英语无灵主语句在书面与口头语篇中的个案研究

摘要

以韩礼德一项相关研究中的实例为语料进行个案研究，对比分析无灵句和无灵主语句在书面与口头语篇中的分布状况和语用特征。研究发现：（1）无灵句在书面和口头语篇中分布均衡，而无灵主语句则主要存在于书面语篇中；（2）无灵句在书面语篇中以被动结构占绝对优势，在口头语篇中则以主系表结构最具代表性，而无灵主语句则无论在书面还是口头语篇中都以主谓宾结构为主；（3）无灵主语句既大量存在于书面语篇中，也少量出现在口头语篇里，但各自语用特征不同：书面语篇中的无灵主语句生命性较强、隐喻性明显，具有生动形象的特征，而口头语篇中的无灵主语句生命性较弱、隐喻性不明显，具有通俗易懂的特征。%This paper first draws a distinction between English inanimate sentences (EIS) and English sentences with inanimate subjects (ESWIS) and then, with a written text and its corresponding oral discourse from M. A. K. Halliday as research data, makes a contrastive case study of the distribution and pragmatic features of EIS and ESWIS in the text and discourse. The study shows: 1 ) EIS are evenly distributed in both the text and the dis- course, while ESWIS mostly exist in the text; 2) EIS in the written text appear overwhelmingly in the passive con- struction and EIS in the oral discourse occur mostly in the S + V + C pattern, while ESWIS in both the text and the discourse exist ehiefly in the S + V + O pattern ; 3) ESWIS exist abundantly in the written text and appear scarcely in the oral discourse with different pragmatic features: ESWIS in the written text enjoy a high degree of animacy and metaphoricity and are therefore characterized by their vividness, while ESWIS in the oral discourse bear a low degree of animacy and metaphoricity and are therefore typical of their plainness.