| Acknowledgement | 第1-5页 |
| Abstract | 第5-7页 |
| 摘要 | 第7-9页 |
| Contents | 第9-11页 |
| List of Tables | 第11-12页 |
| Chapter One Introduction | 第12-16页 |
| ·General Introduction | 第12-14页 |
| ·Rationale and significance of the study | 第14-15页 |
| ·Outline of the study | 第15-16页 |
| Chapter Two Literature Review | 第16-23页 |
| ·Studies on Institutional Conversational Analysis(ICA) | 第16-17页 |
| ·Studies on press conference in the framework of ICA | 第17-20页 |
| ·Studies on questions and question preface | 第20-23页 |
| Chapter Three Research Design | 第23-25页 |
| ·Research Questions | 第23页 |
| ·Research Materials | 第23-25页 |
| Chapter Four Results and Discussion | 第25-52页 |
| ·Frequencies of prefaced questions | 第25-31页 |
| ·Question preface formats | 第31-42页 |
| ·Formal Structure of prefaced questions in Chinese corpus | 第31-33页 |
| ·Formal structure of simple questions | 第31-32页 |
| ·Formal structures of complex questions | 第32-33页 |
| ·Content Structure of prefaced questions in Chinese corpus | 第33-34页 |
| ·Formal Structure of prefaced questions in American corpus | 第34-35页 |
| ·Formal structure of simple questions | 第34-35页 |
| ·Formal structure of complex questions | 第35页 |
| ·Content Structure of prefaced questions in American corpus | 第35-42页 |
| ·Functions of question preface | 第42-52页 |
| ·Functions of meta-questioning | 第43-45页 |
| ·Functions of Person deixis | 第45-46页 |
| ·Functions of Background information | 第46-52页 |
| Chapter Five Conclusion | 第52-55页 |
| ·Major finding and implications of the research | 第52-53页 |
| ·Limitations of the study and suggestions for future study | 第53-55页 |
| Works Cited | 第55-59页 |
| Publication | 第59页 |
