Markedness of Chinese and English Topic Constructions: A Cognitive Analysis Based on Spoken Corpus

This research analyzes the markedness features of Chinese and English topic constructions from a cognitive-grounding perspective.Based on the data from casual conversation corpora,we find that the topics in Chinese topic constructions are less marked than those in English,while their predicates-as-comment are more marked.Moreover,Chinese and English are convergent in left dislocations but divergent in fronting-topic constructions.Investigation shows that there is a correlation between their degree of markedness and speaker-as-conceptualizer's epistemic control over topics.As topics in Chinese are more accessible in CDS,speakers tend to express their subjective assessment in the predicates.However,as deferring topics are more prominent in English,speakers tend to give more objective descriptions.This helps to explain the typological differences between Chinese and English topic constructions.