| Denominal verbalization is one feature of language variation, and it attracts the linguists and language researchers both at home and abroad. It refers to the phenomena that the word is originally a noun, used as a verb in the expressions, without any change in its form. Denominal verbalization is a very frequent phenomenon in languages which leads to new functions and meanings and of the words, makes the sentences more lively and vividly, and helps people easily to understand and acquire language. However, through many researches, there are obviously different applications of English Denominal verbs existing between the ENL speakers and Chinese EFL Learners. This thesis employs a corpus-based approach to find out the different uses of Denominal verbs between the ENL speakers and Chinese EFL Learners and two corpora are used:Brown corpus and CLEC. Clark & Clark's (1979) classification of Denominal verbs is also used. They classified Denominal verbs into 6 categories which are Locatum verbs, Location and Duration verbs, Agent and Experiencer verbs, Goal and Source verbs, Instrument verbs and Miscellaneous verbs. The author applies WordSmith 4.0 to find out the uses of these 6 categories of Denominal verbs respectively in Brown corpus and CLEC. Then a comparative study of the different uses is made and statistical software SPSS10.0 is adopted to test the significance of the difference and increase the reliaility of the study. It is found that the Chinese EFL Learners prefer to use less Denominal verbs than ENL speakers. The author tries to explore some potential reasons behind this difference, such as Language competence, Encyclopedic view of cognitive linguistics and Conceptual metaphor. At the end of the paper, the author emphasizes the functions and importance of Denominal verbs in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teaching and learning. Teachers should make use of the Denominal verbs to strengthen Chinese learners'learning abilities and assist the EFL teaching. |
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