On Comparison Between English And Chinese Punctuation Marks

Punctuation is an indispensable element of language. With the help of it, articles can be read more smoothly and understood more easily. Unfortunately, it is neglected by the majority of students and many translators, and they have a poor mastery of punctuation marks. This results in so many mistakes in their writing and translation.This thesis first makes a brief review of the history of English punctuation and Chinese punctuation, probing into the historical reasons for the cause of a massive amount of similarities (both in form and function).Inspired by Quirk and Halliday, in the second part, the author presents punctuations' functions from three points: a) From the point of grammar, punctuation marks basically have three functions: separation, specification and substitution. b) From the point of rhetoric, punctuation marks' logical function and emotive function are discussed. In the aspect of logical function, how punctuation marks fulfill their cohesive function in elaboration, extension and enhancing is illustrated. c) From the point of style, different uses of punctuation marks in the language of religion, newspaper reporting and legal documents are investigated. All these tell readers how punctuation marks make the language correct, logical, vivid and interesting.Many experts found a large number of mistakes in students' writing, translators' translation, even in published books. They also found that most students like to use American English because America is the most developed country in the world and AmE is more widespread in many fields. Hence, the third part covers a comparative study of punctuation uses in American English and Chinese. Taking into account that Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the greatest writers in American literature and the book The Scarlet Letter represents the height of his literary genius, in this part the author cites the majority of the examples from it. Another reason of choosing this book which has both a Chinese version and an English version is to check whether the translator paid attention to the differences of punctuation, whether there are punctuation mistakes in published books as well as whether there is any difference in the frequency of some punctuation marks' uses. The result is really frustrating, at least fourteen mistakes are found among the listed examples. The issue is so severe that research on this subject is of urgent and demand. In addition, possible reasons for causing the differences are explored mainly from the angle of grammar characteristics. In the following part, some particular English punctuation marks (provided with Chinese translation) are listed in order to help readers to handle these in the process of translating. As we know, American English has a close relation with British English and it is quite easy to confuse them. In view of this, the differences between British English and American English are illustrated in the fifth part. The purpose of this thesis is to help readers better understand punctuation uses, improve their writing and translating ability, and master this useful language tool.