中文「但」，「但是」，「不過」，與「可是」在書面語的語用研究

105年01月08日  

研究生：黃虹美

指導教授: 邢天馨 博士

中文「但」，「但是」，「不過」，與「可是」在書面語的語用研究

A Pragmatic Study of Contrastive Discourse Markers dan, danshi, nuguo, and keshi in Written Mandarin 

摘要:

此研究主要探討中文對比言談標記(contrastive discourse markers) 「但」，「但是」，「不過」，與「可是」的篇章功能。語料取自三種報紙:《中國時報》、《聯合報》、《蘋果日報》的線上歷史社會版新聞進行分析，報紙發行的日期為五月一日至五月三十一日。此研究以Wilson and Sperber (1995)的關聯理論(Relevance Theory)分析這四種語用標記(discourse markers) 如何影響它本身帶出的句子與前一個句子的關聯性。

此研究發現，「但」與「但是」的功能為以下: (1)表相反; (2)表讓步; (3)表懷疑及反對；(4)表話題的轉換。表對比關係時，「但」與「但是」顯示他們本身的句子與前面句子呈現相反關係，此相反可以是明確外顯(explicit)或隱蘊(implicit)。當表讓步關係時，「但」與「但是」呈現兩項功能。第一，表否定前一句子所引申的含意，第二，表第二句子所延伸含意否定前一句子引申的含意。此外，「但」與「但是」可以用來表示懷疑及反對或表示話題的轉換。「不過」呈現兩項與「但」、「但是」相同的功能: 表相反以及表否定前一句子所引申的含意。 「可是」出現頻率最少，其他研究(Lin, 2005; Ross, 1978; Wang, 2005)顯示「可是」較常用於口語言談中，這也許可以解釋在報章新聞中，「可是」常用於直接引語(direct quotations)及間接引語(indirect quotations)的原因。

關鍵詞: 對比言談標記、言談標記、中文、報紙

Abstract:

The present study examines the functions of contrastive discourse markers dan, danshi, buguo, and keshi in written Mandarin. The data analyzed in the present study consist of society news articles drawn from the online archives of three newspapers in Taiwan: China Times, United Daily News, and Apple Daily. The news articles under investigation in this study were published in the period between 1 May and 31 May, 2015. Adopting the Relevance Theory (Wilson and Sperber, 1995), this study aims to investigate how these four contrastive discourse markers guide the readers to interpret the relation between the segment in which they occur and the previous segment.

Under the theoretical framework, dan and danshi are found to have four interpretations, i.e., “contrast”, “concessive relation”, “challenge”, and “topic change”. In the contrast use of dan/danshi, they guide the readers to interpret the proposition communicated in the second segment is in contrast with the one explicitly or implicitly expressed in the preceding segment. They can also signal the concessive relation by conveying the denial-of-expectation relation or the concessive opposition relation. They encode the meaning of “denial of expectation” in the sense that the proposition they introduce is relevant as a denial of an “expectation” created by the proposition of the first clause. When signaling the concessive opposition relation, they indicate that the implication derived from S2 contradicts the one created by the first segment. They also mark a challenge relation between the two segments, and signal a topic-shift function in marking shift between segments of text.

As to buguo, two main functions are discussed, i.e., contrastive function and denial-of-expectation function. When conveying the contrastive and denial-of-expectation relation, the procedural meaning encoded by buguo is similar to that encoded by dan/danshi.

Keshi is the one that occurs least frequently in the data. Studies on contrastive discourse markers (Lin, 2005; Ross, 1978; Wang, 2005) suggest that keshi is more likely to be used in spoken discourse. This could be the reason why keshi is used more often in direct and indirect quotations in the data.

Keywords: Contrastive discourse marker, Discourse marker. Mandarin Chinese Newspaper