Overt Expressions Of Epistemic Possibility Among Chinese English Learners And Native Speakers

The present study sets out to explore how English native speakers and Chinese English learners express epistemic possibility in English. It is a corpus-based study through quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data.Based on the previous studies and our corpus data, three categories of expressions are identified, namely, modal verbs, adverbs and formulaic sentence stems. The research objects of modal verbs and adverbs are decided on by frequency, and the research objects of formulaic sentence stems are determined with the aid of parallel corpus evidence. All the data are drawn from BNC, CLEC and SECCL. The quantitative analysis is conducted by comparing the frequencies of the expressions among native speakers? and Chinese learners? use. In the qualitative study, the model of Extended Unit of Meaning is introduced as the analytical framework, in which the significant collocates and salient patterns of the nodes in BNC and CLEC are observed and their pragmatic functions are discussed.Throughout the quantitative and qualitative analysis, we have arrived at the following findings. Firstly, expressions of epistemic possibility are much more common in spoken English than in written English for both native speakers and Chinese learners. Secondly, modal verbs are of the highest frequency in written texts, whereas adverbs occur most frequently in oral English. This feature is shared by native speakers as well as Chinese learners. Thirdly, overall speaking, Chinese learners tend to use the expressions of epistemic possibility much less frequently than native speakers. Fourthly, Chinese learners are likely to overuse modal verbs and underuse formulaic sentence stems. Fifthly, many discrepancies do exist between native speakers and Chinese learners in the patterning features of the expressions. Many patterns in native speakers? expressions realize pragmatic functions, while the epistemic possibility expressions of Chinese learners are confined to semantic functions, which reflects Chinese learners? incompetence in pragmatic skills. These findings are expected to shed light on second language learning and teaching.