A Comparative Study Of Poetic Features Between English And Chinese By Patterns Of Thematic Progression

In recent years, Theme-Rheme theory has been frequently applied to discourse analysis. In this theory, thematic progression is considered an effective means of analyzing how text is developed as it shows the basic principle of the development of text. On the other hand, with the development of discourse analysis, contrastive linguistics has expanded its research area from the levels of phonetics, lexicon, grammar and rhetoric to the textual level.The notion of Theme and the Theme-Rheme theory were firstly put forward and then developed by the Prague School scholar Mathesius and then the Theme-Rheme theory is further developed by systemic functional linguists. According to systemic functional linguistics, Theme can be categorized mainly into three classes: simple Themes, multiple Themes and clausal Themes. Halliday further distinguishes the three kinds of Theme. In terms of thematic progression, many scholars at home and abroad have studied this theory. On the basis of the three fundamental types of thematic progression proposed by Danes (1974), Chinese scholar Huang Guowen (1988) proposes six TP patterns: the Constant Theme Pattern, the Simple Linear Pattern, the Focus Rheme Pattern, the Alternative Pattern, the Comparative Pattern and the Derivative Pattern. At the same time, many other scholars have applied the theory to the analysis of texts nearly covering all types of genres, in which poetry, although analyzed by some scholars for various purposes, is seldom analyzed in terms of the theory of thematic progression in the field of contrastive linguistics, especially in the contrast between English and Chinese.In view of poetry as the most valuable and important type of literature, the contrastive study on poetry in English and Chinese can provide us with a special visual angle to penetrate the relationship between the two languages. Therefore, in this thesis, a synthesis of the six TP patterns proposed by Huang Guowen and the three fundamental patterns proposed by Danes is applied to the contrastive analysis of poetry in English and Chinese. The study is carried out in two steps. Firstly, in the qualitative analysis, two poems in English and Chinese are analyzed respectively in terms of thematic progression and four hypotheses are posed accordingly. Secondly, in the successive quantitative analysis, another 10 poems in English and Chinese are analyzed to verify the hypotheses and come to further conclusions on the statistics of the distribution of TP patterns as follows:(1) The general phenomenon of ellipsis of Theme exists in both English poems and Chinese ones.(2) More marked Themes are involved in English poems than in Chinese ones. (3) More types of thematic progression are involved in English poems than in Chinese ones.(4) The Comparative Pattern is seldom used in English poems while the Focus Rheme Patternand the Alternative Pattern are scarce in Chinese poems.Despite the limitations of this study, these findings can, to a large extent, indicate the relationship between TP patterns and poetic structures in both English and Chinese which are determined by the poets'underlying train of thoughts. This study provides some helpful clues to the future study on the contrast between English and Chinese, and so it can enhance English learners'abilities in reading, writing, speaking and translating etc.