新聞報導裡關係子句及其衍生語法使用頻率之研究

A Study of the Application Frequencies of Relative Clauses and Their Derived Phrases in English News Reports

研究某一特定語法結構在正式寫作裡出現之頻率及方式，有助於我們了解英文語言之發展。 本研究藉由分析英文新聞報導所呈現出之語言，來深入探討關係子句及其所衍生之分詞片語與形容詞片語在此一特定文體所呈現之頻率及方式。研究顯示，在三十篇報導中，關係子句數與所有句子數比為29%，分詞片語數與所有句子數比為26%，形容詞片語數與所有句子數比僅為1.6%。三結構與所有句子數比為57%。就關係代名詞之文法功能而言，代名詞為主詞之關係子句佔了80%。就分詞片語而言，主動與被動分詞出現次數為81：79。此數據反映新聞英文之語法成份，可作為英文寫作者、讀者、教學者寫作閱讀及教學之參考指標。

Dependent clauses and modifiers have frequently been found to be embedded in sentences in various genres of formal English writing. This study finds that the English news reports under investigation contain very high percentages of relative clauses and their derived phrases, namely participial and adjective phrases. Amona the sentence patterns in the 30 News reports, the analysis finds the relative clause-sentence ratio to be 29%, immediately followed by the participial phrase-sentence ratio, 26%, with the adjective phrase-sentence ratio being only 1.6%. The combined ratio of the three structures to the total sentence amounts is a surprisingly high 57%. Concerning the grammatical functions of all the relative pronouns, it is found that 80 % of them assumed the subjective case, with other cases being seldom applied. As regards to the voice of all the participial phrases, active and passive phrases are found to have similar application frequencies (81:79). Such figure-based findings, which reflect what edited journalistic writing consists in, may serve as a guide to writers, readers and teachers of English in their writing, reading and teaching of English.