浅谈语篇分析中的“小句关系”对英语教学的新启示

Enlightenment of Clause Relation in Discourse Analysis on Modern English Teaching

在英语教学中,人们一接触到句子分析这个概念时,多是从传统的语法分析入手,依次找出句子中主语,谓语和宾语,然后再找出定语,状语和补足语。在谈到句际关系时,又多从结构和逻辑的角度出发,将句际关系大致界定在并列句,复合句和从句这几种有限的语法关系上。谈及语言,人们都知道语言是由三个重要部分组成的:语法(语言形式),意义和功能。直到现在,人们才渐渐认识到高一层次的语言教学(篇章语法和语篇分析)对于学生了解语言的机理十分有益。Vivian Zamel认为在实际的语言操作中,“构语”能力要比语言知识显得更为重要。因此,现代的语言教学应谈超越传统,不能仅仅局限于“词与句子”水平上的英语教学,而应该通过具有具体语境的语篇(完整的单位语段)来进行教学。本篇文章拟对语篇分析中的“小句关系”以及其对意义层面上的英语教学的启发作用进行一些探讨。

The traditional language teaching starts with words, sentences and then to discourse. Its teaching methods over-emphasize the grammar rules a language uses to form grammatical units such as phrases,clauses and sentences. When it comes to language, we usually refer to its three important components,namely,grammar, meaning and function. It is not until recently that discourse analysis is recognized as making a valuable contribution to our understanding of how language works. Vivian Zamel proposes that composing competence is more important than linguistic competence in terms of language productivity. Therefore, language teaching should be carried out differently from the previous sentence-level treatment,it should be implemented through discourse analysis instead. This essay will make a study of clause relations in discourse analysis and its implications on modern language teaching.