Research About The Comparison Between "Dong Bu Dong" And "Jing Chang"

In our modern Chinese, there are adverbs which show the frequency that things take place. Usually, they are called time frequency adverbs. Among the domestic Chinese textbooks, The Practical Modern Chinese Grammar (1983) edited by Liu Yuehua for the first time separates the frequency adverbs from time adverbs aiming at the teachers who take Chinese as the second language and the foreign students who have some basic knowledge of Chinese. From then on, some of modern Chinese textbooks for Chinese graduates are also edited like this. As regard to frequency adverbs, they are usually classified into three groups according to the frequency, namely high frequency adverbs, middle frequency adverbs and low frequency adverbs, such as "dong bu dong" and "jing chang" which are considered as middle frequency adverbs. My thesis is to offer you a deeper and comparative research between "dong bu dong" and " jing chang" through the discussion concerning grammar, linguistics, pragmatics, supposition and perception in order to help and inspect the teaching of Chinese as the second language."Dong bu dong" has two expressions in Chinese. One means the united structure of verbs" xuan ze" and "jian you" and the other means " chang chang" as a time frequency adverb showing things or situation(unexpected) happen easily or often. Because the first is beyond our topic here, we only talk about the second one in my thesis.From the point of view of frequency, "dong bu dong " and "jing chang" are thought as middle frequency adverbs. They can not appear together with the scope adverbs like "dou", "ren yi ci" and the measure words in small volume that are used to match with verbs and nouns, but can modify the verbs in the form of superposition. Besides, they can not be replaced by "lao" and "zong shi", but can contrapose " ou er". As for the position in a sentence, " dong bu dong" could exchange its place with " jing chang" while the meaning of the sentence does not change too much. Both of the two words could act as predicates in a sentence showing the frequency of the happening of things or situation, being followed either by one single verb or by a phrase or by a compound sentence."Dong bu dong" and " jingchang" differ from each other a lot although they have something in common.In the respect of their meanings, " jing chang" emphasizes the times that things or situation take place repeatedly in a period of time and it is between " zong shi" and " ou er" as regards to the frequency.In the respect of distribution, firstly, "dong bu dong" and " jing chang" usually modify verbs with a following. When they are followed by the verbs without a following, "jiu" should appear after " dong bu dong", while " jing chang" does not need so. If "jiu" appears after " jingchang", the verb must be modified. In this case, this modification shall be considered when we try to figure out the meaning of "jiu" here. Secondly, "dong bu dong" could be placed either in the beginning of a sentence or in front of the main verbs. But" jing chang" in most cases appear before the main verb only, seldom shown in the beginning of a sentence . Thirdly, "dong bu dong" is to deny the action or situation that speaker does not expect and carry abnormal and negative meaning. Contrarily, "jing chang" does not only deny the action and situation that "dong bu dong" does, but also the ones that speaker expect and carry the normal and positive meaning. Finally, the phrase "dong bu dong" is only embodied in the future tense sentences which is negative, which is contrast, the phrase "jing chang" can be found both in positive and negative sentences which use the future tense.In the respect of the language style in Chinese, "dong bu dong" is mostly used in oral expression. Even if it appears in literary articles, it is only put in the paragraphs that show strong oral features. Contrary to "dong bu dong", "jing chang" can be used in both oral and literary expression though in fact more in the later one.In the respect of the choice of frequency, " jing chang" only represents the frequency within a long period of time. But "dong bu dong" shows the frequency within both long or short period of time. Besides, " dong bu dong" could describes the frequency of an exact action within the short period of time, but "jing chang" can not do the same.In the respect of the use in Chinese,firstly, a "jing chang" sentence only states something objectively, ignoring the speaker's subjective evaluation; in contrast, a "dong bu dong" sentence shows the speaker's emotion. At the second place, the information preestablished in a "jing chang" sentence is objective and simple, so little value can be found in it. Whereas, the information preestablished in a "dong bu dong" sentence is chosen subjectively by the speaker according to his expressive need. So, the information is relative to his true purpose directly, and great value can be found in it.In the respect of perception, firstly, a "jing chang" sentence shows the information which is out of date, but a "dong bu dong" sentence shows the updated information. Secondly,"dong bu dong" contains a simple indication-ratiocinative progress. Generally speaking, the sentence made of "dong bu dong" does not really show its literal meaning and convey the intent that the literary meaning indicates, but the intent of intercommunication which is the real meaning that the speaker want to express through the literary meaning, namely overtone meaning. Different people could gradually obtains similar experiences and supposition as well as the similar ability of ratiocination due to the common features shared by the environment in which people live and work, the social culture and the perceptive ability. This theory make it possible for the listener by referring to the literary meaning to figure out the real meaning that the speaker intends to express. Based on the ability of cognition , the listener can feel what is abnormal and gets to know there is a special meaning behind what the speaker says. After that, the listener will try to find the abnormity from his common sense and finally get the overtone meaning specifying the real intent of the speaker, because the abnormity is not very outstanding in a " dong bu dong" sentence which only shows a little censure of the speaker.Most of the data of my thesis is from the database of Beijing University , so to some extent, it is not much and exact enough to support the further research.