Chinese Topic Chains: An Analysis of the Topic Chains Used in Fortress Besieged

Abstract

The functional typologists divide the languages in the world into two groups, one is the subject-prominent language group and the other is the topic-prominent group. English belongs to the subject-prominent language and Chinese to the topic-prominent language. This paper aims to discuss and summarize the types and functions of topic chains on the basis of analyzing the topic chains used in the novel Fortress Besieged written by Chinese famous writer Zhongshu Qian.

Share and Cite:

He, Y. (2013). Chinese Topic Chains: An Analysis of the Topic Chains Used in Fortress Besieged. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 3, 344-347. doi: 10.4236/ojml.2013.34044.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1] Chu, C. (1998). A discourse grammar of mandarin Chinese. New York: Peterlang.
[2] Dik, S. (1997). The theory of functional grammar. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
[3] Givón, T. (1983). Topic continuity in discourse: A quantitative crosslanguage study. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
[4] Halliday, M. A. K. (2008). An introduction to functional grammar (3rd ed.). Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
[5] Hawkins, J. A. (1994) A performance theory of order and constituency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[6] Li, C., & Thompson, S. (1976). Subject and topic: A new typology of language. In Le Charles (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 457-489). New York: Academic Press.
[7] Li, W. D. (2005) Topic chains in Chinese: A discourse analysis and application in language teaching. Muenchen: Lincom Europa Academic Publications.
[8] Qian, Z. S. (1991) Fortress besieged. Beijing: People Literature Press.
[9] Tsao, F. F. (1990). A functional study of topic in Chinese: The first step towards discourse. Taipei: Student Book Co.

Copyright © 2024 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

Creative Commons License

This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.