| Abstract | 第1-9页 |
| 摘要 | 第9-10页 |
| List of Tables | 第10-11页 |
| List of Abbreviations | 第11-12页 |
| Chapter 1 Introduction | 第12-15页 |
| ·Research Background | 第12页 |
| ·Aim and Significance | 第12-13页 |
| ·Research Rationale | 第13-14页 |
| ·Research Questions | 第14页 |
| ·The Structure of the Thesis | 第14-15页 |
| Chapter 2 Research Methods and Procedures | 第15-18页 |
| ·Research Methods | 第15-16页 |
| ·Data Collection and Analysis | 第16页 |
| ·Research Procedures | 第16-18页 |
| Chapter 3 Literature Review and Analysis | 第18-39页 |
| ·A Historical Overview of TC Theory | 第18-23页 |
| ·“Qici”(起词) and “Yuci” (语词) in Mashi Wentong (《马氏文通》) | 第18页 |
| ·Edward Sapir’s Thinking Relevant to TC | 第18-19页 |
| ·“Biaoyu” (标语) and “Shuomingyu”(说明语) | 第19页 |
| ·Hockett’s Contribution to Linguistic on the Issue of TC | 第19-20页 |
| ·Chao Yuanren and TC in Chinese | 第20-23页 |
| ·“Topic” in Narrow Sense and Its Entanglements with “Subject” | 第23-29页 |
| ·Topic-prominence vs. Subject-prominence | 第24-26页 |
| ·Objections to Charles N. Li and Sandra A. Thompson’s Theory | 第26页 |
| ·The Theory of “Three planes” and “the Plane Topic belongs to” | 第26-27页 |
| ·A Comment on the Entanglement between “Subject” and “Topic” | 第27-29页 |
| ·The Research Literature Specific to Topic | 第29-36页 |
| ·Studies Abroad | 第29-32页 |
| ·Domestic Studies | 第32-36页 |
| ·Critiques on the TC Researches | 第36-39页 |
| Chapter 4 Theoretical Foundation and Discussion | 第39-51页 |
| ·The Property and Classification of “Comment” | 第39-40页 |
| ·A Description of “Subject” from the Perspective of TC | 第40-41页 |
| ·Some Definitions to “Topic” and the Critiques on the Definitions | 第41-43页 |
| ·Shi Dingxu’s (2000) Definition | 第41-42页 |
| ·Chafe’s (1976) Definition | 第42-43页 |
| ·Shen Jiaxuan’s (1999) “Feature Bundle” of Topic: | 第43页 |
| ·The Nature of TC | 第43-44页 |
| ·The Syntactic Mechanism of TC | 第44-47页 |
| ·Classification of TC | 第47-50页 |
| ·Marked TC vs. Unmarked TC | 第47-48页 |
| ·Syntactic Topic vs. Discourse Topic | 第48-49页 |
| ·The thematic roles as topic | 第49-50页 |
| ·Summary | 第50-51页 |
| Chapter 5 The Function Patterns and Distributions of TCs in English and Chinese | 第51-62页 |
| ·TCs in Isolated Sentences in English and Chinese | 第52-57页 |
| ·TCs in English and Chinese | 第52-54页 |
| ·The TC in English which cannot be found in Chinese | 第54页 |
| ·Some TCs in Chinese which cannot be found in English | 第54-56页 |
| ·The Distributions of the TCs in English and Chinese | 第56-57页 |
| ·TCs in Discourse in English and Chinese | 第57-59页 |
| ·Global Topic, Local Topic and Previous Topic in English and Chinese Discourse | 第57-58页 |
| ·Topic-chain and Pan-topic-chain | 第58-59页 |
| ·Discussion on the Function Patterns and Distributions of TCs in English and Chinese | 第59-61页 |
| ·Summary | 第61-62页 |
| Chapter 6 Conclusion and Implications | 第62-67页 |
| ·A General Conclusion | 第62-64页 |
| ·Theoretical Implications | 第64页 |
| ·Implications for the Foreign Language Teaching and Cross-Language Translation | 第64-65页 |
| ·Concluding Remarks | 第65-67页 |
| ·Limitations of Present Study | 第66页 |
| ·Suggestions for Further Study | 第66-67页 |
| Bibliography | 第67-73页 |
| Appendix: Text Data for Frequency Statistics of TCs in English and Chinese | 第73-74页 |
| Acknowledgements | 第74页 |
