A Corpus-based Study On The Possible Affective Factors Of Be Misuse From The Perspectives Of Overuse And Zero Use Committed By Chinese Non-English Major EFL Learners

Verb be has the particular features of wide varieties, various grammaticalfunction and variable transformation forms, which have posed a great trouble ofacquisition and application to English learners. Most relevant researches investigatethe only factor which possibly affects the zero use of be to some extent with methodsof examination. However, they pay less attention to the other deviant use ofbe---overuse. Therefore, based on the results of the previous studies, the presentstudy will concentrate on the discussion to the four possible factors---grammaticalfunction, subject types, finiteness and semantic distinction of predicates, whichperhaps influence the occurrence of be overuse and zero use, in order to reveal theinternal rules and reasons. Finally, the present study will provide implications tocollege English teaching and English learners’ second language acquisition.The exact data of the present study is from two sub-corpuses (ST3, ST4) ofChinese learner English Corpus (CLEC). Through the statistic calculation methodsof Chi-square, Z-test and Loglinear test, the present research examines the specificdistribution of be overuse and zero use in order to reveal the correlation between theparticular factor and the two typical misuses of be. The two major research questionsare introduced as follows: Firstly, which possible factors significantly affect theoccurrence of be overuse and zero use by Chinese non-English major EFL learners.Secondly, what individual effects and interactive impacts of four possible factorsexert on the occurrence of be overuse and zero use.After seriously analyzing, four inter-language rules will be illustrated as follows:Firstly, Chinese non-English major EFL learners are inclined to over use be withstage-level of predicates property. Secondly, the learners more easily over use andzero use nonfinite be than finite be. Thirdly, the learners have the tendency to overuse auxiliary be. Finally, English learners usually over use be which is led by thesubject of pronoun. Furthermore, the present study discovers that the primary causesfor be overuse and zero use are absence of linguistic meaning and TemporaryAnchoring Requirement. In addition, the cognitive generalities like set structure,inertial thinking and L1transfer are also affect phenomenon of overuse of zero use.To sum up, the results of present study will provide implications to Englishteaching and the theory of verb be acquisition research to some extent.