Comparing The Stylistic Features Of English And Chinese Obituaries

This thesis makes an effort to compare the stylistic features of English and Chinese obituaries within the broad framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) established by M. A. K. Halliday. Altogether forty pieces of obituaries were selected from The New York Times, People's Daily and Guangming Daily to represent the English and Chinese corpora respectively (twenty pieces for each). This thesis adopts a synoptic and descriptive approach to analysis. The analysis is generally carried out through coding choices, quantifying frequencies, presenting data, and interpreting results. Through analysis we find out that both English and Chinese obituaries are primarily, concerned with the major events in the person's life. The newspapers mainly convey information to the readers. The obituaries generally take the form of written narration. However, compared with English obituaries, the Chinese obituaries have more functions to perform. Apart from giving a review of the person's life, the Chinese obituary also makes a judgment about the person, highlighting his/her virtues, and occasionally invites the readers to learn from him/her. With heavy officialese, the Chinese obituary looks more fermal and authoritative, thus posing a 'quasi-official' image. The thesis also probes into the socio-cultural dynamics behind those stylistic features. It is interesting to notice that the western culture promotes diversity while the Chinese society guards its core values. The newspaper industry in the west is more reader-oriented while the Chinese newspapers are often tinted with a political color. With those points discussed, this thesis may contribute to future researches in obituary translation, contrastive stylistics, and cross-cultural studies.