Chinese Rhetoric and Writing - An Introduction for Language Teachers, 2012a

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Chapter 6 realities. Later we shall consider how rhetorical organisation in Chinese has been influenced by Western contact. THE SENTENCE: TOPIC-COMMENT AND/ OR MODIFIER-MODIFIED. A fundamental principle of organisation in Chinese is contained in the topiccomment construction, although, subject-predicate sentences are also common. Here we argue that the topic-comment structure is also linked to the modifiermodified sequence commonly seen in Chinese. Some sixty years ago, Hockett suggested that topic and comment constructions generally characterise the immediate constituents (ICs) of these constructions. “The speaker announces a topic and then says something about it” (201). In discussing Chinese, however, Hockett points out that many Chinese comments themselves consist of both a topic and a comment. In this way, a Chinese sentence can be built up of predications within predications. Hockett’s example of this is: 1. Wo jintian cheng-li you shi I today town-in have thing I have business in town today. As Hockett points out, the topic wo can be deleted leaving the sentence Jintian chengli you shi where, in Hockett’s view, jintian now becomes the topic. Similarly, the sentence can be further reduced to chengli you shi where chengli, (in town), becomes the topic. Even you shi, (have business), which has no topic, can stand as a complete sentence. Li and Thompson classify Chinese as a topic prominent language, that is, a language in which the basic structure of sentences favours a description in which the grammatical relation topic-comment plays a major role. In defining topic, Li and Thompson say that the topic of a sentence “is what the sentence is about” and that “it always comes first in a sentence and it always refers to something about which the speaker assumes the person listening to the utterance has some knowledge” (15). They therefore use both syntactic and semantic criteria in their definition of topic. As an example of a topic-comment sentence, they give: 108
Principles of Sequencing and Rhetorical Organisation 2. Zhe-ke shu yezi hen da This-(Cl-classifier) tree leaf very big This tree, (its) leaves are very big Topic is here distinguished from subject by stressing that “this tree” is the topic and has no direct semantic relation with the verb. Yezi, however, is the subject as it is they that are very big. TOPICS AS SENTENCE FRAMES Although Li and Thompson say that topics are typically noun or verb phrases, they later argue (95) that sentence initial time and locative phrases should also be seen as topics. For example: 3. (a) nei nian ta hen jinzhang that year he (was) very anxious 3. (b) xinfeng-li zhuang bujin zhexie zhaopian Envelope-in N enter these photos These photos won’t fit into this envelope. Li and Thompson classify these time and locative phrases (“that year” and “in the envelope” respectively) as topics because they set the frame, they are definite, and they may be followed by a pause particle. Earlier, however, topic has been defined as “what the sentence is about” and that it “names what the sentence is all about.” Here, in contrast, topics “set the frame within which the sentence is presented.” This would appear to be defining topic in two different ways. Chafe has noted that certain topics in Chinese do not precisely fit the characteristics that a topic is “what the sentence is about.” In his view, topics in topic prominent languages provide the “frame within which the sentence holds” and that they set “a spatial, temporal or individual framework within which the main predication holds” (50). Again topic is apparently being defined in more than one way. The Korean scholar, Her, proposes that topic should not 109
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CHINESE RHETORIC AND WRITING AN INT
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PERSPECTIVES ON WRITING Series Edit
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The WAC Clearinghouse, Fort Collins
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CHINESE RHETORIC AND WRITING: AN IN
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Introduction that there are more sp
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Introduction in Beijing, where he a
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Introduction Chapter 1 also demonst
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Introduction common, along with the
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12
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Chapter 1 called various branches o
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Chapter 1 plea, or speech, into eit
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Chapter 1 the temple and the hall,
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Chapter 1 were used to successively
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Chapter 1 from Emperor to subject,
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Chapter 1 getting confused, who soa
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Chapter 1 similarities of the advic
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Chapter 1 to create an environment
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2 THE LITERARY BACKGROUND AND RHETO
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Literary Background and Rhetorical
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3 THE RULES OF WRITING 9 IN MEDIEVA
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The Rules of Writing In Medieval Ch
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The Rules of Writing In Medieval Ch
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Page 96 and 97: Chapter 4 Links between a computer
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Chapter 8 Was BE an imperialist con
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Chapter 8 Wang defines double-faced
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9 PARTY POLITICS, THE CULTURAL REVO
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Party Politics, the Cultural Revolu
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Chapter 10 UNIVERSITY WRITING COURS
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Chapter 10 “explaining, expoundin
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Chapter 10 but a weak and incompati
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Chapter 10 writing process, for exa
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Chapter 10 and task for 2000 was a
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Chapter 10 writing compositions] is
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Chapter 10 common for non-Chinese m
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Conclusion BECAUSE x n +THEREFORE x
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Conclusion current lack of an accep
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Works Cited Chafe, Wallace L. “Gi
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Works Cited “Four Examination Ess
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Works Cited Kirkpatrick, Andy. “A
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Works Cited Ma, Zhengping. Advanced
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Works Cited Sun, Shaozhen. “Prefa
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Works Cited Yang, Ling, and David C
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NOTES This chronological division
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Chinese Rhetoric and Writing (biogr
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Chinese Rhetoric and Writing - An Introduction for Language Teachers, 2012a

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