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大凡对英语话语结构之分析,我国的英语学术界和教育界仍在沿用“主题句+辅助语”的方法。这一方法曾在传统的语法和修辞文献中被奉为金科玉律,然而从六十年代开始,国外的学者们已开始感到这种方法并不能真正对现代英语话语的实际结构进行描述。产生这种疑虑的主要原由之一是,“主题句+辅助语”的方法只能对两个层次的概括性(generality)加以说明,而实际上人们发现,典型的现代英语说明性或劝说性段落中却有着三个、甚至四个层次的概括性。为此,Mina Shaughnessy 提出了这么一个假设:既然语法能对句子进行有效的分析,可否建立一种功能类似的语法对构成语篇的句子群作出分析。近二十多年来,国外学术界在为建立这样一种“语段语法”而努力着,迄今虽无权威性的专著,但已出现了一系列大有希望的研究成果,它们主要发表在《大学作文与交流》(College Composition and Comu-nication)杂志上。
Almost all of the analysis of the structure of English discourse, our English academics and educators are still using the “subject sentence + auxiliary language” approach. This method has been regarded as the Golden Rule in the traditional grammar and rhetorical literature. However, since the 1960s, foreign scholars have begun to feel that this method can not really describe the actual structure of modern English discourse. One of the main reasons for this suspicion is that the “subject sentence + auxiliary language” approach can only describe the two levels of generality, and in fact it has been found that the typical modern English descriptive or Persuasive paragraphs have three or even four levels of generalization. To this end, Mina Shaughnessy proposed the hypothesis that, since the grammar can effectively analyze the sentence, can we establish a functionally similar grammar to analyze the sentences that form the discourse. For nearly two decades, the overseas academic community has worked hard to establish such a “grammar of grammar.” Although there is no authoritative monograph so far, there have been a series of promising research results that are mainly Posted in “College Composition and Comu-nication” magazine.