A Corpus-Based Study On The Amplifiers In Chinese EFL Learners' Writings

This paper adopts a Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis(henceforth CIA) approach and makes a comparative study on the use of amplifiers in CLEC and FLOB,including frequency,syntactic roles and distribution of syntactic positions of each selected amplifier. In order to carry out this study,authentic data collected from Chinese learners are compared with data collected from the native speakers by using the computerized and tagged corpora and corpus software tools.Statistical software SPSS12.0 is adopted to test the significance of the difference and increase the reliability and validity of the research.First,it is found that Chinese learners overuse the whole category of amplifiers in their argumentative writings.However,the further study shows that they underuse the maximizers and overuse the boosters,of which the overuse of multi-function words is more apparent.Second,amplifiers can realize such two syntactic roles in the clause as adverbials or as modifiers.As far as these roles are concerned,the research findings show that Chinese learners prefer to use them as adverbials comparing with native speakers. Third,the study shows that Chinese learners prefer to use adverbial amplifiers in E(end) position,while native speakers show a preference for M(medial) position.Finally,some causal reasons are provided to explain Chinese learners' deviations,such as avoidance strategy,language transfer of their mother tongue,transfer of training,colloquial style in their writings and end-focus principle etc.At the end of the paper,the writer highlights the functions and importance of frequency in EFL(English as a Foreign Language) teaching and learning.Teachers should apply corpus-based research to the enrichment of their teaching content and students should utilize the corpora and concordance software tools to elevate and costomerize their EFL learning abilities.