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Dramatized Discourse
The Mandarin Chinese ba-construction
Language is a symbolic system of meanings evoked by linguistic forms. The choice of forms in communication is non-arbitrary. Rather, speakers pick those forms whose meanings best convey their discourse intention. The meaning of the Mandarin ba-construction, argues Jing-Schmidt, is discourse dramaticity, a concept that includes high conceptual salience and subjectivity. The ba-construction and its "syntactic variations" are never interchangeable because contrast in their meanings determines difference in their functions. Quantitative analyses based on authentic data validate the postulation of discourse dramaticity. By taking discourse pragmatics seriously, the dramaticity hypothesis enables a unitary explanation that transcends sentence grammar.
The diachronic treatment reveals the syntactic change of the ba-construction as an adaptive process of pragmatization, which raises the issue of linguistic evolution as a result of socio-cultural development.
This book will be of particular value to readers interested in the interaction between grammar and pragmatics and to teachers confronting the controversy of the ba-construction in foreign language pedagogy.
[Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics, 56] 2005. xxii, 337 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 1 July 2008
Published online on 1 July 2008
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
- Preface | pp. xi–xii
- Acknowledgements | pp. xiii–xv
- List of Figures and Tables | pp. xvii–xviii
- Notational Conventions | pp. xix–19
- Abbreviations | pp. xxi–xxii
- 1. Introduction | pp. 1–11
- 2. Database | pp. 13–15
- 3. The syntax of the ba -construction: Overview | pp. 17–66
- 4. Previous approaches | pp. 67–112
- 5. The hypothesis of discourse dramaticity | pp. 113–124
- 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity | pp. 125–210
- 7. Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity | pp. 211–240
- 8. An interim conclusion | pp. 241–244
- 9 The pragmatization of the ba -construction: An adaptive change | pp. 245–295
- 10. Final remarks | pp. 297–300
- Notes | pp. 301–307
- Text material | p. 327
- Author index | pp. 329–331
- Subject index | pp. 333–337
Cited by (16)
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2024. On the discourse marker yěshì ‘also’ in Chinese constructions of blame. Functions of Language 31:3 ► pp. 327 ff.
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2022. Factuality lens. Chinese Language and Discourse. An International and Interdisciplinary Journal 13:2 ► pp. 242 ff.
HOU, XIAOMING
Lin, Lin
Liu, Xiaoyu, Shi, Heidi H. & Zhuo, Jing-Schmidt
Yu, Shuo
2020. The acceptability of 把 ba+subject-oriented resultatives in
Mandarin Chinese. In Analysing Chinese language and discourse across layers and genres [Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse, 13], ► pp. 73 ff.
Lang, Jun
2018. “I am not criticizing you”. Chinese Language and Discourse. An International and Interdisciplinary Journal 9:2 ► pp. 184 ff.
Peng, Xinjia
2018. The emergence of a discourse construction in the internet. Chinese Language and Discourse. An International and Interdisciplinary Journal 9:2 ► pp. 209 ff.
Li, Yen‐Hui Audrey
Zhang, Shenglan
2017. Applying research-based multimedia design principles in designing and teaching beginning CFL learners thebaconstruction online. Chinese as a Second Language (漢語教學研究—美國中文教師學會學報). The journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, USA 52:3 ► pp. 255 ff.
Du, Hang
2016. A corpus linguistics approach to the research and teaching of Chinese as a second language. In Integrating Chinese Linguistic Research and Language Teaching and Learning [Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse, 7], ► pp. 13 ff.
Kinginger, Celeste, Sheng-Hsun Lee, Qian Wu & Dali Tan
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