Traditional syntactic or semantic theories failed to provide a satistactory explanation for the unique features of non-restrictive relational clauses in people＇s daily use of English language. This paper would adopt ...Traditional syntactic or semantic theories failed to provide a satistactory explanation for the unique features of non-restrictive relational clauses in people＇s daily use of English language. This paper would adopt the theoretical framework of pragmatics and use relevance theory as well as face theory to discuss the unique pragmatic functions of non-restrictive relational clauses in English news report discourse. The three major pragmatic functions are： （1） optimizing the relevance of information; （2） seeking for the consistence with readers; and （3） avoiding imposing the author＇s opinion on readers.展开更多
This study investigates the avoidance of relative clauses by high vocational college students and also explores the differences in the avoidance of the RCs by high-level students and low-level students in their Englis...This study investigates the avoidance of relative clauses by high vocational college students and also explores the differences in the avoidance of the RCs by high-level students and low-level students in their English writings. The data used in this study have been collected from English writing tasks and analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences(SPSS17.0). The major findings of this study are stated as follows: 1) There are significant differences in the production of the relative clauses in their English writings by Chinese higher vocational college students and English native speakers. Avoidance of relative clauses exists in the English writings of higher vocational college students. 2) High-level Chinese higher vocational college students display less of the avoidance phenomenon in their English writings than low-level students.展开更多
A method is proposed to build an ontology in the form of a conceptual graph for Prolog clauses, so that the Prolog reasoning engine can differentiate clauses semantically to some degree. The concept model of a clauses...A method is proposed to build an ontology in the form of a conceptual graph for Prolog clauses, so that the Prolog reasoning engine can differentiate clauses semantically to some degree. The concept model of a clauses ontology is composed of predicate parameters and head sub-goals, and these sub-goals appear in the head of the rule body and precede any predicate calls. In the proposed method, a Prolog program can be transformed into a Prolog ＋ CG program that includes a clauses ontology. Some experiments show that, with a clauses ontology, some clauses which do not match current goals are not considered early enough, and, therefore, the size of the goal solution tree may be reduced. By the capability of conceptual graph, a clauses ontology makes the semantics of the Prolog program more clear and readable, and sometimes it speeds up the solution process obviously.展开更多
Relative clauses in traditional grammars,which are sometimes called attributive clauses,are divided into two types:restrictive and non-restrictive.Building upon the discussion of recursion in Halliday’s Systemic Func...Relative clauses in traditional grammars,which are sometimes called attributive clauses,are divided into two types:restrictive and non-restrictive.Building upon the discussion of recursion in Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar(SFG),this paper conducts a functional syntactic analysis of such clauses,aimed at probing into their logical structures.展开更多
Relative clause is one kind of important modifiers among English grammar. It is a widely used clauses in English context. In order to get an overview of relative clause, this essay will analyze it in terms of form, me...Relative clause is one kind of important modifiers among English grammar. It is a widely used clauses in English context. In order to get an overview of relative clause, this essay will analyze it in terms of form, meaning and use.展开更多
Temporal adverbial clause is an important language structure and exhibits different features in English and Chinese,which brings about difficulties for Chinese EFL learners.Based on the theory of Dependency Grammar,th...Temporal adverbial clause is an important language structure and exhibits different features in English and Chinese,which brings about difficulties for Chinese EFL learners.Based on the theory of Dependency Grammar,the study attempts to investigate the ordering distribution of temporal adverbial clauses by Chinese EFL learners at the beginning,intermediate and advanced levels.The results show that:1)Chinese EFL learners at different proficiencies tend to precede temporal adverbial clause to main clause.With the increase of proficiency,the postposition of temporal adverbial clauses by learners increases and is approaching to the ordering preference of target language.2)The ordering distribution of subordinators for temporal adverbial clauses by Chinese EFL learners is consistent with native English,showing a tendency of 100%preposition,which ascribes to the high frequency and salience of subordinators in English.3)MDD is one of the significant motivations that cause the preference of prepositional temporal adverbial clauses by Chinese EFL learners.As a kind of natural language,interlanguage has a unique cognitive mechanism which distinguishes from both native and target language.This study provides a more comprehensive theoretical reference for learners at different proficiencies to understand and learn temporal adverbial clauses,as well as data support from empirical research for language teaching.展开更多
This review discusses Nezakat-Alhossaini, Youhanaee, and Moinzadeh＇s research study entitled ＂Impact of Explicit Instruction on EFL Learners＇ Implicit and Explicit Knowledge： A Case of English Relative Clauses.＂ ...This review discusses Nezakat-Alhossaini, Youhanaee, and Moinzadeh＇s research study entitled ＂Impact of Explicit Instruction on EFL Learners＇ Implicit and Explicit Knowledge： A Case of English Relative Clauses.＂ This study was chosen for evaluation because it strives to attach significance to explicit instruction in L2 acquisition, unlike other more recent research, which seeks to reinforce implicit instruction as it is viewed as the idealistic goal of language learning （Rebuschat ＆ William, 2009）. The present review will be developed by means of an evaluation of Alhossaini and her colleagues＇ study, consisting of a concise summary of the study, a classification of the philosophical perspective, the selection of criteria, and the strengths and weaknesses of the study. In this review, I hope that I succeed to broadly navigate the research enterprise, commencing with the philosophical perspective of research, such as the epistemological and ontological stances shaping the philosophical perspective and then colouring the research. By reviewing this study, I would also hope that I successfully evaluate the research quality by using appropriate criteria in an attempt to suggest potential directions for further research （under strengths and weaknesses of the study）.展开更多
In recent four decades, relative clause has interested many scholars due to its unique structural complexity. This articletook Chinese senior high school students as subjects and found their acquisition order of relat...In recent four decades, relative clause has interested many scholars due to its unique structural complexity. This articletook Chinese senior high school students as subjects and found their acquisition order of relative clauses fully coincided with Ku-no’s Perceptual Difficulty Hypothesis but partly agreed with Keenan&Comire’s Noun Phrase Accessibility Hypothesis and Hamil-ton’s SO Hierarchal Hypothesis, which can provide implications and references for the English relative clauses’ learning andteaching.展开更多
This study investigated the relative clauses acquisition of Chinese EFL Learners in spoken context.207 English major sophomores’spoken data selected from the Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners were...This study investigated the relative clauses acquisition of Chinese EFL Learners in spoken context.207 English major sophomores’spoken data selected from the Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners were analyzed.All the par ticipants were divided into high and low group according to their oral proficiency.This study found that high proficiency stu dents outperformed low proficiency students not only in the numbers of RCs also in accuracy.Meanwhile,the RCs produced in the spoken context also supported previous accessibility hierarchy hypotheses on processing RCs,and the regression results showed that OS and OOGen types of RCs were strong predictors of spoken proficiency.However,because of the typological dif ference of RC between Chinese and English,four types of RC errors were found.This study expected to provide some pedagogi cal insights into English RC acquisition in spoken context.展开更多
Attributive clauses in EST often consist of complex structures and deliver a multiplicity of meanings. It will be one of challenges facing the translators to transfer the attributive clauses in EST faithfully, complet...Attributive clauses in EST often consist of complex structures and deliver a multiplicity of meanings. It will be one of challenges facing the translators to transfer the attributive clauses in EST faithfully, completely and smoothly into Chinese so that the understanding and response of the target language readers to the information produced in the translation are almost the same as that of the original language readers to the information contained in the original attributive clauses in EST, thus achieving functional equivalence of the translation. Under the direction of Nida's functional equivalence theory, this paper is dedicated to discussing the translation techniques of EST attributive clauses, and hope it benefits the translation of EST in the future.展开更多
The paper focuses on the properties of relative pronouns in the acquisition of relative clause by Chinese EFL learners. Based on the NPAH （noun phrase accessibility hierarchy）, comparison and contrast of some aspect...The paper focuses on the properties of relative pronouns in the acquisition of relative clause by Chinese EFL learners. Based on the NPAH （noun phrase accessibility hierarchy）, comparison and contrast of some aspects of English and Chinese relative pronoun, the paper conducts two experiments, and has proved the hypotheses that students＇ performance generally follows the hierarchy of NPAH and students do have problems with relative pronoun involving prepositions. Besides, some pedagogical implications for foreign language teaching are discussed.展开更多
The attributive clause plays a significant role in E-C translation.Due to the stylistic difference in Chinese and English(Chinese is paratactic while English is hypotactic),complex English attributive clauses cannot b...The attributive clause plays a significant role in E-C translation.Due to the stylistic difference in Chinese and English(Chinese is paratactic while English is hypotactic),complex English attributive clauses cannot be translated literally as awkwardness may occur.One possible approach to coping with the problem is the adoption of‘Division’in translating long English attributive clauses.This essay provides three steps in translating complex English attributive clauses into Chinese(clarifying meaning units,restructuring and polishing)and the accompanied techniques such as amplification and omission to make the translation more readable and natural to Chinese readers.展开更多
This paper,in two installments,attempts to clarify the finer points in the similarities and differences in the usage of relative pronouns,who,that and which,while they are in relative clauses.They are illustrated and ...This paper,in two installments,attempts to clarify the finer points in the similarities and differences in the usage of relative pronouns,who,that and which,while they are in relative clauses.They are illustrated and justified with examples.The paper,through the comparison of the usages of who,that and which,has shown their similarities and differences from one another.It will enable us to master their usages and help us in studying relative clauses.展开更多
Studies on Indo-European languages argue that subject relative clauses （SRCs） are easier to process than object relative clauses （ORCs）, and the processing preference for SRCs was manipulated by the animacy of the...Studies on Indo-European languages argue that subject relative clauses （SRCs） are easier to process than object relative clauses （ORCs）, and the processing preference for SRCs was manipulated by the animacy of the noun phrases （NPs） in the internal-clause and in the main clause. This paper aims at investigating the difficulty in Chinese RCs processing by subjective ratings and the results showed： （1） As European languages, Chinese RCs processing also shows a preference for SRCs, which was consistent with experience-based account, as well as NPAH in part. （2） A strong animacy effect from the head noun phrases （NPs） was found during Chinese RCs processing. In all, compared with other accounts, experience-based account offers more reasonable explanations about Chinese RCs comprehension in natural situations.展开更多
文摘Traditional syntactic or semantic theories failed to provide a satistactory explanation for the unique features of non-restrictive relational clauses in people＇s daily use of English language. This paper would adopt the theoretical framework of pragmatics and use relevance theory as well as face theory to discuss the unique pragmatic functions of non-restrictive relational clauses in English news report discourse. The three major pragmatic functions are： （1） optimizing the relevance of information; （2） seeking for the consistence with readers; and （3） avoiding imposing the author＇s opinion on readers.
文摘This study investigates the avoidance of relative clauses by high vocational college students and also explores the differences in the avoidance of the RCs by high-level students and low-level students in their English writings. The data used in this study have been collected from English writing tasks and analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences(SPSS17.0). The major findings of this study are stated as follows: 1) There are significant differences in the production of the relative clauses in their English writings by Chinese higher vocational college students and English native speakers. Avoidance of relative clauses exists in the English writings of higher vocational college students. 2) High-level Chinese higher vocational college students display less of the avoidance phenomenon in their English writings than low-level students.
文摘A method is proposed to build an ontology in the form of a conceptual graph for Prolog clauses, so that the Prolog reasoning engine can differentiate clauses semantically to some degree. The concept model of a clauses ontology is composed of predicate parameters and head sub-goals, and these sub-goals appear in the head of the rule body and precede any predicate calls. In the proposed method, a Prolog program can be transformed into a Prolog ＋ CG program that includes a clauses ontology. Some experiments show that, with a clauses ontology, some clauses which do not match current goals are not considered early enough, and, therefore, the size of the goal solution tree may be reduced. By the capability of conceptual graph, a clauses ontology makes the semantics of the Prolog program more clear and readable, and sometimes it speeds up the solution process obviously.
文摘Relative clauses in traditional grammars,which are sometimes called attributive clauses,are divided into two types:restrictive and non-restrictive.Building upon the discussion of recursion in Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar(SFG),this paper conducts a functional syntactic analysis of such clauses,aimed at probing into their logical structures.
文摘Relative clause is one kind of important modifiers among English grammar. It is a widely used clauses in English context. In order to get an overview of relative clause, this essay will analyze it in terms of form, meaning and use.
基金supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China(No.21BYY186)。
文摘Temporal adverbial clause is an important language structure and exhibits different features in English and Chinese,which brings about difficulties for Chinese EFL learners.Based on the theory of Dependency Grammar,the study attempts to investigate the ordering distribution of temporal adverbial clauses by Chinese EFL learners at the beginning,intermediate and advanced levels.The results show that:1)Chinese EFL learners at different proficiencies tend to precede temporal adverbial clause to main clause.With the increase of proficiency,the postposition of temporal adverbial clauses by learners increases and is approaching to the ordering preference of target language.2)The ordering distribution of subordinators for temporal adverbial clauses by Chinese EFL learners is consistent with native English,showing a tendency of 100%preposition,which ascribes to the high frequency and salience of subordinators in English.3)MDD is one of the significant motivations that cause the preference of prepositional temporal adverbial clauses by Chinese EFL learners.As a kind of natural language,interlanguage has a unique cognitive mechanism which distinguishes from both native and target language.This study provides a more comprehensive theoretical reference for learners at different proficiencies to understand and learn temporal adverbial clauses,as well as data support from empirical research for language teaching.
文摘This review discusses Nezakat-Alhossaini, Youhanaee, and Moinzadeh＇s research study entitled ＂Impact of Explicit Instruction on EFL Learners＇ Implicit and Explicit Knowledge： A Case of English Relative Clauses.＂ This study was chosen for evaluation because it strives to attach significance to explicit instruction in L2 acquisition, unlike other more recent research, which seeks to reinforce implicit instruction as it is viewed as the idealistic goal of language learning （Rebuschat ＆ William, 2009）. The present review will be developed by means of an evaluation of Alhossaini and her colleagues＇ study, consisting of a concise summary of the study, a classification of the philosophical perspective, the selection of criteria, and the strengths and weaknesses of the study. In this review, I hope that I succeed to broadly navigate the research enterprise, commencing with the philosophical perspective of research, such as the epistemological and ontological stances shaping the philosophical perspective and then colouring the research. By reviewing this study, I would also hope that I successfully evaluate the research quality by using appropriate criteria in an attempt to suggest potential directions for further research （under strengths and weaknesses of the study）.
文摘In recent four decades, relative clause has interested many scholars due to its unique structural complexity. This articletook Chinese senior high school students as subjects and found their acquisition order of relative clauses fully coincided with Ku-no’s Perceptual Difficulty Hypothesis but partly agreed with Keenan&Comire’s Noun Phrase Accessibility Hypothesis and Hamil-ton’s SO Hierarchal Hypothesis, which can provide implications and references for the English relative clauses’ learning andteaching.
文摘This study investigated the relative clauses acquisition of Chinese EFL Learners in spoken context.207 English major sophomores’spoken data selected from the Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners were analyzed.All the par ticipants were divided into high and low group according to their oral proficiency.This study found that high proficiency stu dents outperformed low proficiency students not only in the numbers of RCs also in accuracy.Meanwhile,the RCs produced in the spoken context also supported previous accessibility hierarchy hypotheses on processing RCs,and the regression results showed that OS and OOGen types of RCs were strong predictors of spoken proficiency.However,because of the typological dif ference of RC between Chinese and English,four types of RC errors were found.This study expected to provide some pedagogi cal insights into English RC acquisition in spoken context.
文摘Attributive clauses in EST often consist of complex structures and deliver a multiplicity of meanings. It will be one of challenges facing the translators to transfer the attributive clauses in EST faithfully, completely and smoothly into Chinese so that the understanding and response of the target language readers to the information produced in the translation are almost the same as that of the original language readers to the information contained in the original attributive clauses in EST, thus achieving functional equivalence of the translation. Under the direction of Nida's functional equivalence theory, this paper is dedicated to discussing the translation techniques of EST attributive clauses, and hope it benefits the translation of EST in the future.
文摘The paper focuses on the properties of relative pronouns in the acquisition of relative clause by Chinese EFL learners. Based on the NPAH （noun phrase accessibility hierarchy）, comparison and contrast of some aspects of English and Chinese relative pronoun, the paper conducts two experiments, and has proved the hypotheses that students＇ performance generally follows the hierarchy of NPAH and students do have problems with relative pronoun involving prepositions. Besides, some pedagogical implications for foreign language teaching are discussed.
文摘The attributive clause plays a significant role in E-C translation.Due to the stylistic difference in Chinese and English(Chinese is paratactic while English is hypotactic),complex English attributive clauses cannot be translated literally as awkwardness may occur.One possible approach to coping with the problem is the adoption of‘Division’in translating long English attributive clauses.This essay provides three steps in translating complex English attributive clauses into Chinese(clarifying meaning units,restructuring and polishing)and the accompanied techniques such as amplification and omission to make the translation more readable and natural to Chinese readers.
文摘This paper,in two installments,attempts to clarify the finer points in the similarities and differences in the usage of relative pronouns,who,that and which,while they are in relative clauses.They are illustrated and justified with examples.The paper,through the comparison of the usages of who,that and which,has shown their similarities and differences from one another.It will enable us to master their usages and help us in studying relative clauses.
基金This research was financially supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China （Grant NO. 13CYY026）.
文摘Studies on Indo-European languages argue that subject relative clauses （SRCs） are easier to process than object relative clauses （ORCs）, and the processing preference for SRCs was manipulated by the animacy of the noun phrases （NPs） in the internal-clause and in the main clause. This paper aims at investigating the difficulty in Chinese RCs processing by subjective ratings and the results showed： （1） As European languages, Chinese RCs processing also shows a preference for SRCs, which was consistent with experience-based account, as well as NPAH in part. （2） A strong animacy effect from the head noun phrases （NPs） was found during Chinese RCs processing. In all, compared with other accounts, experience-based account offers more reasonable explanations about Chinese RCs comprehension in natural situations.
