Сравнение китайских и английских речевых связок в устных повествованиях

In these 60 ands 43 are used as consecutive linkages, taking about 72% of the total; nine are used as consequent linkages, taking about 15%; five are used as linkages showing hesitation, taking about 8%; 2 are used as additive linkages, taking about 3%; and one is used as a contrast linkage, taking about 2%.

And as a consecutive linkage obviously shows the temporal order of the events or scenes in an oral narrative. And actually the uses as resultive linkages also demonstrate the temporal order of the clauses, as Qurik et al (1985: 930) stated “[t]his entails that the order of the clauses also reflects chronological sequence”. As a result 51 out of 60 uses of and in Text 1, i.e. 86.7% of the total uses, are actually showing the temporal order of the events or scenes in the oral narrative.

Furthermore, the second frequently used linkage in the 20 English oral narratives is and then, which is an overt demonstration of the temporal relation between the two clauses linked. Taking this into consideration about 66.9% of the top five linkages in 20 English oral narratives reveals the temporal sequence of the events or scenes.

In the present research we find a similar situation of the uses of linkages in Chinese oral narratives. In 20 Chinese oral narratives 436 cases of linkages have been cited. The following table shows the top five most frequently used linkages in these 20 Chinese texts, which is about 69% of all the linkages used.

Among the top five linkages in 20 Chinese oral narratives, 然后 ránhòu, ...的时候 ...de shíhòu and 这/那（个）时候 zhè/nà (gè)shíhòu are basically expressions of time, i.e., about 75.4% of the linkages are used to show the temporal sequence of events or scenes.

The core meaning of 然后 ránhòu is “then”, “what happens next”, and it fundamentally shows the temporal sequence of events or actions. For example, in Text 6 the narrator describes how the three boys found a hat on the ground and returned it to the boy riding a bike by using several 然后 ránhòu.

(20) 三个小孩继续走下去就看到那个男孩......刚刚跌倒那个男孩的帽子在地上。然后，就把帽子捡起来。然后，就吹了一声口哨。他就回头一看，他回......他就回头。然后，那捡到帽子的男孩就把帽子交给他。 Sāngè xiǎohái jìxù zǒu xiàqù jiù kàndào nàgè nánhái ...... gānggāng diēdǎo nàgè nánháizi de màozi zài dishàng. Ránhòu, jiù bǎ màozi jiǎn qǐlái. Ránhòu, jiù chuīle yì shēng kǒushào. Tā jiù huítóu yí kàn, tā huí ...... tā jiù huítóu yí kàn. Ránhòu, nà jiǎndào màozi de nánhái jiù bǎ màozi jiāogěi tā.

The three boys go on with their way and see that boy ... the hat of the boy who just fell off on the ground. Then, (one of the boys) picks up the hat. Then, (he) whistles. He turns round. He turns ... he turns round. Then, the boy picking up the hat gives him the hat.

　

Just like and, 然后 ránhòu is also multi-functional. Li (2009) proposed that 然后 ránhòu “can function as a verbal filler and hesitation device, providing the narrator with linguistic planning time”; Xu (2009) held that 然后 ránhòu can be used as a topic-starter. We can take the opening part of Text 6 as the example.

(21) 一开始第一个画面就是，有绿色，好像有山啊，树。然后还有绿色的道路。怎么讲？颜色满鲜艳的。然后就是 ...... 看到一个人在摘芭乐。嗯，然后 ...... 在树上摘芭乐。摘完以后就把 ...... 嗯，从树上 ...... 他那个 ...... 有个梯子搭在树上。

Yì kāishǐ dìyīgè huàmiàn jiùshì, yǒu lǜsè, hǎoxiàng yǒu shān a, shù. Ránhòu háiyǒu lǜsè de dàolù. Zěnme jiǎng? Yánsè mǎn xiānyàn de. Ránhòu jiùshì ... kàndào yí gè rén zài zhāi bālè. En, ránhòu ... zài shùshàng zhāi bālè. Zhāiwán yǐhòu jiù bǎ ... en, cóng shùshàng ... tā nàgè ... yǒu gè tīzi dāzài shùshàng.

In the first picture at the beginning, all is green, and as if there are mountains, trees. Then there is a green road. How to say it? It is bright in color. Then there is ... (you can) see a man picking guava. Um, then ... picking guava in a tree. After picking (he) then ... um, from the tree ... there is a ladder in the tree.

In Example (21) the narrator firstly introduces the first picture shown in the movie. After that she wants to describe something else, i.e., to start a new topic, so she uses the first 然后 ránhòu to change the topic. But she later finds it is hard to go on with this topic and says “怎么讲？How to say it?”. Then she starts another topic - the man picking guava - by using the second 然后 ránhòu. But later she cannot find proper words or expressions to go on with her narration, so she employs the third 然后 ránhòu, a verbal filler and hesitation device, with a pause after it to buy some time to think about what to say next. From this example we can also see whether 然后 ránhòu functions as a topic-starter or a hesitation device, it is still based on its core meaning and shows a temporal order.

...的时候 ...de shíhòu and 这/那（个）时候 zhè/nà (gè)shíhòu are basically synonymous. Both of them indicate that two or more events happen almost at the same time and provide a background for what is presented in the following clause or section of the same clause. But ...的时候 ...de shíhòu is usually attached to the end of a clause; 这/那（个）时候 zhè/nà (gè)shíhòu appears at the beginning of a clause, and usually there is a pause after it. The following example shows us the features of these two linkages clearly. In describing how the boy riding a bike meets a girl and falls off the bike the narrator of Text 15 uses both ...的时候 ...de shíhòu and 这/那（个）时候 zhè/nà (gè)shíhòu.

(22) 在一个路 ...... 呀，田野 ...... 路中的时候呢，碰到了一个女孩子。嗯，这个时候呢，这个小孩子大概有一点呢，呀看到前面 ...... 呀，就是那个 ...... 刚 ...... 刚好这时候，风吹到了。噢，把他 ...... 帽子吹走了。呀，所以呀，这个时候，这个小孩子又看了那个女孩子，看了一眼。没有注意到路中有一个石头。他把 ...... 这车子又开过去啦。然后，碰到那个石头，车子就掉 ...... 呀，摔下来了。这时候，整个水果全部散得满地都是。

Zài yígè lù ... ya, tiányě ... lùzhōng de shíhòu ne, pèngdào le yígè nǚháizi. En, zhègè shíhòu ne, zhègè xiǎoháizi dàgài yǒu yìdiǎn ne, ya kàndào qiánmiàn ... ya, jiùshì nàgè ... gāng ... gānghǎo zhè shíhòu, fēng chuīdào le. O, bǎ tā ... màozi chuīzǒu le. Ya, suóyǐ ya, zhègè shíhòu, zhègè xiǎoháizi yòu kàn le nàgè nǚháizi, kàn le yì yǎn. Méiyǒu zhùyìdào lùzhōng yǒu yígè shítou. Tā bǎ ... zhè chēzi yòu kāi guòqù la. Ránhòu, pèngdào nàgè shítou, chēzi jiù diào ... ya, shuāi xiàlái le. Zhè shíhòu, zhěnggè shuíguǒ quánbù sǎndé mǎndì dōushì.

When (he is riding) on a road ... oh, a road ... (in a) field, (he) meets a girl. Um, at this moment, this boy has a kind of ... oh (he) looks ahead ... oh, just at that ... just at this moment, a wind blows. O, he ... his hat is blown away. Oh, so, at this moment, this boy looks at that girl again, looks at her again. (He) doesn’t notice there’s a stone in the road. He goes on ... riding his bike. And then, (his bike) hits that stone, his bike falls ... oh, he falls off. At this moment, all the fruits are scattered everywhere.

The above comparison between the five most frequently used linkages in 20 English and Chinese texts reveals that both English and Chinese narratives tend to employ a similar device, i.e. temporal linkages, in connecting events or scenes together. This can also be supported by the following two tables summarizing the linkages used in 20 English and 20 Chinese texts respectively. Altogether 1239 linkages have been cited in the 20 English texts and 436 linkages have been cited in the 20 Chinese texts.

The two tables show that in both English and Chinese oral narratives the most frequently used linkages are temporal ones, taking more than half of the linkages used, which is in consistent with the most important feature of a narrative. The second important feature of narratives is the causal order of events. In these two tables we can find that the second most frequently used linkages are consequent ones, taking 13.6% and 17.4% of the total in English and Chinese respectively. If we take the causal linkages into consideration the percentage of the linkages showing the causal order is 15.1% in English and 22.4% in Chinese.

In the rest of the linkages used in English, 9.9% is attributive linkages, such as which, that, where, who, etc., and 9% is functional linkages. In this research the functional linkage cited is mainly that used to introduce object or predicative clauses in traditional sense. Because of the syntactic difference between English and Chinese these linkages are not found in Chinese narratives.