许多人认为时态是属于语法范畴,它仅仅表示动作发生的时间和进行的方式。因此,对以下这样的句子就常常无法正确地理解和领会它们的真实含义: Were you wanting to see me? I’m hoping you’ll look after the children for us.这里的进行时态显然并不表示正在进行的动作。时态的运用不仅是语法上的问题,而且也是修辞上的问题。时态在写作修辞中起着微妙的作用,这是不容忽视的。以下就这个问题结合自己多年教学实践作些探讨。 1.一般叙述与带感情色彩: (1)人们在叙述往事的时候通常使用过去时态。但在叙事文或新闻报道中,人们也使用一般现在时来叙述往事,以增加描写的生动性和真实感,这种用法给人一种往事仿佛栩栩如生地出现在眼前的印象,可以称之为历史性现在时或戏剧性现在时。例如: I couldn’t believe it! Just as we arrived, up comes Ben and slaps me on the back as if we’re lifelong friends. “Come on, old pal,” he says,“ Let me buy you a drink!” Many people think that the tense is a grammatical category. It only represents the time when the action occurred and the way it was performed. Therefore, the following sentences are often unable to correctly understand and understand their true meaning: Were you wanting to see me? I’m hoping you’ll look after the children for us. Ongoing actions. The use of tenses is not only a grammatical problem, but also a rhetorical problem. Tenses play a subtle role in writing rhetoric, which cannot be ignored. The following discussion on this issue combined with its own teaching practice for many years. 1. General narrative and sentimentalism: (1) People usually use past tense when describing past events. However, in the narrative or news reports, people use the present-day present to describe the past to increase the vividness and realism of the description. This usage gives the impression that the past is vivid and vivid, and it can be called Historic present or dramatic present time. For example: I couldn’t believe it! Just as we arrived, up comes Ben and slaps me on the back as if we’re lifelong friends. “Come on, old pal,” he says,“ Let me buy you a drink!”