经济学学术语篇中名词词组对比研究:从结构到语义

A Contrastive Study of Nominal Modifiers in Economics Journals by Native and Chinese Writers:From Wording to Meaning

长而复杂的名词词组是学术语篇的重要特征。本研究考查来自英汉两种语言文化背景的作者在名词词组上的使用特点。在对中国作者与英语为母语的作者所写的经济学文章进行对比之后发现,中文为母语的作者过多使用了前置名词修饰语;从语义功能上看,话题类修饰语得到了迁移,由此造成了概念复杂性的加大和阅读的困难。对英语教学的启示是,应该防止过长的前置修饰成分,重视关系从句在学术文体中的作用。本研究同时认为中国作者的这种名词词组的配置模式受到中文构词特征的影响。

Long and complex noun phrases are an important academic language feature.This research intends to confirm that Chinese writers prefer elaborated conception in their writing,and that this language variation is due to the negative influence of the Chinese language,in which all modifiers are positioned in front of head nouns.Based on a corpora of writings from world famous economic journals,the research compares syntactic and semantic features of noun phrase structures by Chinese and English economic researchers.The results show that syntactically speaking,Chinese writers use more pre-modifiers and fewer post-modifiers in noun phrases than native English-speaking writers.Semantically speaking,more topic modifiers are used by Chinese writers.Chinese academic writers are advised to use fewer pre-modifiers in their writings;while more postmodifiers such as relative clauses are encouraged to be used more.It also suggests that elaborated conception of English by Chinese writers be related to the word-forming features of the Chinese language.