Chinese Language and Discourse - Current Issue

This paper examines two emerging discourse uses, topic-shifting and trail-off, of a temporal conjunction ranhou in spontaneous Mandarin conversation. Unlike traditional approaches that focus exclusively on such textual functions as temporality and consequentiality of ranhou, the present study considers the role of prosody in making ranhou recognizable as a topic-shifting and trail-off marker in interaction. Using the framework of conversation analysis, this paper reveals that, as a topic-shifting marker, ranhou signals both stepwise and disjunctive topic shifts; as a trail-off marker, it marks the closure of the current turn and invites the recipient’s response. The prosodic analysis demonstrates that the topic-shifting ranhou shows a significantly longer duration and larger pitch range than its other uses; the trail-off ranhou features intonational independence, loudness diminuendo, and/or durational lengthening. These prosodic designs, in collaboration with particular sequential environment, make the new discourse uses and their associated interactional purposes recognizable by conversation co-participants.

This paper sets out to examine the existing literature in the study of investor sentiment, and propose research areas in the Pan-Chinese context by use of the econo-linguistics approach. This new research may provide insights into the mindset of Chinese investors by explicating the language that represents it. Such language arises in public financial discourse that involves the use of special terminology and metaphorical expressions in Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan and may contribute to influencing investment behaviour and outcome. Following the review of the research, this paper proposes the use of an innovative mechanism and platform for systemizing financial terminologies and facilitating financial research within the inter-disciplinary framework of econo-linguistics, especially in the Pan-Chinese regions.

This paper proposes a structural borrowing account for a lexicogrammatical phenomenon whereby, in on ongoing Cantonese discourse, in which the use of a single-word English preposition triggers and activates an English construction, specifically an NP COP P NP sequence, and brings it into that discourse. The borrowed structure eventually converges with Cantonese, with the English preposition reanalyzed as a verb or a coverb. It is further suggested that these processes of structural borrowing and convergence are semantically motivated. Drawing on Cognitive Grammar, the borrowed structure np cop p np profiles a location as a relationship (whereas in Cantonese it is profiled as a thing by a postposition), and the pp (i.e., p np ) is profiled as a property of the subject or trajector (whereas in Cantonese a coverb phrase is always associated with a process). The converged constructions – in which an English preposition is reanalyzed as a verb or coverb – profile more dynamic and specific processes.

医患互动历来被认为是医疗保健与健康传播的核心，近年来逐渐成为人文社科跨学科研究热点。目前国际范围内医患互动研究已经取得了一定的成果，但同时也展现出新的问题和挑战。本文对过去50年间的海内外医患互动研究进行了梳理和回顾，旨在呈现主要研究方法与视角、发展阶段、以及重要发现与成果。文章分别回顾了国外和国内医患互动研究，分析了国内研究尚存在的不足，并基于此对未来研究提出了建议和展望。主要发现有：（1）国外医患互动研究从1960年代起步，研究视角和方法呈现多元化趋势，相关研究可以被细化分类为：宏观“行为”研究、微观“话语”研究和会话分析研究。（2）国内相关研究始于1980年代后期，经历了萌芽、起步和成熟等三个发展阶段；语言学视角下的相关研究独树一帜，做出独特的贡献。（3）对比发现，国内研究在研究范式、内容和方法等方面有待进一步完善。本文希望能够为相关领域的研究者提供参考，助力学界围绕医患互动展开更深入、系统、具体的理论和实践探讨。