英语语言学论文四千字

英语语言学论文四千字

随着对 英语 文化 学习的不断深入,随着英语重要地位的不断确立,英语语言学的研究工作也越来越深入。下文是我为大家整理的关于英语语言学论文 范文 参考的内容，欢迎大家阅读参考!
关于英语语言学论文范文参考篇1
浅探英语语言学中的幽默话语

幽默是指在人类交际的过程中，能够引人发笑的话语、动作和表情等，其内容丰富多彩，表现形式多种多样，比例幽默话语、幽默动作、幽默音乐等等。因为人们的交际活动多依赖于语言，所以幽默也多来源于话语当中。

一、英语语言学中的幽默话语

在繁忙的生活中，幽默是一剂强力润滑剂。幽默话语是借助于语言手段来表述幽默的。它是以语言为媒介，根据特定的情境下，以轻松诙谐的语调，机智、风趣、戏谑的话语风格，通过讽刺、夸张、映射、双关等手法，来表达话语者自己的思想和观点，并使受话者不知不觉地接受，达到“随风潜入夜，润物细无声”的效果和境界。幽默话语往往带有一些意味深长的色彩，对揭露生活中的丑恶或不公平现象，还可以起到发人深省的作用。而对于受话者来说，要把话语和当时具体的语境线索结合起来，利用自己既有的语言知识和社会认知，去发现说话者的言外之意和要表达的真实意图，才能真正的理解幽默，并从中获得愉悦。

例如，“Mr Zhou have a sharp tongue，look out，it doesn’t cut your throat.”这句话看起来是像是在说舌头，但是，我们把这句话放到语境中，就可以想到，这里的“a sharp tongue”并不是什么锋利的舌头，而是牙尖嘴利、毒舌的意思，是发话者幽默、含蓄、间接的表达方式。

二、幽默话语与合作原则

(一)合作原则

胡范畴认为，所谓幽默话语是语言的各要素通过变异和创造而出来的。而美国语言哲学家Grice则认为，幽默话语的作用是为了确保交际活动顺利进行。Grice认为，在人们运用语言进行交际时，交际的双方(发话者和受话者)还要遵守一些先决条件和原则，例如使用双方都能熟练运用的语言、交谈内容是双方都熟悉的话题，还有最重要的合作原则(cooperative principle，CP)。合作原则包括四个范畴，即数量准则、质量准则、关联准则和方式准则。在合作原则下，要求发话者和受话者者要端正态度，在谈话中做到“一唱一和”，避免造成“鸡同鸭讲”“话不投机半句多”的情况。

(二)合作原则与幽默话语的关系

如果说要遵循“数量准则、质量准则、关联准则和方式准则”的合作原则是一位西装革履、步态稳健的中年人，那么幽默话语就是一位穿着休闲时尚、语态随意轻松的新新人类。合作原则与幽默话语的结合，就是传统沉稳美与时尚活力没的结合，在这种结合中，传统的合作原则难免要接受新的挑战，甚至在一定程度上被打破。以下，本文以数量准则和质量准则为例，对合作原则与幽默话语进行举例分析。

(1)幽默话语与数量准则

合作原则之质量准则要求说话者和听话者之间交谈的内容要包含适当的信息量。但是在实际的语言环境中，我们常常需要打破这一数量原则，来起到幽默话语的喜剧效果。例如：

Jack：I saw Mr Green having lunch with a woman the day before yesterday.

Eason：Oh my god!Is she beautiful?

Jack：Yes，she is not only beautiful，but also young.

Eason：Dose Mrs Green know about it?

Jack：Of was the young and beautiful woman.

在这段对话中，Eason理解的和Mr Green共进午餐的年轻貌美的女人应该是除了Mrs Green以外的其他女人，同时也不是Mr Green家里的其他女性亲戚。而Jack如果不想引起误会的话，应该直接说他前天看到Mr Green和Mrs Green共进午餐，但是为了引起Eason的好奇心，促使他进一步追问，就在第一句话中只说看到Mr Green与一位女性共进午餐，这虽然是违反了数量准则的，但也就此产生体现了幽默话语的有趣、逗乐原则。而Eason心理期待与实际情况之间的落差导致其认知的突然重构，给交谈双方带来乐趣，达到愉悦和反讽的效果。

(2)幽默话语与质量准则

合作原则之质量准则要求说话者不说自知是虚假的话，不说无稽之谈，但是在幽默话语中，说话者经常会采用诸如反语、夸张的休息手法。这样虽然会打破“质量准则”，但是带来的幽默效果也是非常显著的。在上世纪90年代即被引入中国并风靡十几年的美国NBC情景剧《老友记》中就存在很多这样的例子。例如：

Phoebe：You do not want to wine the lottery?

Rose：Uh surely I do，and I want to be the king of my own country.

通过思考并分析这段对话，我们得出Phoebe问Rose，你是否对有意买彩票，有没有兴趣去试一下自己的运气，通过片中的特点情景和人物关系，我们可以看出Rose对彩票不感兴趣，但是她没有直接了当的说“没兴趣”，而是采用了幽默话语说“想啊，我当然想，我还想当国家元首呢。”因为一个平民是几乎没有可能成为国家元首的，所以Rose的话语是违背了质量准则的。但是，这种“有意违背”和“夸大其词”正是这段对话的笑点所在。

三、幽默话语与指称语

指称语(indexicals)就是具有指称功能的语言结构形式，是日常生活中常见的语言现象。是发话人与受话人，在共同的知识环境、语言环境下，可以彼此理解的，映射出话语的，潜在的指称义和指称关系。当指称语所指示的信息不明确或者出现谬误，发话人的意思就是变得令人费解，幽默话语很可能就此产生。同时，指称语还受到人文背景、社会文化、交际距离、环境等多种因素的影响。指称语可以分为人称指称语、时间指称语、地点指称语等等，其中以人称指称语最为常见。我本文就以人称指称语为例，幽默话语和指称语之间的关系。

人称指称语可以分为第一人称、第二人称和第三人称，是对话参与者角色关系的客观体现。第一人称是发话人、第二人称是受话人、第三人称是话语谈及的对象。在话语中，如果这种规则被打破，就会出现人称指称语不相对应的现象，可能会起到幽默效果。例如：

Jim was down the local pub with his mate Mark.

Jim：Do you know，Mark，I never kissed my wife before we were about you?”

Mark：I don’t know，What was her maiden name?”

这段对话是Jim与Mark之间的酒后之言。Jim的提问，真正的意思是“Have you ever kissed your wife before you were married?” 在指称语中，第二人称是针对受话人而言的，谈及的是隐私或伤痛，所以受话人Mark就采用了幽默话语来回避问题，轻描淡写地将这一问题带过去了，其机智幽默值得我们参照和学习。

四、关联理论与幽默话语

从关联理论的角度来看，受话者会故意曲解发话者的意图，到处与发话者截然相反的信息，产生意外的幽默效果。例如：

Teacher：Tom，there were three peaches，ate one，how many would you have?

Tom：Three，tow outside and one inside.

Tom作为孩子，其对事物的思考方式不同于成人，因为无法认清老师出题的意图，而给出出人意料的答案，起到了幽默的效果。

结语：

从上述讨论中，我们可以看出，在不同语境中，人们会对对话意义、指称语、 语言意义等的理解产生偏差或者错位。幽默话语具有深层次的、含蓄的、深沉的、巧妙的作用，避免交际中的尴尬或难堪，增强语言表达的效果，可以起到愉悦交流、点缀生活的作用。
关于英语语言学论文范文参考篇2
浅谈从建构主义角度探析英语语言学教学

21 世纪 教育 的基点是终身学习，是不断提出问题、解决问题的学习，是敢于打破狭隘的专业界限面向真实复杂任务的学习。在英语课程学习过程中，学生普遍认为英语语言学这门课更加的枯燥，无味和吃力。英语语言学课程涉及面广、内容多、概念多、理论多，理论性和实践性都很强;同时英语语言学课时少，而语言学的发展引起的教学内容不断扩充，暴露出和教学时数有限之间日益严重的矛盾。因而继续沿用传统的教学理念和教学模式进行教学已经不能适应新形势下的教学过程，必须用一种更好的教学方式，使学生和老师尽快适应新形势的要求。

随着建构主义学习理论的出现，提出了建构主义的教学设计。建构主义强调情境、协作、会话和意义建构四大要素，倡导以“学”为中心的理念。将建构主义的教学理论引入到英语语言学教学过程中，进行了许多有益的尝试，取得了显著的效果。

1 建构主义的四大要素

在 学习 方法 上建构主义提倡的是教师指导下的以学生为主体的学习,在学习环境上要求是开放的、充满意义解释和建构性的,理想的学习环境主要有情境、协作、会话和意义建构四大要素构成。

1.1“情境”：学习环境中的情境必须有利于学习者对所学内容的意义建构。这就意味着在建构主义学习环境下，要把为学生创设建构意义的情境问题看作是教学设计的主要内容之一。“在课堂教学中播放有助于理解教学内容的录像、录音、参与 社会实践 、向学生提供网络的丰富的学习资源等等，凡是有助于学习者理解掌握学习内容的情境，都属于情境创设的范畴。”

1.2“协作”：协作发生在学习过程的始终。协作在一定意义上是协商的意思。协商主要有自我协商和相互协商。

1.3“会话”：会话是协作过程中的不可缺少环节。学习小组成员之间通过会话来商讨如何完成规定的学习任务达到意义建构的目标，怎样更多地获得教师或他人的指导和帮助等等，推进学习进程。在会话的过程中，每个学习者的思维成果(智慧)为整个学习群体所共享 ，因此会话是达到意义建构的重要手段之一。

1.4“意义建构”：这是整个学习过程的最终目标。在学习过程中帮助学生建构意义就要帮助学生对当前学习的内容所反映事物的性质、规律以及该事物与其他事物之间的内在联系达到较深刻的理解。

2 建构主义环境下对英语语言学教学启示

2.1强调以学为中心的设计

在建构主义学习环境下，师生的地位、作用与传统的教学发生了很大的变化。学生由知识的被动接受者转变为信息加工的主体、知识意义的主动建构者。教师也不再是知识的灌输者，而是教学环境的设计者、学生学习的组织者和指导者、知识的管理者，是学生的学术顾问。因此，教师要从前台退到幕后，从“演员”转变为“导演”。在建构主义的语言学教学中，学习环境中要充分发挥学生的主动性，教师要为学生创设尽可能真实的情境去应用他们所学的知识。具体来说,英语英语语言学课程教学应该激发教学主体的主动性和积极性,强调教学任务的适合性和针对性,注重教学环境的互动性和趣味性。

2.2强调学习环境的设计

建构主义教学设计的重心便是学习环境的设计。这里的学习环境是一个支持和促进学习者自主探索、自主学习的场所。学习环境的设计应围绕支持学习者开展有意义的学习来创设支持条件。它主要包括基于问题的学习环境的设计、合作学习环境的设计、真实情境的设计等。建构主义学习环境的设计的宗旨是通过支持学习者的有意义学习，促进学习者的发展。

例如，在讲授语言的任意性时，不少学生对于语言中音和义之间没有必然的联系这一属性存在疑惑，原因是在语言中的确存在一些音和义有一定联系的语言现象，如拟声词，对于这种问题，教师可以在深入讲解之前，给学生布置一些任务，让他们课前收集英语中的拟声词，并让其与汉语中对应的拟声词相比较，然后以 报告 的形式在课上做出来，教师则在这一过程中起着引导、监督、组织的作用，在学生做完报告后，教师做出归纳 总结 。

2.3教学任务的适合性和针对性

语言教学中任务的设置必须以学生的实际情况为前提,任务太困难或太容易都不利于学生主动建构知识。在选择英语语言学课程教学内容时，应适当减少课堂教学内容的广度和深度。所选课堂教学内容如下:语言、语言学、语音学、音系学、句法学、语义学、语用学、二语习得、语言与文化。明确学习任务,选择训练方式,使学生有足够的机会进行练习。教师应懂得如何控制自己的情绪,并通过积极的语言来激励学生。应及时地对正确回答问题,出色完成学习任务的学生进行表扬。如:Well done!Very good!Good job! Excel lent!这些词语看似简单,却能给学生以信心和动力。同时,对学生的缺点和不足要多指导,少批评少责备。

3 建构主义的教学评价

建构主义评价观具有几个方面的特征。首先，诊断性和 反思 性是建构主义学习评价的重要组成部分。这就意味着，学习者必须从事自我监控、自我测试、自我检查等活动，以诊断和判断他们在学习中所追求的是否是自己设置的目标。其次，建构主义评价观认为评价是评价者和被评价者“协商”进行的共同心理建构过程，评价受“多元主义”价值观所支配。因此，建构主义注重评价主体的多元化和评价方式的多样化。再次，建构主义认为，评价是学习者活动过程中的一个必然组成部分，而不是教学后的评价，它是一个持续性和实时性的镶嵌过程。因此，建构主义强调过程性评价，倡导“质性”的方法。所谓过程性评价是在某项教学活动的过程中，为使活动效果更好而不断进行的评价，它能及时了解阶段教学的结果和学生学习的进展情况、存在问题等，以便及时反馈，及时调整和改进教学工作。可见，建构主义评价观提倡以学为中心的理念，更加关注学生的发展。

4 结束语

建构主义教学观为课堂教学提供了新模式,为习惯于被动式接受的学生阐释了学习的新理念,从而为英语语言学课堂的教与学带来了新的启示和体验。在英语语言学课堂教学中教授学习策略,引导学生自主学习及改进 教学方法 。这些方面有助于学生建构知识,形成能力。

参考文献

[1]陈莉.社会建构主义与外语教学[J].外语论坛, 2003(1).

[2]胡壮麟.对中国英语教育的若干思考[J].外语研究, 2002(3).

[3]盛群力、__强.现代教学设计论[M].浙江教育出版社，2000

关于英语语言学的论文

Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition Strategies
二语词汇习得策略
[摘 要] 词汇是构成语言的基本单位，词汇习得在语言学习中占有重要地位。
英国著名语言学家D.A. Wilkins (1972) 说过：“没有语法，人们不能表达很多东西；而没有词汇，人们则无法表达任何东西。”这就说明了词汇在学习中的重要性。本文旨在分析二语词汇习得策略并应用于不同水平的学习者。学习者根据自己的水平选择正确的习得方法和策略学习词汇，从而提高学习效率和习得效果。
关键字： 二语词汇习得 词汇习得策略 元认知策略 认知策略

Abstract
Vocabulary is the basic unit of a language. Language acquisition plays an important role in language learning. Famous linguistics D. A. Wilkins said, “Without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed (Lewis, 1993:16).” It speaks volumes for the importance of vocabulary in language learning. This paper aims to analysis the second language acquisition strategies and applies to different levels of learners. According to the different levels, the learners should choose the proper methods and strategies to promote learning efficiency and acquisition effect.
Key words: Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition； Vocabulary
Acquisition Strategies； Metacognitive strategy； Cognitive strategy

Introduction
With economic globalization and multi-polarization of the world, especially the population of the internet, English becomes more and more important, because it is considered as the tool for absorbing and communicating information. As we all known, vocabulary acquisition is one of the most noticed-question of the second language learners. “Vocabulary” appears in the area of linguists’ study. Nowadays, researchers still can not give a complete and reasonable definition of vocabulary. Since 1970s, the second language vocabulary acquisition research has gradually become the hot point and important subject in the second language vocabulary acquisition research area. These researches aim to discuss the efficiency vocabulary memory strategies to promote the memory skills and vocabulary levels. Then how to acquire vocabulary become popular among the researchers. Wenden &Rubin (1987), O’Malley& Chamot (1990) refer to the content of vocabulary acquisition strategies; Rubin (1987) and Oxford (1990) classify the memory strategy to the direct cognitive strategies. Especially, CohenAphek (1981), Porte (1988), O’Malley (1990), Vann (90), Cohen (1990), etc made a basic searching of vocabulary acquisition. In a word, there are various opinions in how to acquire vocabulary. Firstly, it talks about the importance of vocabulary. Secondly, what does it mean to “acquire” a word? This paper mainly aims to the detail analysis of the vocabulary acquisition from three aspects：Meta-cognitive Strategy; Cognitive Strategy and Social or Affective Strategy. Especially, it highlights the effect of the context and rending to vocabulary acquisition. This paper talks about the applications of the vocabulary acquisition strategies. And it puts forward some problems and difficulties of vocabulary acquisition. This paper also discusses the influencing factors to the acquisition. It includes the mother tongue, age, language contact, logical thinking ability, identity degree, and academic motivation .
The purpose of this paper is to rise the awareness of English learners that the importance of vocabulary in language learning and the vocabulary acquisition strategies can not be neglected, and each strategies is deeply rooted in its language. Through the analysis of the theory of study, the paper tries to draw the learner’s attention to the strategies of the second language vocabulary acquisition and using the vocabulary in communication. In order to improve the acquisition efficiency, some strategies put into practice are introduced.
The first presents the importance of vocabulary, some basic concepts of vocabulary and vocabulary learning, the second part tells what does it mean to know a word, the third part deals with the theory of vocabulary acquisition and presents the factors and differences influencing the vocabulary acquisition. The fourth part is detailed discussion of vocabulary acquisition strategies in different levels of learners. The last part is conclusion.

Literature review
1. The importance of vocabulary
As the first time, when we go to school and our English teacher will tell us that vocabulary is of great importance in learning English. After several years, we understand words gradually, especially when we study in high school. If we know a little about vocabulary, we may have poor English. That is because the listening, speaking, reading and writing show the necessary of learning vocabulary.
Many researchers agree that lexis is at least as important as structure, because it is using wrong words and not wrong grammar that usually breaks down communication. Mistakes in lexis much more often lead to misunderstanding and may be less generously tolerated outside classroom than mistakes in syntax. (Carter, 1987). As Stephen Krashen remarked, “When students travel, they don’t carry grammar books, they carry dictionaries.
A significant role of vocabulary in both teaching and learning processes was first stated by Stephen Krashen in The Natural Approach (1985):
“Vocabulary is basic for communication. If acquirers do not recognize the meaning of the key words used by those who address them they will be unable to participate in the conversation.”
Words are basic tools in human communication; therefore they determine the main part of people’s life-relationships between people and associations with the surrounding world that people live in. The larger one’s vocabulary, the easier it is to express one’s thoughts and feelings.
In real communication, correctly and idiomatically used vocabulary can even decrease some structural inaccuracy and grammar errors. (Zhang Jiying, 2002). So learners should enrich and expand their knowledge of words as much as possible in order to communicate effectively in a foreign language.
2. What does it mean to “know” a word?
Knowing a word is not a simple phenomenon. In fact, it is quite complex and goes far beyond the word’s meaning and pronunciation. (Zhang Jiying, 2002). Richards (1976) think knowing a word means also knowing the frequency of words and their likely collocates; being aware of the functional and situation limitations that apply; knowledge of the “syntactic behavior”; derivational forms and word class; associative and connotative knowledge; semantic value-breaking down words into minimal units as with componential analysis (see Katz&Fodor1963or Leech1974); knowing the other (possible) meaning associated. Nagy and Scott (2000) identify several dimensions that describe the complexity of what it means to know a word. First, word knowledge is incremental, which means that readers need to have many exposures to a word in different contexts before they “know” it. Second, word knowledge is multidimensional. This is because many words have multiple meanings and serve different functions in different function in different sentences, texts, and even conversations. Third, word knowledge is interrelated in that knowledge of one word connects knowledge of other words.
What all of this means is that “knowing” a word is a matter of degree rather than an all-or-nothing proposition (Beck&Mckeown, 1991; Nagy&Scott, 2000). The degree of knowing a word are reflected in the precision with which we use a word, how quickly we understand a word, and how well we understand and use words in different modes and different purpose.
The memory strategy, cognitive strategy, social strategy and metacognitve strategy are used more frequently than the affective strategy and compensative strategy.

Conclusion
This paper has attempted to provide some theories of second language vocabulary acquisition and some strategies. Such as metacognitive strategy, cognitive strategy, and social strategy. However, this paper also put forward some microcosmic strategy. As a matter of fact, vocabulary acquisition should combine the context. In addition, this paper hasn’t mentioned that culture is also an important factor in vocabulary acquisition. In the study of second language vocabulary acquisition, we should pay attention to the process and the acquiring results. This paper focuses on the study of the second language vocabulary acquisition strategies.

Bibliography
[1] A.U. Chamot. The Learning Strategies of ESL Students. In A. L. Wenden & J.
Rubin, (eds), Learner Strategies in Language Learning, 1987.
[2] Cater. R. and M. McCarthy. Vocabulary and Language Teaching. New York:
Longman, 1987.
[3] Nation, L. S. P. Teaching and Learning Vocabulary. New Newbury House
Publishers, 1990.
[4] O’Malley, J. & Chamot, A. U.. Learning Strategies in Second Language
Acquisition [J]. Cambridge University Press, 1990:12-15.
[5] 陈桦，张益芳.中国儿童英语词汇记忆策略探究[J].外语学刊,2001(4). [11] 戴曼纯. 论第二语言词汇习得研究[J]. 外语教学与研究，2002(2). [12] 徐德凯.大学英语词汇教学理论与实践[M].长春：吉林出版集团有限责
任公司，2009.
[6] 王文宇.观念、策略与英语词汇记忆[J].外语教学与研究，1998(1). [13] 文秋芳. 英语学习策略论.上海：上海外语教育出版社，1996.
[7] 吴霞，王蔷.非英语专业本科生词汇水平研究. 外语教学与研究，1998(1). [15] 张纪英.英语词汇学教学与研究[M]. 武汉：华中科技大学出版社,2007. [16] 朱厚敏. 英语词汇学习策略研究[M] 长春：吉林大学出版社，2009.

英语语言学论文

语言学可以写的内容很多。基本上不外乎以下一些：
一，语音类
如语音的属性、音韵与语音的关系、强弱、轻浊、音节等
二，词汇类
如词汇形态学，语义学，构词，词化，语义场等等
三，语法类
如语法结构，层次，修辞等
四，句子类
如分析句子的各种成分，语序，基本句型等
五，语篇类
如连贯性，思维逻辑性，结构修辞，主体与客体意识等
这方面的教材很多，就看你的要求了。现在英语与汉语的对比语言学和对比文学比较热，从这方面下手也不错。

英语语言学论文

转摘More and more scholars are now showing an interest in adopting linguistic approaches to translation studies. Between 1949 and 1989, an incomplete survey by the author revealed that there were only about 30 textbook passages discussing the relationship between linguistics and translation, including aspects of general linguistics, pragmatics, stylistics, text linguistics, rhetoric and machine translation. From 1990 to 1994, there was an incredible increase in the number of passages looking at translation from a linguistic point of view. Almost 160 articles published over these five years concerned translation and general linguistics, stylistics, comparative linguistics, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, text linguistics, rhetoric, etc. New terms such as discourse analysis, hermeneutics, dynamic equivalence, deep structure and surface structure, context, theme and rheme, cooperative principles, to mention just a few, appeared in the field of translation studies. We can definitely identify a trend of applying linguistics theories to translation studies in these years.

Today, we are at the point of questioning whether linguistics is a necessary part of translation. In recent years, some scholars who are in favour of free translation, have repeatedly raised this question to the public and appealed for an end to the linguistic approach to translation. Some firmly believe that translation is an art and that therefore linguistics is neither useful nor helpful. Such a claim is wrong if we look at translation as a whole, including scientific translation where meanings are rigid and restricted and the degree of freedom is limited. Flexibility, in this case, is neither required nor appreciated.

But even in literary translation, linguistics is hardly a burden. Wang Zongyan pointed out that « If one sees linguistics as a body of rules regulating language, translators most probably will yawn with boredom. If it signifies the use of words and locutions to fit an occasion, there is nothing to stop translators from embracing linguistics » (Wang 1991: 38). The controversy over « literal » versus « free » translation has a long history, with convincing supporters on each side. For example, ancient Western scholars like Erasmus, Augustine, and others were in favour of literal translation. Among early Chinese translators, Kumarajiva is considered to be of the free school, while Xuan Zuang appears as literal and inflexible. In modern China, Yan Fu advocated hermeneutic translation, while Lu Xun preferred a clumsy version to one that was free but inexact. There is nothing wrong in any of these stances. When these translators emphasized free translation they never denied the possibility of literal translation, and vice versa. Problems only arise when the discussion turns to equivalent translations.

The problem of equivalence has caused much controversy. Some people believed that there could be an equivalence of language elements independent of the setting in which they of occurred. Based on this assumption, some « literal » translators tried to decompose a text into single elements in hopes of finding equivalents in the target language. This is a naive idea. Jakobson (1971: 262) notes that « Equivalence in difference is the cardinal problem of language and the pivotal concern of linguistics. » He does not refer to « equivalence » but to « equivalence in difference » as the cardinal problem. Nida was also misunderstood by many for his notion of « equivalence, » which he took to mean that « Translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source-language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style » (1969: 12). He further concluded that « Absolute equivalence in translating is never possible » (1984: 14). De Beaugrande and Dressler believed that the success or failure of either free or literal approaches was uncertain: an unduly « literal » translation might be awkward or even unintelligible, while an unduly « free » one might make the original text disintegrate and disappear altogether. To them, equivalence between a translation and an original can only be realized in the experience of the participants (cf. de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981: 216-217). Catford (1965: 27) expressed the same concern that equivalent translation is only « an empirical phenomenon, discovered by comparing SL and TL texts. » In citing the above examples, I have absolutely no intention of insisting on untranslatability. What I mean is that a translator should incorporate his or her own experience and processing activities into the text: solving the problems, reducing polyvalence, explaining away any discrepancies or discontinuities. Linguistic knowledge can help us treat different genres in different ways, always with an awareness that there are never exact equivalences but only approximations. Therefore, amplification and simplification become acceptable.

If we agree that texts can be translated, then, in what way does linguistics contribute to translation? To answer this question, we must look at the acceptance of western linguistics in China and its influence on translation. Systematic and scientific study of the Chinese language came into being only at the end of the last century, when Ma Jianzhong published a grammar book Mashi Wentong «马氏文通» in 1898, which was the first in China and took the grammar of Indo-European languages as its model. The study of language was, in turn, influenced by translation studies in China. In Mashi Wenton, the main emphasis is on the use of morphology, which takes up six-sevenths of the book. Influenced by the dominant trend of morphological studies, a word was regarded as the minimum meaningful unit, and a sentence was therefore the logical combination of words of various specific types. Translation was, then, principally based on the unit of the word. In the West, Biblical translation provided a very good example, just as the translation of Buddhist scriptures did in China.

Not until the end of the 19th century did some linguists come to realize that sentences were not just the summary of the sequenced words they contained. The Prague School, founded in the 1920s, made a considerable contribution to the study of syntax. According to the analytic approach of the Functional Perspective of the Prague School, a sentence can be broken down into two parts: theme and rheme. Theme is opposed to rheme in a manner similar to the distinction between topic and comment, and is defined as the part of a sentence which contributes least to advancing the process of communication. Rheme, on the other hand, is the part of a sentence which adds most to advancing the process of communication and has the highest degree of communicative dynamism. These two terms help enlighten the process of translating Chinese into English.

In the mid-1950s, the study of syntax peaked with the Chomsky's establishment of transformational-generative grammar. This theory of the deep structure and surface structure of language influenced translation tremendously. Nida relied heavily on this theory in developing his « analyzing-transfering-reconstructing » pattern for translation. Some Chinese linguists, in the meantime, tried to raise language studies to a higher plane. Li Jinxi (1982) enlarged the role of sentence studies in his book A New Chinese Grammar, two thirds of which was devoted to discussing sentence formation or syntax. He writes that « No words can be identified except in the context of a sentence. » The study was then improved by other grammarians, including Lu Shuxiang, Wang Li.

With the development of linguistic studies, translation based on the unit of the sentence was put forward by some scholars. It was Lin Yu-Tang who first applied the theory to translation in his article « On Translation. » He claimed that « translation should be done on the basis of the sentence [...] What a translator should be faithful to is not the individual words but the meaning conveyed by them » (Lin 1984: r 3). The importance of context in the understanding of a sentence was therefore emphasized. Chao Yuanren, a Chinese scholar and professor at Harvard University, criticized scholars and translators who tended to forget this point and take language for something independent and self-sufficient. In fact, it is obvious that when we translate a sentence, we depend on its context; when we interpret an utterance we rely on the context of the speech (cf. Chao 1967). When a sentence is removed from the text, it usually becomes ambiguous due to the lack of context. Therefore, translation becomes difficult.

In the 1960s, people began to realize that the study of language based on sentences was not even sufficient. A complete study should be made of the whole text. A simple sentence like « George passed » may have different interpretations in different contexts. If the context is that of an examination, it means George did well on a test; in a card game it would indicate that George declined his chance to bid; in sports it would mean the ball reached another player. Without a context, how could we decide on a translation? Linguists therefore shifted their attention to the study of texts and to discourse analysis. Text linguistics have become increasingly popular since that time. Van Dijk was a pioneer in this field, and his four-volume edition of the Handbook of Discourse Analysis is of great value. Halliday's Cohesion in English and Introduction to Functional Grammar help us to better understand the English language on a textual level. It is worth noting that de Beaugrande and Dressler (1981) provided an overall and systematic study of text, which is useful to translation studies. De Beaugrande actually wrote a book called Factors in a Theory of Poetic Translating in 1978. The book did not become very popular as it confined the discussion to translating poetry. At the same time, books on a linguistic approach to translation were introduced into China, such as the works of Eugene Nida, Peter Newmarks, J.C. Catford, Georges Mounin, and others. These books gave a great push to the application of linguistic theories to translation studies in China.

Textual or discoursive approaches to the study of translation could not keep pace with the development of text linguistics. Some studies remained on the syntactic or semantic level, though even there textual devices were employed. In talking about the translation units of word and text, Nida wrote:

... average person naively thinks that language is words, the common tacit assumption results that translation involves replacing a word in language A with a word in language B. And the more « conscientious » this sort of translation is, the more acute. In other words, the traditional focus of attention in translation was on the word. It was recognized that that was not a sufficiently large unit, and therefore the focus shifted to the sentence. But again, expert translators and linguists have been able to demonstrate that individual sentences, in turn, are not enough. The focus should be on the paragraph, and to some extent on the total discourse. (Nida and Tabber 1969: 152)

From that statement we can see that Nida regards a discourse as something larger than a paragraph, as an article with a beginning and an ending. Nida himself never applied text linguistics to translation, and there might be some confusion if we use his term in our interpretation of discourse, because discourse analysis is not merely a study based on a larger language structure.

Some Chinese scholars did make the effort to apply text linguistics to the theory and practice of translation. Wang Bingqin's article (1987) was the first academic paper of this sort. He stated his aim to study and discover the rules governing the internal structure of a text in light of text linguistics. He analyzed numerous examples using textual analysis, but unfortunately, all the samples he collected were descriptions of scenery or quotations from the books of great scholars--no dialogue, no illocutionary or perlocutionary forces in the language. He failed to provide a variety of examples. For this reason, his research findings are largely restricted to rhetorical texts in ancient China (cf. Wang 1981; Luo 1994).

Scholars like He Ziran applied pragamatics to translation. He's article (1992) put forth two new terms, « pragmalinguistics » and « socio-pragmatics » which, in translation, refer respectively to « the study of pragmatic force or language use from the viewpoint of linguistic sources » and to « the pragmatic studies which examine the conditions on language use that derive from the social and cultural situation. » He discusses the possibility of applying the pragmatic approach to translation in order to achieve a pragmatic equivalent effect between source and target texts; that is, to reproduce the message carried by the source language itself, as well as the meaning carried by the source language within its context and culture. In this article he tries to distinguish « pragma-linguistics » from « socio-pragmatics » but finally admits that « Actually, a clear line between pragma-linguistics and socio-pragmatics may sometimes be difficult to draw. » Still he insists that the application of the pragmatic approach to translation is helpful and even necessary. Ke Wenli (1992) argued that semantics, which in a broad sense combines semantics and pragmatics, should be studied to help understand, explain and solve some of the problems encountered in translation. In this article, he examines four semantic terms--« sense and reference, » « hyponomy, » « changes of meaning » and « context »--giving many examples to illusrate the importance of having some general knowledge of semantics and of understanding the relationship between semantics and translation. This article is clearly written and readers can easily draw inspiration from it.

These linguistics approaches shed new lights on the criteria of « faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance » defined by Yan Fu. Chinese scholars began to criticize the vagueness of these three criteria and endeavored to give them concrete significance through the theories of western linguistics. The result is that the content of these three traditional criteria has been greatly enriched, especially by the effect equivalence theory, which in a broad sense means that the target language should be equivalent to the source language from a semantic, pragmatic, and stylistic point of view. But we are still unable to evaluate translations in a very scientific way. Therefore, Chinese scholars like Fan Shouyi, Xu Shenghuan and Mu Lei embarked on quantitative analyses of translations and used the fuzzy set theory of mathematics in accomplishing their analysis. Fan published several articles on this field of study. His 1987 and 1990 articles evaluate translations according to a numerical quantity of faithfulness. Xu's article « A Mathematical Model for Evaluating a Translation's Quality » presents a normal mathematical model. He states that it is difficult to produce an absolutely accurate evaluation of translations with this model because of the uncertainty and randomness of man's thought process. Making such analysis more accurate and objective would require further research.

The unit in translation is a hard nut to crack. Without solving this problem, no research in translation studies will ever be sufficient. To date, very few people have focused their research on this area. Nida holds that the unit should be the sentence, and in a certain sense, the discourse. Barkhudarov (1993: 40), Soviet linguist and translation theorist, suggests that:

translation is the process of transforming a speech product (or text) produced in one language into a speech product (or text) in another language. [...] It follows that the most important task of the translator who carries out the process of transformation, and of the theorist who describes or creates a model for that process, is to establish the minimal unit of translation, as it is generally called, the unit of translation in the source text.

Though he notes the importance of the unit of translation in a text and considers that this unit can be a unit on any level of language, he fails to point out what a text is and how it might be measured in translation. Halliday's notion of the clause might be significant in this case. To him, a clause is a basic unit. He distinguishes three functions of a clause: textual, interpersonal and ideational. According to Halliday, these functions are not possessed by word or phrase. But he is not quite successful in analyzing the relationship between clause and text (cf. Halliday 1985). In China, some people have tried to solve this problem. Wang Dechun (1987: 10) more or less shares Bakhudarov's view that the translation unit cannot be confined just to sentences. In some ways, the phoneme, word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, or even text can all serve as a unit. At this point, we cannot find anything special in treating text translation except for having text as the highest level among translation units. This is not the aim of text linguistics or discourse analysis. If we want to apply these to the theory and practice of translation, we will require a textual approach.