic in English and Chinese. It is generally acknowledged that English is a hypotaxis-prominent language while Chinese is a parataxis-prominent language. This paper makes a contrastive study of hypotaxis and parataxis in English and Chinese from perspectives of cultural factors, language manifestation and translation practice. This thesis is composed of five chapters, contents of which are as follows: Chapter 1 discusses the significance and purpose of the study, definitions of hypotaxis and parataxis as well as a general review of previous studies. Chapter 2 analyzes the causes for hypotaxis and parataxis existing in different cultures, proving that the hypotaxis-prominence of English and the parataxis-prominence of Chinese are resulted from the disparities in philosophy and modes of thinking. Chapter 3 elucidates the manifestation of hypotaxis and parataxis in English and Chinese. English is hypotaxis-prominent and connects phrases and clauses by using particles such as relatives, conjunctions and prepositions. English sentences are tree-like pattern and bases on the subject-predicate mechanism. Chinese, on the contrary, is characteristic by parataxis-prominence and connected by its inner logical relations. Chinese sentences follow a bamboo-like pattern and are established on the topic-comment mechanism, attaching great importance to the semantic relations between language elements. However, the contrast between hypotaxis and parataxis is dialectic. Chapter 4 is the core part of this thesis, making an elaboration on the translation practice with reference to the English Version of… Chapter 5 comes to the conclusion that …

Key words: hypotaxis; parataxis；…

摘要：形合与意合是英汉语言对比的一个重要研究议题。通常认为英语为形合形语言，汉语为意合形语言。本文从文化因素、语言表现及翻译实践对英语的形合与汉语的意合进行对比研究。 本文由五个章节构成。除第一章概述和第五章结论外，其他章节的主要内容为： 第一章讨论了论文的研究意义和目的、形合与意合的定义等基本概念，同时对以往对于形合与意合的研究进行总体性的综述。 第二章分析不同语言形合意合差异的形成原因。证明英语形合与汉语意合之差异的形成是不同哲学和思维方式的产物。 第三章阐明形合意合在两种语言中的表现。英语形合指的是句中的词语或分句之间用语言形式手段连接起来，表达语法意义和逻辑关系。英语复句一般是一种由几个简单句构成的葡萄式结构。汉语意合指的是词语或分句之间不用语言形式手段连接，句中的语法意义和逻辑关系通过词语或分句的含义表达。汉语复句一般是一种由几个简单句构成的竹节式结构。然而，形合与意合的区别并不是绝对的而是辩证的。 第四章是论文的核心部分。阐述… 第五章是论文的总结部分。

关键词：形合；意合；…

Contents Abstract (English) Abstract (Chinese) Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Significance and Purpose of the Study 1.2 Definitions of Hypotaxis and Parataxis 1.3 A General Review of Previous Studies Chapter 2 Causes of Formation of Hypotaxis-Prominence and Parataxis-Prominence 2.1 Superficial Layer—Linguistic Basis 2.2 Deep Causes —A Cultural Explanation of Hypotaxis and Parataxis Chapter 3 Manifestation of Hypotaxis in English and Parataxis in Chinese 3.1 Hypotaxis-Prominence in English 3.1.1 Subject-predicate mechanism 3.1.2 Relatives and conjunctions 3.1.3 Prepositions 3.1.4 Other cohesive devices 3.2 Parataxis-Prominence in Chinese 3.2.1 Topic-comment pattern 3.2.2 Word order 3.2.3 Flowing-water sentence construction 3.2.4 Contracted sentences and four-character construction 3.3 Relativity of the Contrast between Hypotaxis and Parataxis Chapter 4 Implications for Translation Practice of Hypotaxis and Parataxis 4.1 A Brief Introduction to… Chapter 5 Conclusion Bibliography

Chapter 1 Introduction This part mainly discusses the significance of the study, definitions of hypotaxis and parataxis as well as a general review of previous studies. 1.1 Significance and Purpose of the Study Eugene. A. Nida upholds that the contrast between hypotaxis and parataxis is the most important linguistic difference between Chinese and English (Eugene. A. Nida 1982). Rated as one of the most important subjects in comparative linguistics, the study of hypotaxis and parataxis makes an indication that there is a major discrepancy in organizing languages between English and Chinese. Liu Miqing holds the view that hypotaxis versus parataxis is the heterogeneous characteristic featuring English and Chinese texts (Liu Miqing 1985: 31). Chen Fukang made a conclusion in his book A History of Translation Theory in China (2000: 476): “ Translation theory in China, on the one hand is quite abundant, on the other hand still falls behind.” All of theses points of view indicate that the contrastive study of hypotaxis and parataxis is conducive to shedding light on having a better understanding of the nature of these two languages. Therefore, this thesis intends to make clear the nature of hypotaxis and parataxis in order to make some contributions to the study of translation theories in China. 1.2 Definitions of Hypotaxis and Parataxis Hypotaxis is defined in The American Heritage Dictionary as “dependent or subordinate construction or relationship of clauses with connectives”, e.g. : If you jump, I will jump. On the contrary, parataxis is described in The World Book Dictionary as: “ The arranging of clauses one after the other without connectives showing the relation between them”, e.g. :You jump. I will jump. The Chinese definitions of hypotaxis and parataxis are generally acknowledged to be introduced first by Wang Li. He first put forward the two concepts in his book Chinese Grammatical Theories: “ Hypotaxis is also called explicitness or overtness, which refers to the connection of words or sentences by linguistic ways including both lexical and morphological ones. Parataxis, opposed to hypotaxis, is called implicitness or covertness, which refers to the connection of words or sentences by inner logic and semantic relations between linguistic units.” From the perspective of him, the connectives in both English and Chinese are similar in function. However, Chinese is characterized by parataxis, rendering connectives unnecessary, while hypotaxis is a major feature existing in English, in which connectives are indispensable at the level of sentence. Later, many Chinese linguists have tried to define hypotaxis and parataxis when interpreting similarities and differences between English and Chinese. Among them, Liu Miqing holds the view that the so-called hypotaxis refers to connecting words or sentences with the help of grammatical ways, including lexical and morphological ones and parataxis connecting linguistic units through the meaning of the word or logical relationships, with the former putting more emphasis on grammatical cohesion and the latter more on semantic coherence. According to him, hypotaxis and parataxis should be considered in the scope of ways of expression. In brief, when it comes to hypotaxis and parataxis, the elaboration on the definitions of the pair of terms can be divided into two groups, with one believing that hypotaxis and parataxis happen exactly at the level of clause and the other holding that they not only happen at the level of subordinate clauses but also between independent sentences. 1.3 A General Review of Previous Studies Either in Contrastive Linguistics or Textual Linguistics, the research of hypotaxis and parataxis is rated as one of the most significant research subjects, and studies on hypotaxis and parataxis have been carried out in a broader scope at home and abroad. Eugene. A. Nida (1982: 16) pointed out that from a linguistic perspective, the most important difference between English and Chinese is the contrast between hypotaxis and parataxis. Halliday (1985: 218) held that “the general term for the modifying relation is hypotaxis, which is the relation between two like elements of equal status, one initiating and the other continuing.” He elaborated on hypotaxis and parataxis as subordinate construction and coordinate construction, which are only particular manifestation of generally discussed hypotaxis and parataxis. Furthermore, Halliday attached great importance to the view that both hypotaxis and parataxis refer to cohesive features of a language and do not belong to the category of conjunction. Liu Miqing (1996: 31) believes that the contrast between hypotaxis and parataxis is the heterogeneity of English and Chinese linguistic features. Lian Shuneng interprets in his book Contrastive Studies of English and Chinese (1993) that English emphasizes structural integrity and explicit expression of meanings. Various formal devices such as the relative words, connectives and prepositions are used to combine words, phrases and clauses together, so English is typically hypotaxical (1993:48). He further elaborated that Chinese, on the contrary, is typically paratactic as it arranges words in a logical order of events, and that feature of Chinese is reflected in word order, compressed sentences and four-character construction (1993: 54-56). After he has made a semantic contrast between English and Chinese, Xu Tongqiang (1997: 52) comes to a conclusion that the Indo-European languages can be considered as grammatical language while Chinese a semantic one. Besides, he points out that a grammatical language concentrates on word class and sequence of linguistic elements with the subject-predicate structure as its kernel. Conversely, a semantic language like Chinese focuses on individual words, their meanings and semantic relations. From the above discussion, many scholars have come to the consensus that English is hypotaxis-prominent while Chinese is a parataxis-prominent language. However, It is worthy of noticing that the difference of hypotaxis and parataxis does exist between English and Chinese, but the disparity is dialectic. In other words, neither of them exists independently of the other in any text. Therefore, relativity of the use of hypotaxis and parataxis should be taken into consideration in translation practice.

Chapter 2 Causes of Formation of Hypotaxis-Prominence and Parataxis-Prominence

Bibliography Halliday. M.A.K. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold, 1985. Nida. Eugene. A. Translating Meaning. San Dmas: English Language Institute, 1982. 陈福康. 中国译学理论史稿. 上海：上海外语教育出版社，2000. 连淑能. 英汉对比研究. 北京：高等教育出版社，1993. 刘宓庆. 文体与翻译. 中国翻译出版公司，1985. 刘宓庆. “汉英对比研究的理论问题”. 载《英汉语言文化对比研究》， 李瑞华主编. 上海：上海外语教育出版社，1996：31. 徐通锵. 语言论—语义型语言的结构原理和研究方法. 长春：东北师范大学出版社，1997.