Towards Optimizing The Configuration Of Usage Tips For Confusing Adjectives In English-chinese Learner’s Dictionaries

An adjective, as an important part of ten parts of speech in English, plays asignificant role in Chinese EFL learners’ vocabulary acquisition. However, the presentstudy finds that Chinese EFL learners exhibit various sorts of errors in the process ofusing adjectives. Moreover, it reveals that the existing three popular ELDs and theprominent domestic dictionary do not satisfy the needs of Chinese EFL learners.This thesis is based on two kinds of corpora, i.e. learner corpora CLEC, SWECCLand native English corpus BNC. According to the characteristics of adjectives and thecontrastive analysis of the errors, it is found that most of the errors made by ChineseEFL learners result from the negative transfer of the mother tongue and the targetlanguage.On the basis of the error types and the characteristics of adjectives, the presentstudy makes a comparative analysis of the existing three popular ELDs and a prominentdomestic dictionary. Some defects are summarized as follows: a) the characteristics ofthe adjectives’ confusing aspects are not fully reflected; b) deficiency manifests inwarning notes and collocational information which cannot meet Chinese EFL learners’specific needs; c) usage tips of confusing adjectives provided in theses dictionaries lacksystematicity.By combing the actual needs of Chinese EFL learners with the characteristics ofconfusing adjectives, the present study proposes a multidimensional model forconfiguring confusing adjectives’ usage tips in ECLDs on the basis of meaning-drivenmultidimensional definition theory (MMDT). Moreover, the feasible suggestions andexamples are provided to optimize the usage tips of confusing adjectives and to meetthe specific needs of Chinese EFL learners.