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Analysis on the Features of the NRRCs in Nautical English

Analysis on the Features of the NRRCs in Nautical English. Sun Zhi ( Foreign Language College , Dalian Maritime Univ., Dalian 116026, China). 1 Introduction.

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Analysis on the Features of the NRRCs in Nautical English

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  1. Analysis on the Features of the NRRCs in Nautical English Sun Zhi (Foreign Language College, Dalian Maritime Univ., Dalian 116026, China)

  2. 1 Introduction REL-clauses are widely used generally in literal forms and the reason lies in their functions which convey the information of the sentence explicitly and formally. While in different fields the application of the REL-clauses will not follow the same pattern. So this paper aims to, firstly, make an investigation about the REL-clauses in NEC, and expect to obtain some rules concerning the distribution of REL-clauses in NEC compared with the other corpora; secondly, set focus on NRRCs in NEC itself to make an actual analysis by which we hope to generalize some features of NRRCs in NEC.

  3. 2 The NRRCs in the Corpora • The whole analysis is based upon the following corpora: NEC (Nautical English), MEE (Marine Engineering English), MTE (Maritime Treaty English), T4 (Technical English), LOBA and BROWNA (Press Reportage English). The corpus for the thesis to investigate is NEC which is a collection of English texts selected from English books and journals all concerning nautical English. • In order to make the analysis, we should first of all get to know the state of NRRCs in the six corpora. See the following figure:

  4. Figure1: The Occurrences of NRRCs in the Corpora.

  5. 3 Syntactic Aspects of NRRCs in NEC • The NRRCs in NEC will be classified into three types to analyze: • (i) the NRRCs introduced directly by link-words • (ii) the NRRCs introduced by preposed preposition + relative pronoun • (iii) the NRRCs introduced by sentential clauses.

  6. 3.1 The Antecedent • The first element to be investigated here is the antecedent in NRRCs(i). It is the most important element in REL-clauses because it indicates the class of objects to which reference is made in the noun phrase. Moreover, it is the antecedent that makes the beginning of relativization and consequently the choice of link-words should also firstly depend on the existence of the antecedents.

  7. Figure2: The Reference of Antecedents of NRRCs(i)in NEC

  8. 3.2 The NRRCs Introduced by Preposed Prepositions + Relative Pronouns Figure3: The Preposed Prepositions + Relative Pronouns in NEC

  9. Figure4: The preposed preposition + relative pronoun of NRRC in NEC

  10. 3.3 The Sentential NRRCs in NEC. • Sentential clause is a special kind of NRRCs. It’s specialty lies in that the clause is not used to modify a noun phrase but to refer to one or more clauses or sentences. Sentential clauses more often employ the relative pronouns as and which; adverbs and determinerwhich versus abstract nouns are rarely found comparatively.

  11. Sentential clauses introduced by as in NEC: • 0119mc94060030 • We have to obtain transit visa from the Authorities, which takes 1 or 2 days. • 0124MS79100497 • When the ship s head is near her mew source this wheel id taken off, and so the order Midships is given, which should be repeated and obeyed by the helmsman as in previous cases. • 0135AS96010425 • This must ebtail an increase in the relativily cheap fares imposed by the TDI, unless a government subsidy is forthcoming, which under current fiscal constraints appears a very unlikely gesture.

  12. 4 Conclusion • Our analysis focused on the NRRCs in NEC gave us an insight into the actual language under the direction of forgoing theoretical descriptions. The findings presented us the following chief features:

  13. 1) The antecedents of NRRCs in NEC are mainly the non-human references and common nouns; for the proper nouns that act as antecedents, besides persons’ names, the names of ship companies and vessels constitute an outstanding feature for the NRRCs in NEC; 2) Which and who are the most favored link-words occurred in NRRCs in NEC and they mainly function as subjects. Which is mainly used to refer to non-human antecedents and who to human antecedents. But personal relative pronoun who and neuter whose are also frequently used to introduce some special non-human antecedents which mainly refer to the ship organizations, countries or vessels; 3) The form of preposed prepositions + relative pronouns more frequently occur to the NRRCs in NEC introduced by which and the prepositions in and of are the most favored to be preposed; 4) The sentential clauses compose a not small part of NRRCs in NEC. Relative pronoun which and as aremost preferred by these sentential clauses; adverb whereby and which as determiner of abstract nouns to introduce sentential clauses are also found but rarely.

  14. Thanks!

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