On the Language Differences in Magazines Between East and West: a Comparative Study of China Daily and Times

从中国日报和时代周刊看中西报刊语言的异同

Abstract

This paper illustrates the artistic expressive effects of the difference by analyzing Chinese-English newspaper China daily and English-English newspaper Times. In order to improve the quality of non-native English newspapers, and make them learn from each other by culture inclusiveness.

In addition, examination of differences between Chinese English texts and native English texts not only facilitates intercultural communication between China and other countries, especially English-speaking countries in the world, but also brings some insights to the wide spread of English in China and further recognition and standardization of newspaper’s writing.

Key words：Contrastive writing patterns；rhetorical patterns; Newspaper text

摘 要

本文旨在从文体学的角度阐述英语报刊文章的语言特色, 从而为报刊语言的发展，报纸的形式以及中国文化下的报刊可以向西方报刊值得借鉴的东西提供一些参考。此外，报刊的阅读对写作水平也有一定的提高，通过对两份报纸的比较，找出写作的一些重要信息。

关键词：写作方式对比研究；修饰模式；新闻报刊

CONTENTS

Chapter1 Introduction………………………………………………………………...…1

1.1 Background Information………………………………………………...1

1.2 Research Questions………………………………………………………2

Chapter 2 A Contrastive Analysis of Articles between China daily and Times……….3

2.1 Rhetoric Application……………………………………………………..4

2.2 Language Difference…………………………………………………...5

2.3 Paragraph Development…………………………………………………6

Chapter3 Implication for Chinese-English newspaper and Native English Newspaper …………………………………………………………………..9

3.1 Implications for Intercultural Communication……………………….10

3.2 Implications for Contrastive Text Studies………………………… … 11

3.3 Implications for EFL Pedagogy………………………………………. 12

Chapter 4 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….13

References……………………………………………….…………………………..……14

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Background Information

The globalization of English in the past few decades helps to promote a dramatically increasing number of English learners and users in China. Additionally, in recent years more and more English newspapers and magazines are released by various Chinese organizations and societies, which greatly facilities China’s international communication. In the academic circle, scholars advocate that on maintaining the common core of international English, each nation should keep its own national identity, for language is not only the carrier of culture, but also part of culture. This fact, however, serves that on adopting the international formula of English, English texts under different cultural backgrounds also maintain their own writing traditions. This phenomenon can also be interpreted by the contrastive rhetoric hypothesis that there exist preferred rhetorical styles within text, which are specific to cultural-linguistic communities. The founder of contrastive rhetoric, American applied linguist Robert Kaplan (1966:13) stated that language and writing are culture specific, and therefore it varies from culture to culture and even from time to time within a given culture. The difference in rhetoric reflects the mainstream writing conventions unique to each culture Contrastive rhetoric is a field of inquiry that focuses on the different writing conventions of text. Although originally proposed as a pedagogical solution to the problem of second language (L2) organizational structures,

contrastive rhetoric has seen a significant growth as an independent discipline with continuous modifications and perfections having been made in the past four decades. During the 1980s, the development of research approaches, such as text linguistics and discourse analysis, helped to improve the methodological orientation of contrastive rhetoric research (Enkvist, 1987; Leki, 1991). As a result, researchers have begun to study organizational structures of both first language (L1) and L2 written discourse more vigorously and systematically (Martin, 1992), and contrastive rhetoric has come to be defined in a broader term, encompassing more than just the organizational structures (Conner, 1996; Ostler, 1996).

The contrastive rhetoric study between the Chinese and English writings has also witnessed a flourish in the past forty years. However, most of the researches have been conducted either between Chinese texts and English texts or between Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ English compositions and native English-speaking students’ compositions. Few comparisons have been made between “accomplished” English texts written by Chinese-speaking writers and English-speaking writers. Besides, newspaper argumentative articles, a major mass media genre which bears a great influence upon both the general public and the academic circle, have not been adequately studied. Addressing some

methodological insights from the previous studies, the present study takes the thematic progression and theory of cohesion of text linguistics as its analytic frameworks and focuses on some features of text-level rhetoric which can be observed in newspaper argumentative texts written in different cultural backgrounds, in the hope of contributing knowledge to the similarities and differences in rhetorical patterns between Chinese English

1.2 Research Questions

1.what’s the difference between china daily and times in language?

2. what’s the difference between china daily and times in paragraph development?

3.Can writing be improved by reading native English newspaper?

Chapter 2 A Contrastive Analysis of Articles between China Daily and Times

In this chapter, the findings are discussed following the research questions concerning the rhetoric application, words contrast and paragraph developing models of the selected texts. Based on this discussion further implications are revealed in the next chapter.

2.1 Rhetoric Application

The results reveal that the rhetorical features of argumentative texts from China Daily and Times bear both similarities and differences, all of which must be seen as tendencies, given the small size of the sample. The principal results of the investigation are discussed in accordance with the research questions.

The differences between China Daily texts and Times texts in thematic progression show different ways of expression of two variable English texts, in light of the fact that Parallel Progression and Linear Progression denote different ways of expression respectively. Parallel Progression shares the same theme but different themes. In other words, it builds all the new information on the same given information, or around the same central topic. In this sense, it can be taken as a linear way of expression. And the fact that 52.6% of the thematic progression employed in NYT texts is Parallel Progression indicates the mainstream way of expression in native English texts is linear development. This result has also been ensured by the later findings of linear and non-linear paragraph developing models of both newspaper texts. Since linear way of expression is so prevailing in NYT texts, it can not be neglected either that Parallel Progression also ranks second in CD texts, which may show that Chinese English texts also has a comparatively large tendency of linear way of expression. There may be two reasons for this tendency. First, the ever more frequent intercultural communication with other nations in the world leads to the acceptance of general international norms as well as the common language regulation. It is true that in using a language, whether native or foreign, one can not avoid revealing his national imprint. But an ever-growing contact between people from different nations requires a swift, direct and easy-going way of expression in order to meet success in intercultural communication. The linear way of expression in western tradition thus meets this requirement and prevails along with the English language. Chinese English texts, which adhere to the linguistic norm of English language on one hand, also keep a balance between English and Chinese rhetorical traditions as well. In recent years, it even has a trend for Chinese English texts to adhere more to the English way of expression.

Second, newspaper argumentative texts as a genre also attributes to the high usage of linear development. The purpose of newspaper argumentative articles is to influence the opinions of readers on some controversial issue. Therefore, it requires an explicit way of argumentation and reasoning, which serves best to the construction of opinion. Although linear way of expression in both CD texts and NYT texts becomes a prominent feature, it is also noteworthy that in CD texts, more than 50% of the thematic progression employed is Linear Progression. In Linear Progression, the theme or part of the theme of previous utterance develops into a new theme, with which a new theme is elicited and this theme or part of this theme again becomes the theme of the next utterance.

This type of progression resembles the traditional Chinese rhetorical device of Chain Repetition, which means join head and tail of the adjacent sentence. Although Linear Progression can not be simply taken as a linear or non-linear way of expression, the high employment of it in CD texts shows a cultural transfer of Chinese rhetorical tradition

2.2 Language Difference

The news is based on the features of its shortage comparing with other articles. In that case, it should list the main information of the news, and the followings are least important information in accordance to readers’ courisity. The methods of news writing can be categized into two ways:

One is according to the time, and the other is from most important to least important one. Besides news are closely related to ordinary people’s life so that the word are required to be easily understood., taking China daily as an example. Since it is a Chinese-English newspaper, and mainly written by Chinese English learners, the language are written in Chinese ways with less slangs. Comparatively words in Times are accurate.

It is said that “Short words are best, and old words, when short, are the best of all. Being well applied with this principle, the followings can be regarded as examples:

About is better than with reference to

Although is better than despite the fact that, meeting is better than rendezvous.

In both newspapers small words will be attach much importance to

(1)New bar on immigrants(Dui yi min de xin jing ling )。(bar rather than prohibit is applied in this sentence)。

(2)Call for student drug probe(Yao qiu diao cha tong xue de xi du wen ti)。(probe rather than investigate is applied in this sentence )

(3)Labor split on prices(Guan yu wu jian wen ti gong dang nei bu yi jian fen qi )。(split rather than disagree is used)。

(4)Socialists ahead in poll(She hui dang ren zai xuan ju zhong ling xian )。(poll rather than election is applied in this sentence)

(5)Briton held in south Africa(Ying guo ren zai nan fei bei kou) (hold rather than keep under or arrest is applied in this sentence)

However, China daily would much like to use those so-called big words. For example they use effectuate instead of do, terminate instead of end,

Blithe instead of joyful,in this day instead of today, endeavor instead of try.

Other similars can be seen as follows:

With the possible exception of = except

Due to the fact that = because

He totally lacked the ability to = he couldn't

For the purpose of = to

At the present time = now

A large number of = many

2.3 Paragraph Development

In order to find out whether Chinese English texts fits Kaplan’s assertion of oriental languages’ spiral paragraph developing model, this study examines most of the paragraphs, except for the very short ones. In the following analysis, the reason for dividing paragraph developing models into liner and non-liner ones, but not applying Kaplan’s liner and spiral categorization is that non-liner model is not necessarily spiral. Statistics of types of paragraph developing models of the selected data indicates no significant differences of liner and non-linear binary between the two newspapers.

China daily texts and Time texts do not have a great difference in the paragraph developing models, which are categorized as linear and non-linear binary in this study. According to the findings of this study, most of the China daily texts develop in a linear order, with only one or two paragraphs developing in a non-linear order. Some of the texts even develop in a linear order without a single non-linear developing 35 paragraph. However, it is noteworthy that among the fourteen paragraphs of C6, six of which are developed in a non-linear order. But even with such a highest percentage of non-linear developing paragraphs as C6, its linear developing paragraphs are still more than a half.

Among the Time texts, almost one half of the texts have employed both the linear developing model and non-linear developing model. The highest percentage of the non-linear developing model occurs in A6, with two non-linear developing paragraphs out of the total seven paragraphs at a 36 percentage of 28.6%. However, compared with the highest percentage of non-linear developing model in China daily texts (42.9%), this percentage is comparatively low. In other words, although Time texts also have non-linear developing paragraphs, the percentage is low and can not be taken as a mainstream characteristic.

From the above findings of frequencies, no significant differences are found between the two sets of texts in paragraph developing models. To further test whether there exists no categorical differences, K-Means

Cluster Method is used.

Overall, the results show both similarities and differences in distribution of rhetoric application language difference, and paragraph developing models between texts of China Daily and Times.

For thematic progression, China Daily texts and The New York Times texts show categorical differences. CD texts tend to employ Linear Progression most frequently and Parallel Progression for the second; on the other hand, Times texts tend to employ Parallel Progression most frequently and Linear Progression for the second. All the other four types of thematic progression are employed little or none in both CD texts and Times texts.

Both China Daily texts and Times texts employ a large percentage of cohesive devices as reference, conjunction and lexical cohesion, as well as a small percentage of substitution and ellipsis. However, differences lie in the distribution of each sub-category.

Comparatively, CD texts employ more ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion, but less reference and substitution than Times texts.

For paragraph developing models, the two sets of texts do not show significant differences. Both China Daily texts and Times

38 texts tend to develop largely in a linear order. However, the percentage of non-linear paragraph developing model in CD texts is a little higher than that of Times texts.

For English, structural integration is a must, but for Chinese structural integration is not a necessity and sometimes even regardless of logic. Such different focuses of English and Chinese lead to differences in employment of cohesive devices.

Chapter 3 Implication for Chinese-English newspaper and native English newspaper

With only fourteen texts in the corpus, from both China Daily and Times, this study is cautious in making generalizations concerning Chinese English argumentative texts and native English argumentative texts. Nevertheless, by relating findings to previous studies of Chinese texts and English texts, the study may offer some useful insights to intercultural communication, contrastive text studies and EFL pedagogy.

3.1 Implications for Intercultural Communication

With the globalization in economics as well as the increasing prestige of China in the world stage, China is now in a more and more frequent contact with other nations of the world. English as an international

48 language has, on one hand, facilitates this communication while on other hand brings cultural barrier for the communication as well. The reason for this cultural barrier lies in the different thought patterns and writing conventions of different cultures. This study, which can be taken as the first step of an extensive research to explore similarities and differences between Chinese English texts and native English texts, and thus the different writing conventions underlined in these two kinds of texts that sometimes operate as a barrier in communication brings certain implications for intercultural communication in the following two folds.

First, this study brings new subject matter for intercultural communication, that is, intercultural communication in the same written English. Intercultural communication is based on the philosophy that intercultural obstacles can be overcome with motivation, knowledge and appreciation of cultural diversity. This study attempts to convey the idea that when intercultural communication is made in written language such as newspaper argumentative texts, and when the same language English is used as the media, motivation, knowledge and appreciation of cultural

diversity is still called for. The writing conventions behind the written texts are what one should both pay attention to and appreciate rather than label them as the awkward way of expression from one’s own ethnocentric perspective, for within the common core of English, different rhetorical features may reflect different national identity.

Second, the findings of this study facilitate China’s intercultural communication with other countries, especially with native English-speaking countries. The findings of this study equip both individuals and agencies in intercultural communication with knowledge of rhetorical features of English texts in Chinese-speaking and English-speaking communities, and this knowledge will help them better conduct communication by both appreciating the writing conventions of the other side and avoiding mutual cultural conflict.

3.2 Implications for Contrastive Text Studies

This study, which is a text linguistic contrastive rhetoric, language and writing style research, draws methodological insights to contrastive text studies in the following three aspects.

First, it widens the contrastive text studies from comparison of two or more different languages to the comparison between two variables within the same language, which is English in the context of this study. It is a common practice in contrastive text studies that comparison is made between different languages. However, the limitation of such comparisons is that the differences in the languages systems themselves may contribute a lot to the differences in the findings. This study, by comparing two different variables of English texts, Chinese English texts and native English texts, diminishes the differences of language systems themselves for a large extent and thus widens the scope of contrastive text studies.

Second, this study conducts a rare genre-specific research, newspaper argumentative texts in the contrastive texts studies. In recent years, contrastive text studies have given a great attention to genre-specific comparisons, which enables a more focused analysis by offering comprehensive systems of categorizing texts based on their communicative purposes. The consideration of genre has also extended contrastive studies 50 to types of writing that had not been studied before, such as business writing, research articles and grant proposals. The present study offers this large collection of genre in contrastive studies with a rarely examined genre of newspaper argumentative texts, which offers new evidence for further genre-specific studies.

Third, by drawing thematic progression and theory of cohesion in functional grammar as analytic approaches, this study widens the application of functional linguistics theories in analyzing different genres and different variables of English writings and meanwhile provides evidence for functional linguistics theories’ employment to a wider range of discourse analysis.

3.3 Implications for EFL Pedagogy

This study shows that different cultures have different expectations of writing even by the use of the same language and that these different expectations are internalized as different distribution of cohesive devices and different patterns of discourse. Contrastive rhetoricians maintain that different reader expectations are the primary reason for cross-cultural differences in writing styles and that students should be made aware of these differences by their teachers. The present study helps guide the EFL teacher in China by providing information about the expectations of native English-speaking readers.

In EFL situation in China, teachers need a knowledge of the rhetorical contrast between English and Chinese, the students’ native language. As found in this study, the different rhetorical features of Chinese English texts and native English texts reveal different writing conventions. It is important 51 general English norm and writing convention on one hand and maintaining their own way of expression on the other.

Furthermore, the present study may also facilitate the genre-based teaching of English writing. Newspaper argumentative texts overlaps quite significantly with the student written argumentative essay in terms of their communicative purpose, schematic structure and a number of lexico-grammatical features. Linguistic awareness of the genre of newspaper argumentative texts as well as cultural awareness of their rhetorical features can help provide an effective aid for writing.

Overall, the present study has revealed explicit textual and rhetorical differences of written English texts under different cultural backgrounds.

Therefore, the teacher or the national curriculum of the country needs to acknowledge the expectations of English-speaking discourse community in order to facilitate future teaching and curriculum design.

Chapter 4 Conclusion

The research reported in this thesis offers a contrastive study of rhetorical, language, and paragraph developing models differences between argumentative texts from China Daily and Times so as to enrich the genre-based contrastive rhetoric study on the Chinese and English writings. The sample texts examined in this study are written in different cultural backgrounds, but using as a means of expression the same language: English. The similarities and differences of the two sets of texts are explored with respect to research questions

The thematic progression preferred by each newspaper is different. China Daily texts employ more Linear Progression but less Parallel Progression than Times texts. Native English newspaper prefers different semantic cohesive devices from Chinese English newspaper. China Daily texts employ more ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion, while Times texts employ more reference and substitution. Such differences of China Daily texts and Times texts on thematic progression and semantic cohesive devices indicate the influence of structural cohesion and semantic cohesion of the Chinese language. Chinese English text, which is influenced by the Chinese language, shows a tendency of Chinese rhetorical patterns. The employment of paragraph developing models in each newspaper, however, shows no significant differences. Both Chinese English texts and native English texts develop largely in a linear order, with the percentage of non-linear developing paragraphs in China Daily a little more than that in Times. The assimilation of paragraph developing models between Chinese English texts and native English texts shows the assimilation of certain genre-specific writing traditions of English newspaper argumentative texts as well as the influence of English globalization upon Chinese English texts. In conclusion, the universal characteristics of mass media and the tendency towards uniformity in journalistic writings seem acceptable, but it should not be forgotten that there are other variables connected with culture that have an influence on the texts and the discourse rhetorical patterns.

This study lends weight to the idea that there is intercultural variation in the rhetorical preferences of each English newspaper, despite a relative

uniformity of newspaper argumentative texts imposed by the genre and by the use of the same language. It has raised a number of interesting

differences, but a larger corpus is needed to find out how far they can be generalized. The findings of the present research also suggest more issues for intercultural contrastive discourse study. First, whether the difference between Chinese English texts and native English texts is in category or in degree should be investigated further with a larger corpus. One of reasons of the previous contrastive rhetoric researches being criticized is its small analytic corpus, which is also a limitation of the present study. Therefore, a change of this situation is perhaps the most urgent task for present contrastive rhetoric study. Second, when contrastive study is extended to the sphere of text level, the relation between language and culture is even more complicated. Whether a certain discourse rhetorical pattern links to or to what extent it links to a certain thought pattern; which factors of culture determine the employment of rhetorical patterns; what are the similarities and differences among different genres of the same culture and whether these similarities and differences surpass the boundaries of certain language and culture; are all what further contrastive rhetoric studies should address.

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