A Pragmatic Analysis Of Chinese Students' Use Of Modal Verbs In Spoken English

The study of modality has been a focus of language research. The use of modal auxiliaries, as one of the most important means to convey modality (Palmer, 1990; 2001), has got more and more attention. This paper mainly focuses on displaying the pragmatic characteristics of the ten modal verbs (can, may, must, will, shall, should, could, ought, would and might) in the two corpora (the spoken English corpus of English native speakers and the spoken English corpus of Chinese students) from perspectives of speech acts and politeness principle, aiming at finding out the main problems of Chinese students in using modals. In order to get more comprehensive and authentic results, a test concerning the pragmatic functions of the modal verbs is conducted. Then based on the results of the test, a structured interview is processed for exploring the reasons of the problems. Finally, some suggestions are provided for improving the teaching and learning effect of English modal verbs in the college.Based on the comparative study, it has been found out that Chinese students are more likely to use should and must to express the meaning of"root obligation"while ought is rarely used, which leads to dull and dry use of words. Then shall has been used inappropriately to express"root obligation"in the speech. Moreover, in expressing possibility, Chinese students rarely use the epistemic and hypothetical meanings of modal verbs. Modal verbs can and will are overused, while could, might, would have been ignored by Chinese students. Then in expressing commissives, Chinese students do not entirely understand the usage of will and would in expressing"root volition". They are more likely to use will to express future tense. Would is also rarely used. In addition, for the expressives, it has been observed that modal verbs indeed can express different kinds of feelings in particular structures and contexts. However, Chinese students just use the structure of"how can…?"to express a kind of other kinds of feelings. As for the politeness usage of modal verbs, comparative study shows that Chinese students frequently use must to give commands. They are more likely to use can to express request, while more tentative and polite modal verbs could and would have been ignored by them. Furthermore, it has been observed that the hypothetical usage of might, should and would is also one of the politeness expressions in particular contexts. However, this expression is rarely used by Chinese students.Through the investigation of the students, it is shown from the results that the main reasons for the problems may lie in the complex semantic meanings of the modals themselves and the negative transfer from Chinese language which is mainly restricted to semantic, pragmatic and cultural aspects. In addition, the investigation also shows that there exist problems in the learning and teaching method of acquiring modals, which may be the fundamental reasons for the problems. The method of acquiring English modals in China deviates from Krashen's The Natural Approach (1983) to some extent. First of all, the sequence of teaching modal verbs is not appropriate. Then, the language input and output are not enough for the students to acquire English modal verbs naturally. For solving the problems, it is expected that English teachers and learners can pay more attention on the pragmatic functions and cultural values which are included in the modal verbs. Then, the contrastive study of modal system of Chinese and English is necessary for English learners and teachers to weaken the effect of negative transfer. In addition, teachers are expected to adopt a more appropriate method for the acquisition of English modal verbs and enhance the language input and output, aiming at fostering better language learning environment and achieving better language learning effect.