本书采用认知和功能相结合的研究方法，对北京话口语语料进行分析，指出认知参照点模式可以对汉语中的话题做出统一的解释，实际语言运用中的各式话题结构可视为认知参照点模式的具体实例。本研究重点考察停顿和几个高频话题标记在北京话口语中的使用情况，对各自的使用的频率、语境和功能进行全面而系统的分析。进而，本书对汉语话题所构成的认知参照点模式从横向和纵向两个方面进行勾勒，指出话题既可以是述题的主观参照点，也可以是客观参照点，从而发展了Langacker(1991，1993，1998)把话题作为主观参照点的理论。

List of Abbreviations

List of Tables

List of Figures

Chapter 1 Introduction

 1.1 The Issue

 1.2 Cognitive Linguistics as an Alternative

 1.3 A Corpus Approach

 1.4 Monograph Chapters

Chapter 2 Review of Previous Studies on Mandarin Topics and the Cognitive Approach as an Alternative

 2.1 Findings on and Controversies over Topic

 2.2 A Cognitive Approach to Topic

 2.3 Findings in Other Topic-Prominent Languages

Chapter 3 Pauses and Pause Particles as Topic Markers in Mandarin

 3.1 Pauses as Topic Markers

 3.2 Pause Particles as Topic Markers

 3.3 Discourse Use of Pause Particles in Beijing Mandarin

Chapter 4 Methodology of a Corpus Study

 4.1 A Coding Property Based Approach to Topic Identification

 4.2 Defining Some Grammatical Terms

 4.3 Data: The Beijing Corpus

 4.4 Corpus Analysis Procedure

 4.5 Research Goals

Chapter 5 Pausing and Topic Marking

 5.1 Pausing in Nominal Constructions

 5.2 Pausing in Double-Subject Constructions

 5.3 Pausing in TOP-subject Constructions

 5.4 Summary

Chapter 6 High Frequency Topic Markers in Beijing Mandarin

 6.1 Pause Particle ne

 6.2 Pause Particle ba

 6.3 Pause particle a and its phonetic variants

 6.4 Pause particle ma

 6.5 Lexical topic marker dehua ' if' and laijiang ' speaking of'

 6.6 Discussion

 6.7 Summary

Chapter 7 A Unified Interpretation of Topic as Conceptual Reference Point

 7.1 Reference Points are more than entities

 7.2 Reference Points can be multiple

 7.3 Schematizing Topic-Comment Constructions

 7.4 Summary

Chapter 8 Conclusion

 8.1 A Brief Review

 8.2 Revisiting the Controversies over Mandarin Topics

 8.3 Reference Point as a Conceptual Archetype

 8.4 Areas of Further Study

Appendix : Characteristics of Monologues Comprising the Corpus

References