Corpus-based Study On Hendiadic "Nice And" And "Good And"

Hendiadys, as an important figure of speech, plays a crucial role in modern English. It is of great importance not only from the theoretical level but also from the practical level. However, researches on this topic are in a relatively small number. This paper can be seen as an addition to the study of hendiadys.The present study is based on the British National Corpus. The subject of the study is hendiadic structures of "nice and" and "good and". By employing the corpus-based approach and statistical analysis, the thesis tries to investigate into the semantic and syntactic features of the two patterns and further apply them to translation practices.Major findings of this study are as follows. Semantically, both patterns are frequently collocated to adjectives with positive meaning and there are certain kinds of adjectives frequently following them. In addition, there is a major difference between the two structures:"nice and’focuses on the state described by the following adjective while "good and’focuses on the process towards the following adjective. Syntactically, there is a significant difference between the roles of the two patterns. The pattern "nice and’is more frequently used as predicative, while the pattern "good and" can be used as both predicative and attributive with attributive occurring more often.With respect to translation of the two patterns, a better way is to combine the features of the two patterns with the rules and usage of hendiadys.Despite the limitations, the findings of this study provide valuable reference for language research; meanwhile, they benefit both teachers and students.