英语母语者汉语书面语句法复杂性研究

The Grammatical Complexity in English Native Speakers' Chinese Writing

本文对英语母语者汉语书面语句法复杂性的测量指标进行了实证研究,并结合英汉对比对其汉语句法复杂性的发展特点进行了分析。研究发现,话题链数量、话题链分句数、零形成分数量3个指标可以作为英语母语者汉语写作句法复杂性的有效测量指标,而T单位和话题链长度不是有效的测量指标。英语母语者汉语书面语句法复杂性经历了三个阶段:初级主语突出阶段,主语突出和主题突出混合阶段,主题突出阶段。

This paper conducts an empirical study on the measurement mcttces oI grammatical complexity of English native speakers＇ Chinese writing, and analyzes the features of English native speakers＇ Chinese writing grammatical complexity from an English-Chinese comparative perspective. As revealed by quantitative statistics, three measurement indices are proven effective, i.e. the number of topic chains, the number of topic chain clauses and the number of empty categories, while T-unit and the length of topic chains are not effective indices. Besides, the grammatical complexity of English native speakers ＇ Chinese writing experiences three stages： subject-prominence stage, mixed subject and topic prominence stage, and topic-prominence stage. The results corroborate part of Jin （2007）.