A Contrastive Study Of English And Chinese Focus Markers Based On Figure-Ground Theory

The focus of a sentence is the key information of a sentence,and the function of the focus marker is to elicit and highlight the focus.In a language,the intonation,syntax or word can all act as focus markers.This thesis only focuses on the focus markers acted by lexical or syntactic methods.Many scholars have used different methods to explore the focus markers in English and Chinese,but the results can be further improved.Figure-Ground Theory of cognitive linguistics provides a new perspective for the study of focus markers.Figure-Ground Theory thinks that the relationship between figure and ground in visual field can be used in language research.In the visual field,moving things,small things and colorful things are easy to be noticed and become figures,while other things become ground.By projecting the Figure-Ground Theory into the study on the focus of a sentence,the component of a sentence that is easy to be noticed by readers(figure)becomes the semantic focus,while other components become the non-semantic focus(ground).When the semantic focus of a sentence is not as easy to be distinguished as the figure in the visual field,people have to resort to the focus marker,so focus markers are tools to help us grasp the semantic focus.What can be used as focus marks? This is the research object of this study.According to the principles of Figure-Ground Theory,we can infer that the focus markers must be very close to the figure.From the perspective of psychology,some words with specific meanings and functions in language,the beginning position or end position of a sentence,can be the focus markers.They can attract people’s attention and highlight semantic focus.This conjecture greatly reduces the research scope of focus markers and helps to clarify the semantic features and syntactic functions of focus markers.Based on the above conjecture,by using the methods of observation,literature review and comparative analysis,this thesis has made a detailed analysis of the semantic and positional features of focus markers in English and Chinese exclamatory sentences,interrogative sentences and emphatic sentences,pointing out the differences between English and Chinese in the form of focus markers in the same sentence pattern and studying the causes of the differences.The findings of this study are as follows.First,there is a common focus marker in both English and Chinese exclamatory sentences,that is,adverbs of degree.In the auditory domain,the adverbs of degree themselves can become something that attracts attention(figure),but they cannot represent a certain feature of a person or thing,therefore,they cannot become the semantic focuses,only play the role of leading the semantic focuses and become the focus markers.Second,the focus markers in English and Chinese interrogative sentences are quite different.Both general questions or special questions in English mark the focus by moving the auxiliary verb.In Chinese,general interrogative words or wh-words act as focus markers.The reason is that English is a language with abundant formal changes.Auxiliary verbs have the function of displacement,this displacement reflects a syntactic movement.The moving object is easy to become the focus or elicit the focus,so the question focus can be marked through the displacement of auxiliary verbs.Chinese is a language lacking in formal changes.In declarative sentences,the semantic focus of Chinese often appears at the end of the sentence,which accords with the cognitive principle from the known to the unknown.If we place the general interrogative word which expresses the doubt at the end of a sentence,it will naturally be at the position of semantic focus.But semantically,it is not the focus itself,only makes the clause before it become the semantic focus,therefore,the general interrogative words in this position play the role of highlighting semantic focus and become focus markers.Third,there is a big difference in the methods of marking the focus in English and Chinese emphatic sentences.English mainly uses syntactic methods to mark the focus,while Chinese uses lexical methods.In the English emphatic sentence pattern “It be + the emphasized part(semantic focus)+ that”,the main structure is the “It be + the emphasized part(semantic focus)”.This structure conforms to the cognitive principle from the known to the unknown.“Be” has the meaning of “affirmation”,which naturally helps to elicit the semantic focus.Chinese language lacks in formal changes,so its emphasized structure can only be embodied by lexical method.It chooses the word “Shi” as focus marker because the word “Shi” also has the meaning of “affirmation”,so it can help to elicit the semantic focus.Through an in-depth study of the expressions of focus markers in exclamatory sentences,interrogative sentences and emphatic sentences in English and Chinese,the thesis finds the internal causes for the similarities and differences in the expressions of focus markers in different languages,and confirms the guiding significance of the Figure-Ground Theory to the study of focus markers in English and Chinese sentences.