The Expression Of Values In The Chinese Learner Written English

The present study aims to explore the divergence between the expression of cultural values in the Chinese learner written English and that in the British student English, by investigating the collocational behavior of the first person pronouns from the corpus-based perspective. This survey starts with the frequencies of the first person pronouns in both a Chinese learner corpus and an English native corpus, and analyzes the data by a combination of quantitative approach of corpus linguistics and the qualitative approach of cultural values orientation.Several steps are taken in this study. First, the two first person pronouns we and I and some concerned information are extracted through WordSmith 4.0 in the Chinese learner and British student corpora. The frequency data of collocations and concordance lines of we and I are closely observed. Then the data from the two corpora are compared to find the difference on the collocational behavior. Finally, the divergences on cultural values which possibly cause the different use of first person pronouns are analyzed.This thesis mainly illustrates the divergence between the Chinese learners and British students on the expression of cultural values as follows:(1) Chinese students use more instances of we than British students, most of which in these two student corpora point to we-inclusive. It makes the addressee and the addresser more closely. This feature shows Chinese belief -ingroup, which is opposite to the individualism in the western culture.(2) The different semantic preference of we between the Chinese learner corpus and British student corpus reflects the disparity in power distance. In the Chinese culture, power, social position, age etc, seem to be overemphasized, while in the British culture, they seem not to be so important.(3) The frequency of I am is higher in Chinese learner corpus than in the British student corpus, indicating the different styles of human life. Chinese culture is a "being culture" while the west culture is "doing culture". The former requires people to behave in the ways which are considered suitable to their social norms and the latter emphasizes the intention to do.(4) In the Chinese learner corpus, the first person pronoun I tends to accompany with past tense, while in the British student corpus, it is frequently used with present tense. Chinese is a typical past-time orientation society in which history is of great significance and profoundly influences the present and future. On the contrary, Britain is a present-time orientation society in which people believe the present takes an enormous importance.