A Corpus-based Study On Ditransitive Construction In Chinese English Majors' English Writing

Ditransitive construction,namely,NP+V+NP1+NP2 in traditional grammar,has been a hot research issue by linguists of dif ferent schools.Especially,Goldberg's construction grammar theory has m ade a more systematic study on ditransitive constructions,which provides novel theoretical guidance for the understanding of this construction,thus it has significant influence in academic field.The d evelopment of corpus linguistics makes empirical studies on ditransitive constructions increasingly flourished.However,previously domestic relevant studies on this issue m ostly take non-English majors as the subject,and th ere are very few studies particularly concentrating on Chinese English majors.This study therefore takes Goldber g's construction grammar as its theoretical frame,and tries to probe into the following two questions on th e basis of CLEC and LOCNESS:(1)W hat are the features of the use of ditransitive constructions by Chinese English majors compared with English native speakers?(2)How does the use of ditransitive constructions by Chinese E nglish majors with different English proficiency differ? In order to answer above-mentioned questions,this study takes 85 common ditransitive verbs as its startingpo int and adopts Excel and Log-likelihood value calculator to inve stigate the use of ditransitive constructions in CLEC and LOCNESS from the three aspects : verb type,construction sense distribution and arguments.This study finds that:(1)In term s of construction sense distribution,Chinese English majors overuse the central sense “successful transfer”,but underuse the sense “intention of transfer” com pared with nati ve speakers.As for the use of agen t,Chinese English majors overuse animate agents,but native speakers are inclined to use inanimate ones.Co ncerning the use of re cipient argument,Chinese English majors rely on animate pronouns excessively,while native speakers show no distinct difference on the use of anim ate nouns a nd pronouns.W ith regard to the use of patient argument,Chinese English m ajors overuse object,communication and perception patients,but native speak ers use others ones much more.(2)As regards construction sense distribution,students with lower English proficiency use the central sense more frequently,extended ones much less a nd fewer verb types relative to those with higher English proficiency.As for the use of agent argument,the former uses animate agents frequently,but the latter use inanimate ones more often.In the choice of recipient argument,the former relies on animate recipients completely,and do not use inanimate ones at all,but the latt er gives due attention to using inanim ate recipients.In term s of patients,the former has higher using frequency in communication patients,while the latte r use others ones much more.On the whole,there exist significant dif ferences between Chinese En glish majors and nativ e speakers,and between students lower English proficiency and advanced English majors in the use of verb type,constr uction sense distribution and ar guments of ditransitive constructions.Based on its research findings,this study provides som e suggestions for the grammar teaching in foreign language teac hing,hoping it can be helpful to foreign language teaching.