"Light""Weight":a Research On The Asymmetry And Error Analysis Of Foreign Students

There have been fruitful researches on asymmetry of antonym in vocabulary in teaching of Chinese as a foreign language. However, researches on the common antonym of "light" and "heavy", which has formed the underground of present study. With the guiding principles of cognitive theory and marked theory, this thesis conducts research on asymmetry of "light" and "heavy" in text and interlanguage from the lexical semantics perspective. With description and analysis on errors made by foreign students, this thesis hopes to add some values to the rules of asymmetry of antonym, as well as vocabulary in Chinese as a foreign language teaching.The thesis is divided into the following parts:Chapter One is the introduction, covering the current researches on asymmetry of antonym, previous researches on "light" and "heavy", as well as the research background, data collection and methodology.Chapter Two is concerned with the asymmetry of "light" and "heavy" in modern Chinese texts, mainly from the contrast of dictionary meaning, the number, the ways, and frequency of word formation. It has also expounded the asymmetry in vocabulary, which results from cognition, psychology and pragmatics.Chapter Three is about the asymmetry of "light" and "heavy" in interlanguage. With the explanation and contrast analysis on numbers, ways and frequency on word formation, this part concludes the asymmetry exists not only in interlanague but also in modern Chinese.Chapter Four is the Error Analysis on the usage of "light" and "heavy" by foreign students.Thecorpusisfromthe HSK dynamic Composition Corpus from Beijing Language and Culture University and the main methodology is typical analysis. The research has shown the common errors made by foreign students and the reason behind it. Meanwhile, this thesis has put forwards some suggestions. When "light" and "heavy" are used alone as individual words, the errors are on improper collocation, confusion of same morpheme words and semantic narrowing. While used as morphemes, representative words should be analyzed one by one.Chapter Five is the concluding part. Apart from a general review of researches on "light" and "heavy", the author has put forward two findings. Firstly, some of the meanings are widely used by foreign students while some others has rarely or never been used. Secondly, there is inefficient numbers of "light" and "heavy" in either the old or new edition of vocabulary program and foreign students may acquire new words through other ways. Thirdly, by contrasting meanings in interlanguage and in syllabus with those in modern Chinese, the author finds that common meanings in interlangauge used by foreign students mainly come from syllabus.