Patterns And Meanings Of Intensifiers In Chinese Learner Corpora

The present research investigates the patterns and meanings of intensifiers in Chinese learner English by way of comparison with native English, with an aim to obtain a relatively complete picture of how Chinese learners use intensifiers to realize their attitudinal meanings. Learners’ idiosyncratic features in using intensifiers are examined and the underlying factors accountable for these features are discussed. The method of contrastive inter-language analysis(CIA) is adopted and the intensifier collocations in learner English and native English are explored by means of quantitative and qualitative analyses of corpora data.The study is conducted within the theoretical framework of the Firthian contextual theory of meaning, the Sinclairian model of Extended Units of Meaning(EUM) and Hunston’s pattern grammar. The overall data distribution of intensifiers is obtained. The node words are scrutinized in terms of collocation, colligation, semantic preference and semantic prosody within the model of EUM. The main research findings are as follows:(1) Native data in the present research show that different levels of co-selections are at work. Learner data demonstrate deviations from the co-selections in various ways.Sufficient authentic data demonstrate that lexis and patterns, patterns and registers, lexis and the pragmatic meanings are co-selected. The co-selections at different levels lend strong support to Sinclair’s idiom principle that words do not occur at random in a text. Native language users have a large number of preconstructed chunks at their command. These co-selection features echo with the Firthian contextual theory that meaning of any lexical item is always context-dependent.In contrast, Chinese learners have a weak awareness of co-selections. A great number of instances in the present research demonstrate their deviation from the native speaker co-selections. Learners’ inadequate mastery of prefabricated chunks causes them to piece isolated words together based on the grammatical rules in communication, which results in nonnative-like English production.(2) The data distribution of intensifiers in the learner corpus exhibits distinctively different features from those in the native corpus.The overuse of intensifiers in terms of tokens and the underuse of intensifiers in terms of types are obvious in Chinese learners’ English as compared with native English data, which indicates learners’ idiosyncratic features in realizing attitudinal meanings and their limited language proficiency.The tokens of INT-adj collocations, intensifiers, and the adjective collocates of intensifiers in the learner English all display no positive relationship with learners’ English proficiency. On the other hand, all the types of the investigated entities(INT-adj collocations, intensifiers, double intensifiers and the adjective collocates of intensifiers) increase steadily with the improvement of learners’ English proficiency. This trend is especially typical of intensifiers. Thus it is suggested that the type number of intensifiers can be a good indicator of learners’ English proficiency level.Moreover, learners lack variations in expression and they have limited collocational skills in using intensifiers. As a result, they tend to focus on using high-frequency intensifiers and prefer using amplifiers to downtoners to a higher degree than native speakers.Different from the findings of previous studies(e.g. Lorenz 1999), the overuse of intensifiers in learner English cannot be attributed to the overuse of adjectives because learners use fewer adjectives than native speakers in general according to the present research data. In addition, the most frequently and exclusively used INT-adj collocations, intensifiers and intensified adjective collocates in learner English are congruent with features in their mother tongue Chinese, which is an indication of L1 transfer in L2 acquisition.(3) Patterning features of intensifiers in learner English display considerable differences from those in native English.Overall pattern distribution shows a lack of pattern variations in learner English with reference to native English. The higher the learners’ English proficiency, the more likely they are to have similar pattern distributions to native speakers.Learners over-rely on familiar patterns and avoid unfamiliar patterns. They overuse several familiar patterns which usually have varied alternatives in native English. Also, some patterns with specific attitudes and meanings in native English are absent in learner English. It also shows that learners’ linguistic output tends to be formally inaccurate and pragmatically infelicitous, which is likely to cause barriers and even misunderstandings in communication.Apart from this, many problematic patterns exist in learner English. Learners create patterns which are peculiar to learners and never used by native speakers. The coined patterns are grammatically incorrect in some cases and collocationally unacceptable in others. The grammatically unacceptable expressions are mostly results of L1 influence. The grammatically correct but collocationally unacceptable expressions disclose learners’ inadequate semantic and pragmatic knowledge.(4) Learners exhibit special traits in using intensifiers in terms of semantic preference and semantic prosody.Chinese learners are weak in pragmatic skills in that they use synonymous intensifiers interchangeably showing no awareness of their different semantic preferences and semantic prosodies. However, they can use diminishers properly both in terms of semantic preference and semantic prosody, which can be mainly attributed to positive sociopragmatic transfer. Another feature is that Chinese learners of English employ narrower semantic fields of adjective collocates of intensifiers than native English speakers, which is an additional manifestation of learners’ weak pragmatic skills.As with the patterning features of learner English in general, Chinese learners display a sound knowledge of familiar intensifiers and weak skills in unfamiliar intensifiers in terms of their semantic features. Therefore, it is suggested that intensifiers, as a key device to express attitudinal meanings, deserve the same amount of attention in pedagogy as other major word classes including nouns, verbs and adjectives in English learning and teaching.The present research traces the above-mentioned learner idiosyncrasies in using intensifiers to the several underlying factors: L1 interference is the main factor accounting for the overuse, underuse and misuse of certain intensifiers; textbook and dictionary contents are important factors to shape learners’ behaviour in using intensifiers; learners’ inadequate collocational, register and pragmatic knowledge is the main root of the non-nativeness in communication.This research has useful theoretical, methodological and pedagogical implications despite some limitations. Theoretically, the research findings about the co-selections of lexis and patterns, patterns and registers, pragmatic meanings and lexis can contribute to a further understanding of the EUM model. The study of the patterning features and meaning realizations can offer new insights for studies of learner English. Methodologically, the CIA method adopted in this research has combined data retrieved from the POS-tagged corpora and raw corpora, thus enriching methods for similar studies. Pedagogically, the results obtained from the investigation are expected to provide effective feedback for language teaching and learning.