| Chapter One General Introduction | 第8-14页 |
| 1．1 The need and the significance of this study | 第8-9页 |
| 1．2 Distinguishing confusing terms：the theme and the topic; the syntactic topic，the discourse topic and thep pragmatic topic | 第9-11页 |
| 1．3 The scope of the present research | 第11-12页 |
| 1．4 Justifying the research in the realm of pragmatics：Verschueren's generalidea that pragmatics is a perspective to look at any linguistic level | 第12-14页 |
| Chapter Two Overview of the Topic | 第14-31页 |
| 2．1 Introduction | 第14-15页 |
| 2．2 Word order approach | 第15-17页 |
| 2．3 Syntactic approach | 第17-20页 |
| 2．4 Language acquisition approach | 第20-21页 |
| 2．5 Semantic approach | 第21-22页 |
| 2．6 Discourse approach | 第22-26页 |
| 2．7 Pragmatic approach | 第26-31页 |
| Chapter Three Theoretical Frameworks | 第31-50页 |
| 3．1． Information structure theory | 第31-39页 |
| 3．1．1 Information and information structure | 第31-33页 |
| 3．1．2 Information structure in English | 第33-35页 |
| 3．1．3 Information structure in Chinese | 第35-37页 |
| 3．1．4 Topic-related categories of information status | 第37-39页 |
| 3．1．4．1 Given versus new information | 第38页 |
| 3．1．4．2 Referential versus non-referential | 第38-39页 |
| 3．1．4．3 Definite versus indefinite | 第39页 |
| 3．2． Verschueren's linguistic adaptation theory | 第39-50页 |
| 3．2．1． Introduction | 第39-40页 |
| 3．2．2． Description of the framework of linguistic adaptation theory | 第40-43页 |
| 3．2．3． Topic-comment as a linguistic choice | 第43-45页 |
| 3．2．4． What does the speaker adapt to by using topics？ | 第45-50页 |
| Chapter Four Detailed Analysis of Linguistic Data | 第50-68页 |
| 4．1． Brief introduction | 第50页 |
| 4．2． Analysis of the English topics | 第50-53页 |
| 4．3． Analysis of the Chinese topics | 第53-64页 |
| 4．4． Analysis of the English topics used by Chinese learners | 第64-68页 |
| Chapter Five Conclusion | 第68-75页 |
| 5．1． Summary of the present study | 第68-70页 |
| 5．2． Implications | 第70-73页 |
| 5．3． Limitations and further direction | 第73-75页 |
| Bibliography | 第75-80页 |
