本科生课程论文论文题目 Pragmatic Analysis on expressions Chinese and English ------- From thePerspective of Deixis完成时间课程名称《语用与交际》授课教师__________________专业年级Pragmatic Analysis on expressions Chinese and English------- From the Perspective of Deixis摘要：指示语是语言中最基本的要素，也是日常生活里使用频率较多的语言慨念。
本文拟从对比语言学的观点出发，对英汉两种语言中的指示语进行对比和分析，从中找出它们之间的一致性和分歧性，其目的是提高对英汉两种语言的认知能力和应用能力。
关键词：英汉；指示语；对比；分析Abstract:Deixis is the most basic elements of the language, but also the frequency of use in everyday life are more generous concept of language. This paper from the viewpoint of comparative linguistics, on the instructions in both English and Chinese language for comparison and analysis, to find out the consistency and differences between them, and its purpose is to improve the cognitive abilities of both English and Chinese and application.Key words: English and Chinese; deixis; comparison; analysisI IntroductionDeixis appears to be a universal component of human communication, linking utterances to the context in which they are used. It is highly context-dependent. The strong context-dependency nature of deixis constantly reminds us of the fact that natural languages are primarily invented for use in face-to-face exchange.And deixis belongs to pragmatic study since it reveals a very close relationship between language and context and non-linguistic context). The understanding of indexical expressions relies on the utterance context.In linguistics, deixis refers to the phenomenon wherein understanding the meaning of certain words and phrases in an utterance requires contextual information. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their denotational meaning varies depending on time and place. Words or phrases that require contextual information to convey any meaning,for example, English pronouns are deictic. Deixis is closely related to both indexicality and anaphora, as will be further explained below. Although this article deals primarily with deixis in spoken language, the concepts can apply to written language, gestures, and communication media as well. While thisarticle draws examples primarily from English, deixis is believed to be a featureof all natural languages.There is something common between English and Chinese deixis, and there truly exist some differences between them. Due to different aspects of reference being made and functions to serve, deixis is divided into some types. They are person, time, place, discourse, and social deixis and so on. And this paper mainly deals with the differences of person deixis, time deixis ,place deixis and discourse deixis in English and Chinese, which can help to have a good knowledge of pragmatics.II. Comparative Analysis on deictic expressions in Chinese and English2.1Person deixisPerson deixis refers to the function of lexical means to encode the role of participants in a speech event. Common examples of these lexical means are personal pronouns.It is divided into first-person, second-person and third-person, which ―are largely consistent in translation between Chinese and English‖2.1.1 Chinese person deixisAs for the first person pronouns, there are two firstsingularperson pronouns in Chinese-―我‖and―咱‖. ―咱‖is far more colloquial, and is mostcommonly used in northern Chinese dialects.Wei Chunyan points out that―咱‖has a specific pragmatic function, and is normally used between friends.Used to show trust, it can therefore reduce social distance between theaddresser and the addressee:(1)要说当经理，咱哥也行。
(If you need someone to be manager, my brothercould do it).In this sentence,―咱‖doesn’t include the listener as the plural would, howeverit does display a relationship between the addresser and addressee. ―Thespeaker, by using this form of person deixis hopes that the listener will feelcomplimented and accept his/her opinion, which in this case is that his/herbrother would be a good manager‖(2) 咱哪能跟你比啊。
(How can I compare with you? / How could I possiblybe compared to you?)The speaker may believe that she is actually better than the addressee;however, out of modesty and politeness, this form is used.(3) 我是一名教师。
(I am a teacher)The speaker tells about his profession.There truly exist two first plural personal pronouns.In modern Chinese, plural personal pronouns are formed by the addition of the bound grammatical morpheme ―—们‖onto the singular personal pronouns，so there are also two translations for we—―我们‖and―咱们‖. As Xiong Qianli says:―咱们‖ is considered more colloquial, however the main difference is that it is inclusive of the sp eaker and the listener, where―我们‖may or may not include the addressee.Even though―我们‖is less colloquial, there are many other instances of different usages:(4)我们同学们想一想，怎样做？(We students think that how to do it)This sentence is taken from a dialogue between a teacher and a class of students. And we all know that the teacher cannot be one students, so in this sentence, the teacher uses―我们‖instead of ―咱们‖.If the sentence is like this:―咱们同学们想一想，怎样做‖. Then we tend to think that the speaker is a student. And we cannot tell the difference between the two sentences through the English translation, but there truly exist differences.And as for the second person pronouns ,Chinese has two different sets of pronouns , an informal one for use when talking to friends and a more formal one or honorific one used for showing respect to the addressees who are older or more important than the speaker, to show the distinction between the singular and plural. For ex ample, there is a distinction between ―你‖ ,―你们‖ and ―您‖. The last is used when we are talking to people who are older or more important than us：(5) 你在做什么？(What are you doing now?)In this sentence, the speaker asks someone what he is doing, and we don’t know that the two people’s relationship. However, when the speaker says like this―您在做什么‖,we can know that the listener is older or more important than the speaker.(6) 你们从哪里来？(Where are you from?)In this sentence, the speaker wants to know that the coming places of many people, but in English translation, we can’t tell that he asks lots of people or a certain person about the places.Then it comes about the third person pronouns, Chinese has five different sets of pronouns—―他‖，―她‖，―它‖，―他们‖，―她们‖，―它们‖.Eacho f them has a certain usage:―他‖is used for talking about a man,―她‖is used for talking about a woman,―它‖is for a thing, ―他们‖is for a group of people which may include some women,―她们‖is for a group of women and―它们‖is for things the number of which is over two.2.1.2 English person deixisAs for the first person pronouns, there exist four first person pronouns—―I‖, ―me‖,―we‖and‖us‖. We all know that ―I‖ and ―me ―are for a singular person, for example: I am a teacher; Xiao Ming beats me. From the two examples, and ―we‖and‖ us‖are for plural, for example: We are Chinese; Mr. Zhao teaches us English. And we all know that when we are the executor of the action, we may use‖I‖or‖we‖, but when we are das patients, we can use ―me‖ or ―us‖. However, in modern English, there is only one world for ―we‖. It may be both ―we-exclusive-of-addressee‖ (the exclusive) and ―we-inclusive-of-addressee‖ (the inclusive). In order to decide whether ―we ―is the exclusive or inclusive, we must rely on the utterance context. Fo r example:(7)What are we supposed to do?In this sentence, if the utterance is made in classroom where a teacher has just finished setting assignments and two students are asking each other about it, then ―we ―is surely the inclusive (including the student being asked).But if one student goes up to the teacher and asks her the same question, then ―we‖ is the exclusive (without including the teacher)(8) 1.Let’s go to the restaurant.2. Let us go to the restaurantIn these two sentences, ―Let’s‖ is ―we-inclusive-of-addressee‖.It refers to both the speaker and addressee and is plural in meaning while ―let us ―is ―we-exclusive-of-addressee‖ and is singular in meaning.As for the second person, some languages have two different sets of pronouns to show the distinction between the singular and plural. However, there isn’t such a distinction in English. ―You ―is used for both singular and plural. Therefore, we need context to help determine whether it is singular or plural. In terms of the participant rol e, we know ―you‖ often refers to addressee/addressees. But in oral and inform situations, there is the ―generic you‖ (in this case, it is in generic usage whose referent is clear and does notneed any context to specify, which refers to ―people in general‖ (includingthe speaking).For example:(9) You never know what you can do till you try.(10)You cannot lose what you never had.The third person is defined negatively as neither the first nor the second, and does not correlate with any positive participant role. Normally the thirdperson pronoun is indicating neither the speaker/speakers noraddressee/addressees. The speaker and the addressee are necessarily presentin the speech situation, whereas other persons and things to which referenceis made may be absent from the situation, they may be left unidentified. InEnglish, there are seven different sets of pronoun—―he‖, ―him‖, ―she‖,―her‖,―it‖, ―they‖ and ―them‖In addition to pronouns, proper names, titles, kinship terms, and noun phrases may express participant roles, too. They sometimes fall into twodifferent sets: one for use in address and the other for use in reference. Forexample, in English ―teacher‖ is used in reference (e.g. Mary is our mat hteacher.), while―Mr‖ and ―Miss‖ are used in address followed by people’snames (e.g. Good morning, Miss Paine! But not Good morning, TeacherPaine!) . The kinship term ―uncle‖ is used both in reference (e.g. Tom is myuncle.) and in address (e.g. Hello, Uncle!), but ―cousin‖ is only used inreference (e.g. Tom is my cousin.). It can’t be used in address (modernEnglish won’t accept Hello, Cousin!)2.1.3 Comparative Analysis on C-E person deixisIn the above mentioned, we have known some differences between Chinese and English person deixis：―咱们‖and―我们‖in Chinese ,while there only exist ―we‖ in English, and we need to rely on the utterance context for determining whether ―we‖ is the exclusive or inclusive; And for the secondperson, there i s a distinction between―你‖and―你们‖in Chinese, but thereisno t such a distinction, ―you‖ is used for both the singular and plural.Then I want to discuss some more differences. In English, the pronoun ―it‖ has many usages: When we don’t know the gender of the addressee, wecan use ―it‖ (e.g. A:Who’s it? B: It’s me. It’s obvious that A is hearingsomeone knocking at the door, so he asks, and then B answer the questionto get the permission to enter the room.) ; When something has beenreferred before, we can use ―it‖ (e.g. Your sweater is very nice, how much is it? We can know that ―sweater‖ has been referred before, so we use―it‖ when we want to talk about the sweater second.); sometimes, there is not a certain subject in a sentence, like weather, disaster (e.g. It is raining outside). However,―它‖doesn’t have some usages like ―it‖.2.2 Time deixisTime deixis refers to the function of lexemes and grammatical means to encode time relative to the time at which an utterance is produced. Most languages base their systems of reckoning and measuring time on the natural cycles of day and night, weeks, months, seasons, and years.Time deixis can be used either calendrically or non-calendrically. By calendrical usage, it refers to the fact that some time deictic expressions are used to locate events in ―absolute‖ time with reference to some fixed time points or spans. Non-calendrical usage reveals the fact that time deictic expressions are also used as measures whose beginning and ending are not ―absolute‖, but vary with utterance context.2.2.1 Chinese Time deixisIn Chinese, aspect markers are used to indicate the state of an action and background information is put first and the focus of the sentence isreserved until the end.An excellent example of this is the way in which time is expressed:(11) 1998年5月22日下午3点( 3 pm. on the 22nd of May,1998)In this example, we can see that background information is put first inChinese.As for Non-calendrical usage in Chinese, we often use ―学年‖ in ourschools, and different schools may have different school calendars.2.2.2 English Time deixisIn English, important information is made obvious early in a sentence, especially for the calendrical usage. Let’s discuss the example above, we can see that if we want to describe the accurate time at the present, we want to say from the small unit to the lage unit. Just like this example, we usually say that 3 pm. on the 22nd of May, 1998.And for Non-calendrical usages in English, well, they are similar to those in Chinese. For example, ―an academic year 2007-2008‖ for students will not necessarily start in January 2007 and end in January 2008 because we know educational organizations do not arrange their work according to this kind of time schedule. And different schools may have different time schedule.As state previously, time deixis can be used either calendrically ornon-calendrically. One specific example is the deictic expression‖ this year‖. It can be used either calendrically or non-calendrically. Consider the following utterance made by parents to their son:(12) We hope you are going to do well this year.In this utterance, ―this year‖ is in calendrical usage if the utterance was made on the New Year’s Day, while it is in non-calendrical usageif the parents made the utterance either at the beginning of a school year or on their son’s birthday. With this example, we see that non-calendrical usage is not based on the natural division of time.Another important time deictic in English is the tense system. In fact, nearly every sentence makes reference to an event time. Often this event time can only be determined in relation to the utterance time. For example, Grundy observe that, when Alf Ramsay, the former of the England football team, said repeatedly in 1965 and 1966:(13) England will win the World Cup.By saying this, he was referring to an event, which he thought would be accomplished in 1966, so he used a future tense to a future event based on his utterance time. Now, it only makes sense to refer to the same event witha simple past tense:(14) England won the World Cup.What we know is that England won the World Cup three times in history, but this sentence does not provide us with some details, but we can make the same utterance calendrically with:(15) England won the World Cup in 1966.In English interaction, deictic expressions like‖ yesterday‖, ―today‖, and ―tomorrow‖ have priority over names terms for the days in a week.2.2.3 Comparative Analysis on C-E time deixisChinese and English time deixis do bear some similarities, and both languages have time deixis that refer to point and duration of time.Chinese also has direct translations for time adverbials such as alreadyand suddenly. Many deixis do not translate directly, and the two main techniques for dealing with this kind of problem are either changing thepoint of reference for the time deictic, or changing a given time intoduration. These are best illustrated by the two examples below:(16) 他拿起东西，接着就喊叫。
