A Corpus-Based Study On The Features Of Ditransitive Construction In Chinese EFL Learners' English Writing

Ditransitive construction, that is NP+V+NP1+NP2 (VN1N2) in English traditional grammar, has been studied by many linguists with different theoretical backgrounds. However, most of the researches are devoted to the theoretical aspect without studying learners'use of this construction. The present research, taking in previous theoretical findings, investigates the features of the use of ditransitive construction by Chinese EFL learners in English writing.The current study is conducted mainly within the framework of Goldberg's construction grammar. According to Goldberg, the traditional grammatical structure NP+V+NP1+NP2 is the conceptualization of daily events of transferring things and conveys the meaning that agent (NP) acts to cause recipient (NP1) to receive patient (NP2). As far as the ditransitive construction is concerned, Goldberg mainly focuses on the construction sense, the verbs that can enter this construction, and the semantic constraints of arguments in this construction.Based on Goldberg's construction grammar approach, the present study mainly analyses the features of ditansitive construction in Chinese EFL learners'English writing from the perspectives of verb frequency, arguments (agent, recipient, and patient) use and the preference between ditransitive construction and dative construction. There are three research questions to be addressed in this study: (1) What are the general features of the use of ditransitive construction by Chinese EFL learners? (2) What is the relationship between learners'English proficiency and their acquisition or use of this construction? (3) Which construction do Chinese EFL learners prefer when they express the"giving"meaning in English writing, ditransitive construction or dative construction?In order to answer these questions, we first choose fifteen representative and frequently-used ditransitive verbs from three groups (explicit-giving, inexplicit giving and potential-giving). Then we search for all the clauses containing the fifteen verbs in CLEC (subcorpora ST2, ST3 and ST4) and BROWN, and wipe out the structures that are not the ditransitive construction or dative construction. After that, the frequency of ditransitive verbs, ditransitive construction and arguments are calculated by the concordancer AntConc and the program Excel.As revealed by data analyses, there are some similarities in the use of ditransitive construction between Chinese EFL learners and native speakers in English writing, but Chinese EFL learners have not reached the native-like level of using this construction and their expressions tend to have some features of interlanguage. In term of different English proficiency levels, intermediate and upper-intermediate learners tend to have a better master of this construction than lower-intermediate learners. With regard to the preference between ditransitive construction and dative construction, Chinese EFL learners use more ditransitive constructions in expressing the meaning of"explicit-giving"and"inexplicit-giving", but more dative constructions in expressing the"potential-giving"meaning. At last, pedagogical implications, limitations of the present research and the suggestions for future researches are discussed.The present research is just a tentative study on the use ditransitive construction by Chinese EFL learners and it is hoped that its findings will be of some significance in the teaching and learning of ditransitive construction.