A Corpus-based Study On Verb Features In IMO Model Courses

Verb which expresses what the subject does and describes the state of the subject,is the core of sentence,and provides central meaning to it.Learning how to operate verb forms flexibly is essential in language study.Therefore,verb should be taken as one of the primary research focuses in language studies.International Maritime Organization(IMO)has developed series of Model Courses aiming to help each contracting country fulfill STCW Convention and ensure rapid promotion of new navigational techniques,skills and ideas.At present,a lack of attention to the language of IMO Model Courses affects the developing quality and users’ understanding of Model Courses to some extent.With Bloom taxonomy of learning objectives and Quirk’s introduction to non-finite usage of verb as the theoretical framework,this thesis investigates distribution,classification and usage of verbs in IMO Model Courses as represented in the self-established corpus MCC in a corpus-based approach.The research results show that verbs in IMO Model Courses have significant features in the following three aspects.First,in terms of verb distribution,most of top 150 verbs of high-frequency are lexical verbs.The top five verbs of high-frequency are be,have,use,require and explain.What is more,the frequency of be is significantly higher than that of other verbs.Second,in the aspect of verb classification,high-frequency verbs are classified into six domains,namely,Knowledge,Comprehension,Application,Analysis,Synthesis and Evaluation,where they stand for different learning objectives.Third,as to usage of verbs,high-frequent collocates of the five verbs of high-frequency are used to introduce terminologies,details and importance of knowledge points,course objectives and functions.In addition,non-finite usage of verbs including present participles and past participles accounts for the largest proportion in all verb forms.Over half of past participles are used in passive voice to show objectiveness of technical documents.At the same time,over half of present participles act as adjectives to describe characteristics related to teaching and navigational techniques,which cannot be realized by common adjectives.This thesis draws people’s attention to the language of IMO Model Courses and provides reference for development,update and application of IMO Model Courses.