GET+adjective Phrase/passives In Chinese EFL Learners' Written English:A Corpus-Based Analysis

GET + AP and GET + passives have long been under scrutiny in linguistics.Both are of ambiguity,not just with regard to the form but also at the semantic level.There could hardly be a clear-cut line in defining the post-get-ed form either as an adjectival or a verb in its past-participle form.And each of the two has its features in terms of cross-register distribution and semantic prosody.The current study extracts Chinese EFL Learners' written data from Ten-thousand English Compositions of Chinese Learners(TECCL)and native-English data from Crown and CLOB,before comparing Chinese EFL Learners' using GET + AP and GET + passives with what's done by native English speakers.The systematic analysis responds to two questions:a.Do written corpus data confirm spoken-language features in the using of GET +AP/passives structures by Chinese EFL learners?b.What differences of pragmatics knowledge about the two patterns might be uncovered between Chinese EFL learners and native English speakers?Results of the analysis show that Chinese EFL learners and native English speakers indeed display differences in their use of the two structures.To be more specific,the differences are concerning register and semantic prosody.In contrast to native English speakers,Chinese EFL learners over-use GET + AP,while under-using GET + passives in their writings.And Chinese EFL learners are more inclined to use GET + AP to display positive semantic prosody and GET + passives to display mixed semantic prosody;however,native English speakers tend to use the two structures with negative prosody.Potential causes leading to the register-concerned differences might include:Chinese EFL learners fail to capture register-related features embedded in GET + AP;learners lack adequate knowledge on GET + passives and have difficulties in properly producing the structures in written output,therefore purposefully avoiding using the GET + passives structure.The different choices in semantic prosody might imply that:(i)semantic prosody is highly abstract and could hardly be acquired in a short period;(ii)in acquiring the two structures,the learners might have referred to previously acquired synonymous lexical items,collocation patterns or pragmatic knowledge transferred from the Chinese language,where knowledge on such items might be automatically extended to the newly acquired ones.These findings have some implications for the English teaching and learning in Chinese context.