中英高中生英语作文中比较形式的对比研究

1、摘 要本研究主要分析中国英语学习者语料库（CLEC）和英国高中生作文语料库（ALEVELS）中的三种比较级形式：分析式、综合式以及不规则形式。通过比较这三种形式在两个语料库中的具体使用情况，得出中国高中生在英语写作中存在的关于比较级使用的特征和需要解决的问题，以此来启发中学教师相应地制定有效可行的英语教学方案来帮助中国高中生在英语比较级的使用方面取得进步，从而提高英语书面表达的能力。研究得出：中国高中生在英语写作中比较级的使用不同于英国高中生。中国高中生更经常使用英语比较级的分析式和不规则式，相比之下，综合式使用少。其中，中国高中生经常使用的两个不规则形式比较级形式是more和better。另

2、外，在中国高中生的英语作文中经常出现more+adj（单音节）和冗余两类误用比较级的情况。 研究发现，中国高中生对比较级的使用与英国高中生存在差异的原因主要集中在三个方面：一是对英语语法和词义含义了解片面有偏差，二是母语迁移， 三是词汇量小。关键词：比较级；高中生；语料库AbstractThis study mainly analyzes three types of comparative forms in Chinese Learner English Corpus (CLEC) and British high-school English corpus (ALEVELS): infle

3、ctional, periphrastic and irregular forms. Through comparing the forms of comparative degree in the two corpora, this study reveals the characteristics and problems of Chinese high school students in the use of comparative degree. In turn, it will prompt high-school teachers to make effective teachi

4、ng plans accordingly and help students to make progress in the use of comparative degree. In the meantime, their writing skills will be improved.Results show that Chinese high-school students use comparative degree in the different way from English native high-school students. In the compositions by

5、 Chinese high school students, inflectional and irregular forms are more frequently used, while periphrastic forms are less. Among irregular forms, the frequency of More and better are relatively high. In addition, there exists some misuse of comparative degree, which mainly includes two types: more

6、+adj (monosyllabic adjective) and redundancy comparative degree.This research shows that the main factors that causes these differences and errors might focus on three aspects : They are Chinese high-school students misunderstanding of English grammar and some words, language transfer of mother tong

7、ue and inadequate vocabulary.Keywords: Comparative Degree, High-School Students, CorpusList of Tables and FiguresTable 4.1 Frequencies and Percentage of Comparative Degree in ALEVELS and CLEC -ST216Figure 4.1 Percentage of Comparative Degree in ALEVELS and CLEC-ST217Table 4.2 Top 20 Inflectional for

8、ms of Comparative Adjectives in ALEVELS18Table 4.3 Top 20 Inflectional forms of Comparative Adjectives in CLEC-ST219Table 4.4 Periphrastic Forms of Comparative Degree in ALEVELS and CLEC-ST2.22Table 4.5 Top 5 Collocates of More in ALEVELS and CLEC-ST222Table 4.6 Irregular Forms of Comparative Degree

9、 in ALEVELS and CLEC-ST224Table 4.7 More Used as a Comparative Equivalent of Many and Much or as the Periphrastic Form of Comparative Degree in ALEVELS and CLEC-ST225Table 4.8 Collocations of Better in ALEVELS and CLEC-ST226Table 4.9 Less Used as a Comparative Equivalent of Little or as the Periphra

10、stic Form of Comparative Degree in ALEVELS and CLEC-ST227Table 4.10 Error Types on Comparative Degree in CLEC-ST228Figure 4.1 Percentage of Comparative Degree in ALEVELS and CLEC-ST217Contents1 Introduction11.1 Research Background11.2 Research Objectives and Significance21.3 Research Questions21.4 O

11、rganization of the Thesis22 Literature Review42.1 Comparative Degree42.2 Forms of Comparative Degree62.2.1 Inflectional Form of Comparative Degree62.2.2 Periphrastic Form of Comparative Degree72.2.3 Irregular Form of Comparative Degree72.3 Meaning and Function of Comparative Degree92.3.1 Meaning of

12、Comparative Degree92.3.2 Function of Comparative Degree92.4 Previous Studies on Comparative Degree113 Methodology133.1 Corpus-based Approach133.2 Corpora Used in the Study133.2.1 CLEC133.2.2 ALEVELS143.3 Instruments for data collection143.3.1 BFSU Stanford POS Tagger143.3.2 AntConc154 Results and Di

13、scussion164.1 Overall Distributions of Comparative Degree in CLEC-ST2 and ALEVELS164.2 Inflectional and Periphrastic Forms of Comparative Degree in ALEVELS and CLEC-ST2174.2.1 Top 20 Inflectional Forms of Comparative Adjectives in ALEVELS and CLEC-ST2184.2.2 Periphrastic Forms of Comparative Degree

14、in the Two Corpora214.2.3 Choice between Inflectional and Periphrastic Forms of Comparative Degree234.3 Irregular Forms of Comparative Degree in ALEVELS and CLEC-ST2244.3.1 More in ALEVELS and CLEC-ST2254.3.2 Better in ALEVELS and CLEC-ST2264.3.3 Less in ALEVELS and CLEC-ST2274.4 Errors on Comparati

15、ve Degree in CLEC-ST2274.4.1 Classification of Errors on Comparative Degree284.4.2 Analysis of Errors on Comparative Degree285 Conclusion295.1 Major Findings295.2 Implications305.3 Limitations and Suggestions30References32vA Comparative Study on the Use of English Comparative Degree in Compositions

16、by Chinese and British High-School Students1 Introduction1.1 Research BackgroundComparison means the action to find differences between or among two or several things. It helps people better understand and feel the world. In linguistics, it is also an important category that are frequently used. Acc

17、ordingly, comparative degree is common and can be found in every language, therefore it exists in Chinese as well as English. English comparative degree is more complicated than Chinese comparative degree because it has to change morphologically, while comparative degree in Chinese only needs to add

18、 extra Chinese character “更” or “越”. Specifically, in English, there are three categories: positive, comparative and superlative degree. They vary in different linguistic phenomena. Therefore, Chinese students feel not easy when they use it and usually make some mistakes, especially in English writi

19、ngs. In addition, it is a noteworthy module in English teaching.To some degree, writing can determine ones language ability. When people write, they present their ideas by selecting words from their vocabulary reserve and organizing sentences according to grammar laws. Also, compared with listening,

20、 speaking and reading, writing is a relatively complex activity and it is challenging for both native and non-native speakers no matter in English studying or teaching. Therefore, many scholars notice the difficulty and focus their study on it. However, most of them concentrate on other expects such

21、 as vocabulary, grammar and syntax, whereas only a few of them are about the use of comparative degree by high-school students based on corpus. Therefore, this research can provide some suggestions or guidance for English learning and teaching.1.2 Research Objectives and SignificanceBy analyzing dat

22、a results presented in the corpora, this study aims to summarize the features on the employment of comparative degree by high-school students in China and Britain. In addition, from the two perspectives of language transfer of mother tongue and second language learning, this study also discusses pot

23、ential factors that cause the characteristics of the use of comparative degree in the two corpora. This research has significant meaning in English learning and teaching. Besides data analysis, it offers some useful advice on this aspect so as to improve English writings of domestic high-school stud

24、ents.1.3 Research Questions Chinese and English are created in different countries and developed in distinct culture by different nations. For this reason, they belong to different language system and have different grammar rules. Therefore, they are very different in the use of comparative degree.

25、In this study, key questions are listed here:1)What is the result of comparison among the use of inflectional, periphrastic and irregular forms of comparative degree by high-school students in China and those in Britain?2)What are the potential factors for the similarities or differences?3)Whether i

26、s there related mistake made by Chinese high-school students? If yes, what are they? What are possible reasons for the mistakes and how can teachers lead Chinese students to use it in the right way? 1.4 Organization There are five chapters in the thesis: Chapter one briefly tells the background, sig

27、nificance and objectives of the study. In the meantime, the key questions are listed and the organization of the thesis are offered.Chapter two reviews related literature, including theoretical background and previous studies in China and English countries. Chapter three presents the methodology cor

28、pus-based approach. It also covers the corpora (CLEC and ALEVELS) and the tools (AntConc and BFSU Stanford POS Tagger), which are used in the process of collecting data. Chapter four focuses the data results in the corpora and concludes similarities and differences existing in the employment of the

29、three comparative forms by high-school students in China and those in Britain. Chapter five summarizes the research results in a few words and presents some teaching implications. In addition, it provides some limitations of the current study and gives some suggestions for further research on compar

30、atives.2 Literature ReviewThis part introduces some fundamental knowledges about comparative degree for the following analysis and discussion in Chapter 4. Specifically, it explains how comparative degree is defined, what forms it has, how it works and what functions it has. Aiming to illustrate the

31、 necessity of this study, previous studies on comparatives are also presented. 2.1 Comparative DegreeAccording to Sinclair (1995), , the comparative degree grammatically refers to the form of an adjective or adverb clearly describing the degree of a property or quality owned by someone or something.

32、 Moreover, when it is used, there is usually a subordinating conjunction than behind it. For higher comparative degree, there is a three-term comparison system in English. It is composed of three forms and they are ABSOLUTE, COMPARATIVE, and SUPERLATIVE forms. Grammatically speaking, the absolute re

33、fers to the base form. (Quirk et al., 1985, p.458). In other English grammar references, absolute degree is also called as positive degree. Here are some examples of the three degrees of comparison:a) Positive degree: young, easy, quicklyb) Comparative degree: younger, easier, more quicklyc) Superla

34、tive degree: youngest, easiest, most quicklyFrom comparison system given above, positive degree (or absolute degree) is generally realized as the ground-form. Comparative degree is modified with -er or add more before the base. Superlative degree is similar in the transformation. However, they can b

35、e differentiated by different addition. To be specific, the form modified with -est or having most before the base is generally recognized as superlative degree. In the following sections, comparative adjectives formed by adding -er are introduced as inflectional forms of comparative degree, while t

36、hose with more before the positive form are introduced as periphrastic forms of comparative degree. Logically, the positive degree (or absolute degree) is not a kind of degree of comparison, because in most of time when we say a bottle or a tree, we rarely mention any other bottles and trees for com

37、parison. But for the reason that positive form is the fundamental form, the three degrees clearly form a simple graded scale. For example, young, younger and youngest make up a progression. (Jesperson, 1933, pp.35).The type with endings -er or -est accounts for large proportion of comparative and su

38、perlative degree. They are partly transformed from monosyllabic words, while part of them are from disyllabic words with a vocal sound ending. Some examples are shallow, lazy, busy. Besides, there is a few whose fundamental form has stress on the last syllable. However, some others add pre-posed mor

39、e and most rather than -er and -es. These words have a similarity is that they have more than two syllables with several consonants in the end. Here are some sentences taken out of the two corpora CLEC-ST2 and ALEVELS:(1) One day, Mathilde see Jeanne in the park, but Jeanne cant recognize her, becau

40、se Mathilde look older than Jeanne age now. (CLEC-ST2)(2) What is a healthy diet? The foods which contain some fat, some fiber, a little salt and so on is a healthy diet. Such as the Chinese diet that is considered to be the healthiest in the world. (CLEC-ST2)(3) The closest that can happen is for a

41、 programmer to invent an appropriately complicated set of instructions (an algorithm) that will deliver an approximation of a set of random numbers. Of course, once this is done, the computer can quickly calculate millions of (pseudo) random numbers far more quickly than a human. (ALEVELS)(4) The si

42、mple way to solve this problem would be to either build more roads or make the present ones larger. (ALEVELS)In (1) and (4), older and larger are comparative degree of old and large. They are transformed with the suffix -er, because both of the base forms are monosyllables. Similarly, in (2) and (3)

43、, healthiest and closest become the superlative degree of healthy and close by the addition of -est. But in (3), quickly has more than two syllables. Therefore, the transformation is finished by direct addition of pre-posed more. Besides, more and most can be used in other way. This can be illustrat

44、ed by the following sentences chosen from the two corpora CLEC-ST2 and ALEVELS:(5) Jim is more than serious about this matter. (CLEC-ST2)(6) He screamed at the girl more crazily than excitedly. (ALEVELS)Sentence (5) means that “Jim is so serious about this matter that the word serious is not enough

45、to exactly describe the great degree”. Sentence (6) means “If use a word to describe the degree of his scream at the girl, crazily is much more appropriate than excitedly”. In the two sentences, more is used in the two unusual ways rather than as a comparative degree in most of time.2.2 Forms of Com

46、parative Degree“Comparison in relation to a higher degree is expressed by the inflected forms in -er and -est or their periphrastic equivalents with more and most.” (Quirk et al., 1985, p.458). In addition, there are irregular forms of comparatives whose stems are different from the base. The number

47、 of them is small but some have high frequency. Based on it, comparative degree in this study will be analyzed in inflectional, periphrastic and irregular forms.2.2.1 Inflectional Form of Comparative DegreeIn general, monosyllables form their comparison by ending in -er or -est, like cold-colder-col

48、dest. However, the preposition like is an exception and it can only add more to form its comparative degree. Here is an example:(7) Alex is more like his father.In the above sentence (7), like can only be transformed to more like. Different from other monosyllables, it has no inflectional form, so l

49、iker is wrong. In contrast, many disyllabic adjectives can be used in both inflectional and periphrastic forms. For example: (8) This street is much narrower/ more narrow than the other. In the sentence (8), narrow can form comparative degree by adding more before absolute form or with the suffix -e

50、r. If an adjective is a disyllable like narrow which has an unstressed vowel ending, inflectional and periphrastic forms both can be adopted. Here are some instances:-er, -ure: clever, obscure, mature,-le: simple, feeble-ow: shallow, callow, mellow-y: pretty, happy, lazy, easy 2.2.2 Periphrastic For

51、m of Comparative DegreeAdjectives having over two syllables can only be transformed into periphrastic form. However, those with the prefix un- are exceptions that can only be inflected with the suffix -er. For example, unhappy and healthy are modified into unhappier and unhealthier. When participle

52、forms function as adjectives to describe someone or something, they use only periphrastic forms. Here are some examples: worn- more wornexciting- more excitingexhausted- more exhaustedPeriphrastic forms of comparatives are always created by means of the addition of more or less before the absolute f

53、orms. On the one hand, more and less can be respectively used as the comparative degree of many or much and little, for example, more +n and less +n. On the other hand, they can also be used as a requisite component in the periphrastic forms, for example, more +adj/adv and less +adj/adv.2.2.3 Irregu

54、lar Form of Comparative DegreeThere are comparative forms who have stems different from the base. They are called irregular forms of comparative degree. The commonest irregular forms that can be found are as follows: many/much-more, good/well-better, far-further(farther), old-elder, bad-worse, littl

55、e-less. Farther and further are usually adopted by users to express physical and abstract relations. But the two words are used in different context. Farther is used to express physical distance and further has more functions and can express more meanings than farther. Here are two examples in sente

56、nce (9) and sentence (10) from ALEVELS:(9) They are living further away from the country. (ALEVELS)(10) I think the law should be made clear now before this altering of nature is allowed to go any further. (ALEVELS)Moreover, further is commonly used to express the meaning of “more”, “later” and “add

57、itional”. In contrast, it is less frequently used as comparative forms of far. In most of time, old is transformed as older to express comparative meaning. However, when it is in attributive position, especially being used to describe the order of birth, the irregular form elder is the usual choice.

58、 Two examples from CLEC-ST2 are as follows:(11) The third day when I got here, my elder cousin showed me around his university. (CLEC-ST2)(12) After supper, the elder sister remembered her brothers trousers. (CLEC-ST2)Bad and ill have the same irregular comparative form worse. Here are two examples from the two corpora and two worse in sentence (13) and (14) both are the comparative form of bad. (13) I thought: “Because persons destroyed nature, so the world became worse and worse”. (CLEC-ST2)(14) The government stren