A Study Of Than-patterns In High School Students’ English Writings

According to the seventh edition of the Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary,the word than can be used as a conjunction or a preposition,that is,it is regarded as being both the preposition and conjunction from the aspect of grammar.It can be seen that when combined with other words,than is easy to form complex and variable meanings for its unique features.Based on the extended meaning of unit proposed by Sinclair(1996),the word than is able to co-occur with various collocates of different semantic features(semantic preference)to express particular attitudinal meanings(semantic prosody).For this reason,the author decides to explore the features of than-pattern in compositions written by Chinese senior high school students,with native English speakers as a reference,so as to develop strategies for English teaching and learning accordingly.To be specific,this study mainly includes the following three questions:(i)Compared with English native speakers,what are the distribution features of than-patterns in Chinese Senior high school students’ writings?(ii)Compared with English native speakers,what are the features of than-patterns in Chinese Senior high school students’ writings based on semantic preference and semantic prosody?(iii)What are the reasons for the above distinctive features of than-patterns in Chinese Senior high school students’ writings?This research is mainly based on the corpus research method.The sub-corpus ST2 of CLEC is selected as the observation corpus and the native corpus LOCNESS is used as the reference corpus for comparative analysis.At the same time,the author observes and analyzes the characteristics of sentences obtaining than,which appear in junior and senior high school textbooks in Jiangsu province,as well as entrance examination papers for high school and college in Jiangsu province ranging from year 2009 to 2018.The author adopts both quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze and discuss the data.Major findings are demonstrated as follows:(i)Compared with English native speakers,Chinese senior high school students have distinctive distribution features in the usage of than-patterns.Both English native speakers and Chinese senior high school students use explicit and implicit comparatives with respect to than-patterns.However,they share the different frequency.The main differences are as follows:(1)Chinese high school students are prone to use more explicit comparatives like more than+NP pattern.(2)Chinese high school students are more likely to use less implicit comparatives like rather than+NP,seldom use other than+NP pattern.In terms of explicit comparatives,Chinese high school students use less more+NP+than pattern.(ii)Compared with English native speakers,Chinese senior high school students seldom use patterns like other than+NP and rather than+NP.On the one hand,Chinese high school students tend to overuse patterns like VP+more than+NP(time),VP+ more than+money&frequency,VP+more than+before,care more for+NP and more+ADJ+than+NP.On the other hand,with respect to semantic preference and semantic preference,Chinese learners also differ much from native speakers in the usage of patterns like more than+number+NP+VP,more than+NP and more+NP+than.Specifically,Chinese learners are prone to use patterns like more than+number+NP+VP and more than+NP with neutral semantic preference to make a simple comparison without any attitudinal meanings.By contrast,native speakers tend to use the pattern more than+number+NP+VP with negative semantic preference to show regret and concerns for bad situations.Moreover,native speakers prefer to use the pattern more than+NP with negative semantic preference to show disapproval.As for the pattern more+NP+than,Chinese learners use it more with neutral semantic preference to express approval while native speakers adopt it more with positive semantic preference to show approval or disapproval.What’s more,the author finds that Chinese learners have difficulty in mastering the following unique patterns used by native speakers.The pattern nothing more than+NP is used more with negative semantic preference to show strong disapproval or contempt.The pattern if not more than+NP often co-occurs with neutral semantic preference to show euphemistic approval.The pattern more than likely+VP is used more with negative semantic preference to show concerns and disapproval for possible bad situations.The pattern more concerned/interested with/in+NP+than is used more with positive semantic preference to show disapproval for selfish act.The pattern be different than+NP is used more with negative semantic preference to show approval for positive changes.The pattern no+ADJ(er)+than+NP is used with positive or negative semantic preference to show strong disapproval.(iii)Compared with English native speakers,much more importance is attached to patterns like more than+any/enough+NP and more than+a/an+NP.Meanwhile,the pattern other than+NP is clearly overlooked.Furthermore,Chinese learners have distinctive usage in patterns like rather than+NP,more than+number+NP+VP and more than+NP when compared with native speakers.To be more specific,the pattern more than any/enough+NP is used more to show emphasis and positive attitude.The pattern more than a/an+NP is used for simple description.In exam papers and textbooks,patterns like rather than+NP,more than+number+NP+VP and more than+NP are used more with neutral semantic preference to make a simple comparison or description without further evaluation.On the contrary,native speakers tend to use the pattern more than+number+NP+VP with negative semantic preference to show regret and concerns for negative things.The semantic prosody of the pattern rather than+NP is dependent on the semantic preference of collocate.When co-occurring with negative semantic preference,it is intended to show approval.If co-occurring with positive semantic preference,it is aimed at showing disapproval.The pattern more than+NP is used more with negative semantic preference to show disapproval.In summary,it is found that the correspondence of linguistic forms is not necessarily the equivalence of semantic meanings and functions.It is difficult for learners to grasp the specific semantic preference and semantic prosody of target language.The results of this study have certain significance for reference in terms of the analysis and research of other structures in English such as as/so,which can further optimize the content of English teaching.