Concession in Chinese proverbs
Abstract
This article studies concession in Chinese proverbs from three different points of view: syntactic, semantic and pragmatic. It is based on several previous works that focus on concession and proverbs both in French and in Chinese. To our knowledge, no research has been done on the concession in proverbs. Proverbs possess several peculiar linguistic traits that condition the expression of concession. The objective of this paper is to examine the realization of this notion under proverbial syntactic constraints as well as to highlight their logico-semantic basis and to assess their pragmatic effects. Based on our corpus of Chinese proverbs, the article not only concludes with the most common syntactic structures, universal logical formula, but also points out the argumentative force and the politeness present in concessive Chinese proverbs.
Downloads
Article download
Crossmark
License
In order to support the global exchange of knowledge, the journal Thélème. Revista Complutense de Estudios Franceses is allowing unrestricted access to its content as from its publication in this electronic edition, and as such it is an open-access journal. The originals published in this journal are the property of the Complutense University of Madrid and any reproduction thereof in full or in part must cite the source. All content is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 use and distribution licence (CC BY 4.0). This circumstance must be expressly stated in these terms where necessary. You can view the summary and the complete legal text of the licence.
