A Corpus-based Study On Modality Of Modal Verbs In English Majors' Compositions

This paper is based on the self-built corpus of the 598 compositions by freshmen English majors in Northeastern University.The mix method of quantitative and qualitative methods are combined together to give a more reliable result.There are nine modal verbs taken as research objects in this research.Although the form of modal verbs is simple,the semantics and the pragmatics are complex.The nine core modal verbs are divided into three groups according to their semantic meanings and are analyzed respectively.In each of the three groups,the modal verbs belonging to the same group are undertaken paralleled contrasts.The theoretical basis of this research is the prototype theory,in which the most important category of modality is referred.The deontic modality is regarded as the prototype of modality category.This gives a better explanation of the overuse of the deontic expression pattern of the modal verbs.This thesis intends to answer the following two research questions:1.What are the differences among the modal verbs from the same semantic group?2.What are the relationships between the modality expressed by the modal verbs and the modal sequence of the modal verbs?The first result is that modal verbs such as can,should,will,must are overused and the rest of the modal verbs are comparatively underused.The second result is that sentence patterns that express deontic modality are more overused than that of epistemic modality.Then the research gives some tentative reasons for the overuse or underuse phenomena.The first reason is the negative transfer of learners' mother language.The second reason is students' personal preference to the early-acquired modal verbs.The third reason is the imperfection of Chinese education system.The fourth reason is the cultural elements.The fifth reason is the original writing pattern.The last reason is the transfer of the spoken language style.At the end of the research,some implications and suggestions are given for future teaching and learning.Teachers need to train the students to use the sentence patterns of epistemic modality rather than the deotic modality to reduce the sense of offensiveness.They should also encourage the students to use the other forms instead of modal verbs to express modality.