A Contrastive Study On Stylistic Features Between English And Chinese Weather Forecasts

Weather forecasts, as high time information, are of great importance in current society. They catch increasing attention of the government and people because it is closely related to human's daily life. Along with the rapid development of economy, the information content and communication carriers of weather forecasts have become more and more diverse. Television, radio, internet, newspaper, and even the mobile phone have become the media to spread weather information and service the public. In China, the research on weather language of weather forecasts carried by radio and newspaper dates from 1950s and it has gradually formed a standard, rigorous, and professional language system with some fixed sentence patterns and professional words. Weather language has been widely accepted by the public and has become the study subject by many scholars under such density contacts. However, linguists rarely do systematic and comprehensive research on weather languages; especially do any comparative research on Chinese and English weather language from the perspective of stylistics. What are the general stylistic features of the current weather language? And can the existing weather language adapt to the diversified channels, diversified audience, diversified contents and dynamic development of the language and culture contents?This thesis attempts to explore and summarize the general stylistic features of weather forecasts and find out the unique features of English and Chinese weather forecasts. It begins with Introduction which introduces the research background, research significance and the layout of the whole thesis. Chapter two is Literature Review, which reviews the contrastive studies on stylistic analysis diachronically and synchronically, and summarizes the contemporary studies on weather forecast broad and at home. In the third chapter, it mainly discusses the research methodology which includes research questions, research corpus, and research procedures and so on. Chapter four is the main part of the whole thesis, in which we conduct a study on the similarities between English and Chinese weather forecasts from the perspective of stylistics based on the analysis of the materials. Specific analyses are set at four levels---phonological & graphological level, lexical level, syntactic level and semantic level. For phonological and graphological level, rhyme, numeral system and short paragraphs are the unique features of weather forecasts; For lexical level, fuzzy terms, neologism and set expressions are their common characteristics; For syntactic level, the proper arrangement of long sentences together with the short sentences enhance the unity and readability of weather writings; For semantic level, both Chinese and English weather forecasts carry the same features of widespread use of rhetorical devices and skillful headlines. Chapter five discusses the different features between English and Chinese weather forecasts. Unique features of each weather forecast are found in this part. Chinese weather forecasts employ maps and underlines to achieve eye-catching effects. In addition, Chinese idioms together with considerate tips are also worthy of our attention in consisting of the Chinese distinctive features. English weather forecasts also have distinguished characteristics. The unique use of personal pronoun gives the readers a friendly and fresh feeling. The specific transition method and ungrammatical sentences are sufficient enough to catch the readers'eyesight. Further more, the unique comparative degree and superlative degree also make the English weather forecasts unique and distinct. The last chapter is the conclusion part which summarizes the whole thesis and most importantly, discusses the practical application values of this thesis and its realistic values in our daily life. By the present study, we actually provide a valuable way in understanding and appreciating both English and Chinese weather forecasts.