话语究竟是如何推进的?Halliday的回答是英语话语推进呈现为不间断的系列旋律单位,每个旋律单位称作一个语调组,而每个语调组体现一个信息单位,由已知信息和新信息构成。Chafe把Halliday的语调组叫做意识焦点。意识的特点之一是它具有焦点中心和边缘区域。Chafe认为不考虑意识就无法理解已知信息和新信息的区别。他根据概念激活状态把信息作三项划分,即已知信息、可及信息和新信息。本文试图探讨两种信息划分的依据、异同,并提出使两者相容的思路。

To the question how discourse proceeds,Halliday's(1994)reply is that English speech progresses as an unbroken succession of melodic units called tone groups and each tone group realizes one unit of information,which consists of given information and new information.What Halliday calls an information unit Chafe refers to as a focus of consciousness.According to Chafe it is impossible to understand the distinction between given and new information without taking consciousness into consideration.On the basis of activation cost of concepts Chafe comes up with a three-way breakdown into given,accessible and new information in place of the binary distinction of given and new.This paper looks into the justifications of the two types of division of information,brings out their differences and suggests a way to reconcile the three-way breakdown with the binary distinction.