Abstracts of Major Papers in This Issue

Devotion to the Studies of Language Theory, by HU Zhuanglin, p. 1

Based on a brief review of the academic achievements of Prof. GAO Mingkai, who was born 100 years ago, this article points out that the studies of language theory in China has been demonstrating less activity ever since the middle of the 20th century. To commemorate Prof. GAO is to promote the studies of language theory with Chinese characteristics. For that purpose, the following things should be done: to critically absorb foreign research results in the field of language theory, to encourage the studies of Chinese language theory in a Chinese manner, to develop a variety of scientific methods of language theory research, and to abandon all harmful views on language theory studies by reconciliating deduction with inference.

An Exploration of Stance Markers in EFL Textbooks, by HE Anping & HUANG Xuemei, p. 10

The study aims at exploring stance markers in EFL textbooks’ linguistic discourse before and after English Curriculum Reform in mainland China. It investigates modal verbs and imperative sentences in instrumental texts of English textbooks used in senior high school and university so as to reveal modern educational ideas and functions in the textbooks. The findings highlight a weakening trend of stance expressions in new EFL textbooks discourse, which conveys a more negotiable, suggestive, and open-minded attitude in textbook design and thus setting up a more harmonious relationship between textbook designers and users to reflect student-oriented pedagogic idea and education equality evocated by the New Curriculum.

On the Linearity and Dynamity of Epistemic Markers in Spoken English, by HE Anping & XU Manfei, p. 17

Epistemic stance markers are linguistic devices expressing speakers’ degree of certainty towards his/her statements or propositions. Previous study laid focus on these markers’ formal, meaningful or functional features, classifications and frequency distributions. This paper makes a closer study of epistemic stance markers (withIthinkas a prototype) from perspectives of utterance linearity and multi-level meaning unit construction. Enlightened by research findings on utterance linearity and the lexicalgrammar theory in corpus linguists, the authors retrieve more than 26,000 cases of “I think sequence” from BoE so as to set up an analytic framework to investigate their lexical, semantic and pragmatic co-occurrences. It is found that epistemic markers tend to co-select many other stance devices rather than appearing in isolation. Such epistemic sequences syntagmatically constitute a dynamic usage pattern which marks a weakening stance as a main trend but occasionally a shifted stance with both weak and strong epistemic devices.

Comparing “I think” in Chinese and British University Students’ Spoken English, by XU Manfei & HE Anping, p. 22

Enlightened by Brazil’s incremental utterance descriptive framework of spoken English and Sinclair’s theory of “an extended lexical unit”, which has been extended accordingly, the authors of the present study conducted a quantitative description of the Chinese and British University students’ use of a prototypical epistemic marker “I think” from its formal, meaning and functional features. While the Chinese students demonstrated a linear, incremental, scalar and dynamic use of “I think” as their British counterparts did and used it mainly to mark a reduced stance, they were unable to use a rich variety of collocating stance devices. Instead, their reduced stance was brought about by a much frequent use of broken clauses with “I think” and a significantly frequent use of fillers (er, erm). Their use of “I think” for marking a shifted stance is twice as much as the British students, which was brought about by their collaborated use of “I think” with both stronger stance devices (will, should) and reduced devices (maybe, er, erm). The study sheds lights on foreign language teaching.

Chinese Students’ Stiff Speech Tone in Using “Must”, by ZHANG Shuling & HE Anping, p. 27

This study investigates Chinese university students’ use ofmustby means of quantitative analysis of corpus linguistics and qualitative analysis of pragmatics. It explores more than 3000 cases ofmustin terms of grammatical pattern, semantic category and pragmatic function. The findings reveal that, different from English natives, Chinese English learners greatly overusemustto convey obligatory modality instead of epistemic modality and mainly perform directive acts followed by suggestive acts but few inferential acts. Thus their spoken stance sounds stiff and too assertive and is liable to pragmatic failure.

On the The Effects of Peer Review Training for Online Writing, by ZHANG Li & SHENG Yue, p. 32

Peer review is a frequently employed method in the teaching of writing and nowadays in the online collaborative writing, but the effect of peer review is still questionable. To resolve this, reviewers need to be trained to improve their ability to give feedbacks. This paper investigates 40 students participated in the training for online peer review in an Internet-based English writing class. Quantitative analyses for the comparison of feedback before and after training, and qualitative analyses of students’ comments on and attitudes about training were conducted. The results show that the number of global feedbacks and the feedbacks with more than one step have been significantly increased. But the local feedbacks and the feedbacks with only one step manifest no significant increase. The accepted feedbacks have also been significantly improved after training, but the number of effective feedbacks, although improved, does not show significant difference before and after training. The learners generally approve the training of peer-review because the training can help reviewers provide feedbacks of higher quality and provide writers with more constructive suggestions from their peers. The students’ language proficiency and self-monitoring ability have also been improved during the training.

A College English Textbook Based on CBI and Aimed at Promoting Scientific Literacy: Preface toNucleus, by CAI Jigang, p. 37

Unlike the newly-published college English textbooks,Nucleusfeatures CBI, promotion of scientific literacy and development of students’ academic English ability. It is also characterized by some unique concepts such as autonomous learning, task-based learning, large vocabulary and emphasis on lexical chunks.

Translation Calls for Inspiration Thought, by FAN Wuqiu, p. 40

The effect of inspiration thought upon translation lies not only in ensuring the“faithfulness”and“smoothness”, but mainly in helping to achieve “elegance” in the version, hence it is of great importance in improving the quality of the translation. This paper intends to make a tentative study of the following three issues: function mechanism of inspiration thought, general definitions of inspirational version and prerequisites for the translators.

A Review of James Phelan Study: Retrospectives and Outlooks, by SHANG Biwu, p. 48

James Phelan is recognized as one of the most influential narratologists, whose rhetorical theory of narrative focuses on the interaction between narrative form, ethics and aesthetics. Highlighting its salient features of multi-layeredness, dynamics, and openness, rhetorical theory of narrative reaches a balance between narrative poetics and narrative criticism, as well as a balance between classical narratology and postclassical narratology. Since 1980s, Phelan’s rhetorical theory of narrative has caught an increasing amount of scholarly attention. This paper reviews the current state of Phelan studies both in the west and in China, and outlines new directions for future research.

Chinese and American Journey Complex and its Expression in Arts and Literature, by TIAN Junwu, p. 56

The author maintains that as a cultural heritage, journey has profoundly rooted in the deep unconsciousness of the Chinese and American people. To the Chinese and the American alike, “on the road” is not merely physically a course from the starting place to the destination, but a life experience. For example, it symbolically refers to a man’s psychological growth or pursuit for truth. From the perspective of comparative literature, this paper analyses the journeys that the Chinese and the American people had made in history and their expression in arts and literature.