A Study On Constructions-based Multidimensional Definition Model In Domestic-oriented Chinese-english Learner’s Dictionaries

Domestic-oriented CEDs are important reference tools for Chinese EFL learners to produce in English. However, being influenced by the traditional view that the core task of bilingual dictionaries is to provide equivalents over a long period, current CEDs merely provide several synonymous equivalents and examples, without representing semantic discrimination, syntactic features and prototypical collocations, etc. This thesis adopts Construction Grammar as the framework, chooses verb equivalents as the research object, and systematically constructs Construction-based Multidimensional Definition Model(CMDM).The study adopts qualitative and quantitative methods in analyses. First, through sampling survey, this study reveals the deficiencies of the current CEDs in terms of representation of synonymous verbs. Next, by virtue of learner corpus, the study analyzes the errors of Chinese EFL learners’ errors in verbs and the characteristics of the interlanguage. And then, the study puts forward four guiding principles(Construction Principle, Multi-dimension Principle, Corpus-based Principle and Discrimination Principle) and CMCM for SVEs in CEDs. Lastly, this study chooses monotransitive verbs(MVs) and ditransitive verbs(DVs) as examples to show how to adopt CMDM to optimize the representation for synonymous verbs.The findings of the present study are: 1) The current CEDs are mainly passive one and those for learners are lacked. The definition aim of leading CEDs is to be exact and conceptually equivalent with the Chinese headwords. The definition method is to provide equivalents and examples, ignoring semantic discrimination and other usage information. Besides, the leading CEDs cannot represent prototypical features of the equivalents, such as prototypical participant roles, prototypical syntax, prototypical examples, etc. It seems that they mainly rely on introspection and Chinese instead of native-speakers’ corpora. 2) Collocations account for the largest percentage of the interlanguage errors of Chinese EFL learners, followed by construction structure and equivalent discrimination. The characteristics of Chinese EFL learners’ interlanguage errors include negative transfer and overuse of high-frequency words. 3) The proposed definition model, CMDM, systematically integrates syntax, semantics and pragmatics and so like into the representation for equivalents, which can effectively help Chinese EFL learners improve the ability of language production.