Title: Grounding in Chinese Written Narrative Discourse 

Series Title: USLC 32 
Published: 2018 
Publisher: Brill http://www.brill.com 
Book URL: http://www.brill.com/products/book/grounding-chinese-written-narrative-discourse 
Author: Wendan Li 
Hardback: ISBN: 9789004316645 Pages: 293 Price: Europe EURO 79
Hardback: ISBN: 9789004316645 Pages: 293 Price: U.S. $ 91

Abstract:

In "Grounding in Chinese Written Narrative Discourse" Wendan Li offers a comprehensive and innovative account of how Mandarin Chinese, as a language without extensive morphological marking, highlights (or foregrounds) major events of a narrative and demotes (or backgrounds) other supporting descriptions. Qualitative and quantitative methods in the analysis and examinations of authentic written text provide extensive evidence to demonstrate that various types of morpho-syntactic devices are used in a wide range of structural units in Chinese to mark the distinction between foregrounding and backgrounding. The analysis paves the way for future studies to systematically approach grounding-related issues. The typological viewpoint adopted in the chapters serves well readers from both the Chinese tradition and other languages in discourse analysis.