摘要
This paper reports a study into the use of amplifiers and amplifier collocations in the doctoral dissertations of Chinese EFL learners. A sample corpus of doctoral dissertations by Chinese doctoral students and a control corpus of doctoral dissertations by native speaker doctoral students were compiled and used for the analyses. Results showed that the overall number of amplifiers used by the Chinese students and the native speaker students were comparable. However, the Chinese learners overused totally, very and really and underused entirely and highly in their writing. Moreover, the Chinese learners tended to use more amplifier collocations than their native speaker counterparts. In particular, they tended to use clearly much more frequently to intensify the reporting verbs and to use the amplifiers to intensify the meaning of general adjectives in their writing. It was also found that many amplifier collocations used by the Chinese learners were congruent collocations. The findings may indicate a non-native style within Chinese learners＇ writing. We argue that Chinese learners overuse amplifiers and amplifier collocations in order to focus the reader＇s attention as well as to enhance the meaning of general adjectives. Meanwhile, the Chinese learners＇ mother tongue exerts a clear influence on their use of amplifiers and amplifier collocations. Pedagogical implications are also discussed within the paper.
本文报告一项中国英语学习者博士论文中强势词使用情况的研究。研究者自建了中国学生博士论文语料库和英语本族学生博士论文语料库来进行本项研究。结果显示,中国学生和本族语学生使用强势词的总频数相当。然而,中国学生超用了totally,very和really,少用了entirely和highly。同时,中国学生使用的强势词搭配多于本族语学生,他们倾向于使用clearly来强化转述动词,并倾向于使用强势词来强化普通形容词的词义。另外,中国学生使用的强势词搭配多为与汉语意义一致的搭配。这些都显示了中国学生学术写作中的非本族语特征。我们认为,中国学生超用强势词及其搭配,其主要目的是引起读者的关注及增强一般形容词的意义。同时,中国学生的母语对他们使用强势词及其搭配产生了影响。本文还讨论了本研究的教学有意义。
