6.4        Sentences and Paragraph

Day 3    Back Referencing 向後參照

What is Back Reference?  甚麼是向後參照 ?

Sometimes, writers don’t want to repeat words or phrases. They will use some short ways (like pronouns) to refer to people or things that have already been mentioned earlier in the passage. The words or phrases that refer back are called referent. It is important to understand what the referents refer to in a passage. This kind of skill is called back referencing.

有些時候，作家不想重複使用詞語或短語，他們就會使用一些較簡短的方法 (如代名詞) 來指示一些已經在文章前部份被提及的人或物。那些用來指示早前的人或物的字或短語稱為指示對象 (referent)。明白那些指示對象 (referent) 所指的是甚麼，對我們明白文章是非常重要的。這種技巧是  “向後參照 ”。

e.g. Sally loves her rabbit. 

In this case, the word ‘her’refers back to the subject ‘Sally’. The direction of referencing is going back, so this is called back referencing.

在這個例句中我們可看到，‘her’ 這個字是指示對象，它所指的是句中的主語‘Sally’。由於這個指示的參照方向是由句末到句前的，所以這種參照方法被稱為向後參照。

Why do we need to learn back referencing?  為甚麼我們要學習向後參照呢 ?

When we are writing, we will be making a lot of back references too. If we don’t do it properly, then our readers may find it difficult to understand what we write, or even misunderstand our meaning. So we should learn to read back references in order to make ourselves able to make back references.

當我們在寫文章時，我們都會不自覺地使用到很多向後參照的。如果我們不小心恰當地使用，那麼我們的讀者就會認為我們的文章很難明，甚至會誤解了我們的意思。所以我們應該先學懂如何去閱讀有向後參照的文章，從而令我們自己都可以正確地使用向後參照這技巧。

To understand back reference, we should know that a referent may refer to:  要明白向後參照，我們要知道一個指示對象 (referent) 可以指示 :

-         -         a noun or noun phrase/clause 名詞或名詞短語/從句

-         -         a singular or plural noun 單數或複數的名詞

-         -         a sentence 句子

You may come across four types of referents:  你可能會遇到以下的四種指示對象 :

1. A pronoun 代名詞 (e.g. he, she, it, they, his, her, them, this, that, those, etc.) is the most common type of referent.

2. A paraphrase 釋義 (we learnt it in Day 1) is another common type of referent. It is a phrase in different words but with the

    same meaning.

3. A synonym 同義詞 (we learnt it in Day 1 as well) is sometimes used as referent. It is another word with similar meaning.

4. A summarizing noun phrase 總結的名詞短語 can also refer to a fact mentioned earlier.