A Study On The Representation Model Of Motion Verbs In English-Chinese Learner’s Dictionaries Based On Construction Grammar

Following Levin’s(1993) classification of verbs in detail, motion verbs, have aroused growing interest of scholars in recent years. However, corpora data shows that English learners in China have difficulties and made errors in using such verbs. But English-Chinese bilingual dictionaries seem inefficient to help learners tackle the problems. The present study aims to propose a tentative representation model of motion verbs by applying Construction Grammar Theory after detecting the problems of current main ECLDs concerning motion verb representation.Construction Grammar Theory(CGT) is considered helpful in explaining motion verbs which show complicated semantic and syntactic behaviors. It holds the idea that constructions(form-meaning correspondence) themselves carry meaning, independent of the words in the construction, and are capable of having arguments.In the present study, seven categories of motion verbs classified by Levin are chosen as the research objects. The thesis first probes into the corresponding semantic and syntactic features of motion verbs, which plays an essential role in arranging dictionary representation of such verbs. Then errors made by Chinese English learners are studied mainly with the help of corpora, a grammaticality test and an interview. Research results show that Chinese EFL learners indeed have difficulties in acquiring motion verbs. On basis of this, the representation in current leading ECLDs like OALD, LDOCE, COBUILD is examined to find out the deficiencies and ineffectiveness concerning the treatment of motion verbs. By taking learners’ needs into account and adopting CGT, a tentative representation model of English motion verbs in ECLDs is proposed to better meet the Chinese EFL learners’ needs.Major research findings can be summarized as below: 1) mistakes that Chinese EFL learners make are concentrated on the verb transitivity, tense, voice, collocation and semantic confusion. 2) Representation deficiencies detected of current leading ECLDs include biases in dealing with syntactic features of motion verbs, inadequate provision of collocates and distinguishable semantic properties. 3) a tentative representation model is proposed on the basis of construction theory under the guidance of five general representation principles.