On Strategies For The Use Of English Non-finite Verbs

The use of English non-finite verbs is one of important contents in the teaching of Englishwriting. However, in recent years it has not been paid due attention to. One of the importantreasons is that EFL teachers have misunderstood its importance by thinking that this task shouldbe finished in the English grammar class or has already been completed in the grammar class. Infact, the guiding role of the grammar class or grammar books for non-finite verbs is usuallydirected to usage, but not use. There is quite a gap between static usage and dynamic use ofEnglish non-finite verbs.The thesis is composed of five parts. The first part illustrates the purpose and the necessityof this study. The researches on non-finite verbs abroad and at home mainly focus on thedescription of their specific usage and syntactic functions. There are few studies on the strategiesfor using non-finite verbs. Studying the strategies for using non-finite verbs through erroranalysis is of great significance.The second part is about the theories of Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis and thecurrent research on non-finite verbs that provides theoretical basis for this study. Also included inthis part is a list of the error types and corresponding causes.The third part is the data analysis of the test result of non-finite English verbs, the form ofthe test being Chinese-English translation exercises by the testees. The most serious problemsfound are as follows: Firstly, in the Chinese-English translations by the testees, the frequency ofusing non-finite verbs is quite low. They are used to using simple sentence structures that arecoordinated to express complicated meanings, with a strong tendency to avoid non-finite verbs.Secondly, though the testees utilize non-finite verbs in their Chinese-English translation,generally they cannot use them in a satisfactory way. This shows that there are difficulties forthem to master the use of non-finite verbs. But on the other hand the result also indicates that thetestees do much better in multiple choice questions about the use of non-finite verbs, whichsuggests that they have certain cognitive ability in this regard but lack the necessary ability touse non-finite verbs. Through the analysis of the test result and questionnaire, it can beconcluded that interlingual errors and intralingual errors are the main error types in the testees’use of non-finite verbs, of which the latter is in the majority.The fourth part, based on the contrastive study of English and Chinese, explores Chineselearners’ major difficulties in the use of non-finite verbs and the corresponding solutions. One ofthe most typical difficulties lies in the fact that two or more verbs in Chinese, even thoughsemantically of different importance, can be coordinated without the loss of idiomaticity of Chinese. By contrast, in English, finite verbs and non-finite verbs are used to distinguish suchdifference in meaning. Besides, this part also discusses, from the perspective of concept, therelationship between English non-finite verbs and prepositions, adjectives and adverbs. Conceptbelongs to the category of thinking. In a certain sense, the conveyance of a certain concept in alanguage is not restricted to a fixed part of speech. For example, the concept [SUPPORT] thatcarries a verbal meaning can be expressed by the following lexical forms “support (vt.)”, or“supportive (adj.)”, or “support (n.)”, each with a different part of speech and restricted bydifferent syntactic rules. More importantly,“supportive (adj.)” and “support (n.)” can exercisesome important functions of non-finite verbs when they are use in a sentence, especially whenthey are combined with a proper preposition. Though this part is not to discuss the use ofnon-finite verbs directly, it might be instructive because it serves as a guide for students to usethe alternative forms of non-finite verbs properly so as to improve the precision in expression. Itconstitutes an important innovation of this thesis.The fifth part is the conclusion, including the major findings, implications for Englishlearning and teaching, and limitations of the study.