中国大学生英语作文中so使用情况语料库的分析

1、摘 要英语一直是中国学生学习的重要课程。中国学生不仅要学习英语高级词汇，更要学习高频词的多种语义功能，这些都是中国学生学习英语过程中的难题。中国学生学习过程中比较突出的问题就是对这些常用的高频词过度使用或者使用不足，同时也存在错误使用。本文以高频词 SO 为突破点，试图揭示中国大学生英语作文中使用 SO 过多或不足的现象及错误使用的原因。本文采用语料库研究方法，从词性、搭配、句中位置等角度，应用 AntConc3.2.1和 SPSS 软件，对比分析美国当代英语语料库（3.35 亿词汇，不包含口语子语料库）和中国英语学习者语料库的三个子语料库（64 万词汇）：ST3（非英语专业四级语料库）、ST

2、4（非英语专业六级语料库）、ST6（英语专业八级语料库）中对高频词 SO 的使用情况，探求中国英语学习者与英语本族语者使用 SO 的区别及中国英语学习者所存在的问题。研究结果显示：中国英语学习者对高频词 SO 的使用存在一些问题，相比英语本族语者，中国英语学习者对 SO 的不同词性存在过度使用和使用不足的矛盾现象。在搭配和使用位置上与英语本族语者存在较大差距。另外，通过错误分析研究结果表明，中国英语学习者存在误用高频词 SO 的现象。误用的原因主要有母语干扰、过度概括、忽视句法规则等。最后，本研究还提出了一些对外语教学及后续研究的建议。关键词：SO 搭配 语料库 错误分析 用法IIAbstra

3、ctEnglish has long been one of the most important courses for Chinese students. It hasnever been easy to Chinese students, not only for its sophisticated words, but also for itsfrequently-used words covering multi-word classes. The crux of the learning hurdle lies inthe overuse or underuse of certai

4、n word classes of those words. This thesis aims at themost frequently-used word SO as a point of breakthrough, to discover the overuse,underuse or misuse of SO in Chinese college students compositions.In the present research, the contrast between native English speakers and Chinesecollege students o

5、n the uses of SO is based on Corpus of Contemporary American English(COCA, over 335 million words with the spoken genre deducted) and three sub-corpora(ST3, ST4, ST6, over 640,000 words in all) from Chinese Learner English Corpus (CLEC).And computer software AntConc3.2.1 and SPSS are applied to expl

6、ore the differences inusing SO from such perspectives as word class, collocation, and position.The results show that Chinese English learners do not have a good command of SO.In comparison with native English speakers, Chinese English learners are inclined tooveruse or underuse SO as certain word cl

7、asses. A great disparity also exists incollocations and positions of SO in Chinese college students compositions. In addition,the application of error analysis theory reveals that Chinese English learners make SOerrors as a result of interference of mother tongue, overgeneralization, incompleteappli

8、cation of rules, and ignorance of conditions for rules to apply. On the basis of theabove study, some suggestions for pedagogical practice and further research are provided.Key Words: SO Collocation Corpus Error Analysis UsageIList of Tables and FiguresTable 1.1 Error types classified by Gui Shichun

9、 and Yang Huizhong 8Table 1.2 Five sub-corpora of CLEC 27Table 1.3 Five sub-corpora of COCA 28Table 3.1 Overall frequency of SO in CLEC 32Table 3.2 Overall frequency of SO in COCA 33Table 3.3 Chi-square test on total frequency: CLEC vs. COCA 34Table 3.4 Chi-square test on total frequency: ST3 vs. CO

10、CA 34Table 3.5 Chi-square test on total frequency: ST4 vs. COCA 35Table 3.6 Chi-square test on total frequency: ST6 vs. COCA 35Table 3.7 Chi-square test on total frequency: ST3 vs. ST6 36Table 3.8 Chi-square test on total frequency: ST4 vs. ST6 36Table 3.9 Chi-square test on total frequency: ST3 vs.

11、 ST4 37Table 3.10 Frequencies of SO as different word classes in CLEC and COCA 38Table 3.11 Positions of SO in CLEC and COCA 41Table 3.12 Top 10 collocations of SO as an adverb in CLEC and COCA 43Table 3.13 Top 10 collocations of SO as a conjunction in CLEC and COCA 44Table 3.14 SO error codes in th

12、e three Chinese English learner corpora46Table 3.15 SO errors description from Gui Shichun 47Figure 1.1 SO frequencies among five genres of COCA 28Figure 2.1 Search result of SO cluster in ST3 30Figure 3.1 Overall frequency of SO in COCA 33Figure 3.2 Frequencies of SO as different word classes in CL

13、EC and COCA 39Figure 3.3 Positions of SO in CLEC and COCA 41IV独创性声明本人声明所呈交的学位论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的研究成果。尽我所知，除文中已经标明引用的内容外，本论文不包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究做出贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。本人完全意识到本声明的法律结果由本人承担。学位论文作者签名：日期：年月日学位论文版权使用授权书本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，即：学校有权保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版，允许论文被查阅和借阅

14、。本人授权华中科技大学可以将本学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。保密 ，在_年解密后适用本授权书。本论文属于不保密。（请在以上方框内打“”）学位论文作者签名：指导教师签名：日期：年月 日日期：年月日IntroductionEnglish is the most prevalent language in the world. With Chinas entry of WTO,English has become all the more important for Chinese. Apart from trade with

15、 foreigncountries, daily interaction activities with foreign countries has become commonplace. Inthis setting, English has long been one of the most important classes for Chinese students.Of the four language skills (namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing), writing isusually not given as m

16、uch emphasis in English teaching as the other three skills. Inaddition, a great many English words, even the most basic ones, have more than twousages with complicated word classes and syntactical functions. As a result, Englishwriting becomes the weakest part for Chinese students. As a frequently m

17、isused word inEnglish writing, SO poses a big problem for Chinese students. For example, studentssometimes use a pair of conjunctions because and SO in a sentence, or use SO to expresseffect without considering the logical relations of clauses.Even though Chinese students often use SO improperly in

18、their English writings,researches on SO are far from enough to guide students through SO usages. For thisreason, this thesis comes into being, with an aim of clarifying SO overuse, underuse, ormisuse by Chinese English learners.This study is based on the corpora of writings done by Chinese English l

19、earnersattending university of different levels. It elaborates how they use the word SO. The studyaims to find out the differences between Chinese English learners and native Englishspeakers in using the word SO. Contrastive analysis is conducted to draw an insight intopossible overuse or underuse o

20、f the word SO. Error analysis is applied to reveal SO errorsoccurring in Chinese English learners writings. To achieve the goal, sub-corporaincluding ST3, ST4, and ST6 from CLEC (Chinese Learner English Corpus) are selectedto represent the distinctive English proficiency levels of Chinese English le

21、arners. A nativeEnglish speaker corpus, COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English), is selected1to conduct contrastive analysis with Chinese English learner corpora. Thus, the differencesin using SO between Chinese English learners and native English speakers are revealed. Inthe end of the study

22、, conclusions are drawn and pedagogical suggestions are proposed forEnglish teaching on the basis of preceding study over SO usages by Chinese students.This thesis is to discover the overuse, underuse or misuse of SO by Chinese Englishlearners, leading to conclusions and pedagogical suggestions for

23、English teaching andsecond language acquisition in China.In all, it consists of three chapters except the introduction and conclusion sections.The first chapter is an overview of theories propping up the thesis, composed of threeparts. The first part is the theoretical bases including contrastive an

24、alysis and erroranalysis. The second part is the different levels of studying SO, including word class,syntactic function, position and collocation of SO. The third part is a brief introduction ofprevious corpus-based studies on single word. The forth part portrays the corporaemployed in this thesis

25、.The second chapter is the methodology part, including research questions, subjects,instruments, and procedure.The third chapter is the contrastive analysis of the usage differences of SO betweenthe Chinese English learner corpus and the native English speaker corpus, in respects ofoverall frequency

26、, word class, position and collocation of SO. In addition, error analysistheory is incorporated to analyze and explain SO errors in the English writings of Chinesestudents.21 Literature ReviewThis chapter provides the theoretical background for this thesis. The theoretical basesof this thesis contra

27、stive analysis and error analysis are displayed in the first place.Different levels for studying SO are coming next. Related previous studies are brieflyintroduced. They provide theoretical support for analyzing SO usages as well as SO errors.1.1 Theoretical BasesTo study second language learning, i

28、t is out of question that contrastive analysis anderror analysis fall into the scope.1.1.1 Contrastive analysisContrastive analysis aims to study second language learning and teaching. It was firstconducted from 1940s and reached its heyday from the 1950s to the 1960s, whencontrastive analyses were

29、prevalent in language comparison. In early 1970s, contrastiveanalysis gave way to error analysis.According to Ellis (1999: 698), “Contrastive analysis is a set of procedures forcomparing and contrasting the linguistic systems of two languages in order to identifytheir structural similarities and dif

30、ferences.” It is concerned with comparing mother tongueand target language for the purpose of working out the similarities and differencesbetween the two languages. This approach derives from American structuralists who heldthat the basic problems in L2 learning do not result from any essential diff

31、iculty in thefeatures of new language but primarily from learners L1 habits (Lado, 1957). Therefore, italso serves to predict errors learners make in their second language learning. From Ellis(1999: 307), contrastive analysis contains the following steps: description, selection,comparison and predic

32、tion. In particular, description is to describe the native language andtarget language in second language acquisition research; selection is to pick out items of3the two languages; comparison is to figure out the existing differences and similarities;prediction is to draw errors learners tend to mak

33、e in language acquisition based onpreceding analysis.Contrastive analysis has two theoretical assumptions: language learning is habitformation; an old habit (using L1) hinders or facilitates the formation of a new habit.Second language learning is a result of command of the differences or similariti

34、es betweenthe first and the second language. It can be implied from the assumptions that the primarychallenge of learning a new language is the interference from the first language.Contrastive analysis is proved to be problematic as its focus on differences between L1and L2 is insufficient to explai

35、n the L2 output, let alone justify the mental process of L2acquisition.Contrastive analysis is flawed in itself. However, it paves the way for the emergenceof error analysis, a more important successor in place.1.1.2 Error analysisError analysis is a product of the flawed contrastive analysis. Befor

36、e the elaborationon EA, lets first take a look at errors.1.2.2.1 Definition of errorError is different from mistake. If the learner is able to put a fault right in his or herown right, the fault is a mistake because the form chosen was not the one intended.However, if the learner is unable to correc

37、t it, then it is an error as the form used was theone intended. Below are definitions of error from different linguists.a. Corder (1971: 152) stated that errors are the result of some failure of competence. Insimple words, lack of knowledge gives rise to deviation, which leads to error.b. For Dulay

38、et al (1982: 138), “errors are the flawed side of learner speech or writing.They are those parts of conversation or composition that deviate from some selected normof mature language performance. Teachers and mothers who have waged long and patient4battles against their students or childrens languag

39、e errors have come to realize thatmaking errors is an inevitable part of learning. People cannot learn language without firstsystematically committing errors. ”c. Errors are, for Edge (1989), wrong forms that the pupil could not correct even if theirwrongness were to be pointed out. However, we can

40、recognize what the student wantedto produce and the class is familiar with that form. For example: It is unfortunate thefact that he left her.d. Lennon (1991: 182) defined error as a linguistic form or combination of forms which,in the same context and under similar conditions of production, would,

41、in all likelihood,not be produced by the speakers native speaker counterparts.e. Error is an instance of language that is unintentionally deviant and is not self-corrigibleby its author (Carl James, 1998: 78). Errors cannot be self-corrected until further relevant(to that error) input (implicit or e

42、xplicit) has been provided and converted into intake bythe learner. In other words, errors require further relevant learning to take place beforethey can be self-corrected.It is assumed that native speakers do not make errors but mistakes. According toCorder (1971), “mistakes are performance phenome

43、na and are regular features ofnative-speaker speech, reflecting processing failures that arise as a result of competingplans, memory limitations, and lack of automaticity. ”The above definitions clarify the common trait that error is made with no intentionand is not self-corrigible by the author. Th

44、e error in the later analysis is primarily based onCarl James definition. However, to simplify the analysis, his definition is extended tocover any deviation from a selected norm of language performance.1.1.2.2 Error typesErrors can be divided into different types.Burt and Kiparsky (1972) classified

45、 errors into four types from a surface strategyperspective.5a. OmissionOmission errors are characterized by the absence of an item that must appear in awell-formed utterance.b. AdditionsAddition errors are the opposite of omissions. They are characterized by the presenceof an item which must not app

46、ear in a well-formed utterance.c. MisformationMisformation errors are characterized by the use of the wrong form of the morphemeor structure.d. MisorderingMisordering errors are characterized by the incorrect placement of a morpheme orgroup of morphemes in an utterance.Dulay, Burt, and Krashen (Dula

47、y et al, 1982: 150) claimed that the surface strategytaxonomy approach is promising because it provides an indication of the cognitiveprocesses that underlie the learners reconstruction of L2. However, Ellis (2008: 51) statesthat it presupposes learners operate on the surface structures of the targe

48、t language ratherthan create their own, unique structures. This makes the taxonomy doubtful.Dulay, Burt, and Krashen (1982: 163-72) classified errors into three types from theperspective of comparative taxonomy:a. Developmental errorsDevelopmental errors are errors similar to those made by children

49、learning the targetlanguage as their first language.1 Dog eat it.The above utterance is made by a Spanish child learning English. The omission of thearticle and the past tense marker may be classified as developmental because these are alsofound in the speech of children learning English as their fi

50、rst language.b. Interlingual errors6Interlingual errors are similar in structure to a semantically equivalent phrase orsentence in the learners native language. They simply refer to L2 errors that reflect nativelanguage structure, regardless of the internal processes or external conditions that spawnedthem.c. Ambiguous errorsAmbiguous errors are those that could be classified equally well as developmental orinterlingual. That is because these errors reflect the learners native language structure,and at the same time, th