A Corpus-based Study On The Modal Verbs In Chinese English Learners' Written Language In College

Modality is a significant component which is used to show speaker' s attitudes and views towards the current proposition.According to the view of linguistic researchers,modality has great importance to language communication.The study of the modality has been a focus of language research.The use of modal verbs,as one of the most important ways to convey modality,has got more and more attention.The major method of this thesis falls in corpus.Through the application of AntConc,Colligtor and SPSS,analyzing the use of modal verbs in WECCL and LOCNESS which are produced by Chinese English learners and native speakers respectively.The research questions are :(1)Are there any differences between Chinese English learners and English native speakers in terms of frequency of use of modal verbs?(2)How do Chinese English learners differ from the native speakers in the use of modal verbs in terms of semantic distribution ?(3)How do Chinese English learners differ from the native speakers in the use of modal verbs in terms of colligation and syntactic patterns? The research results are:(1)Among the nine central modals,will,can,may,should and must are generally overused by Chinese learners,whereas would,could,and might are likely to be underused.(2)Chinese learners' semantic use of must,can and could are significantly different from native speakers.Chinese English learners use must mainly to convey the meaning of “obligation”,whereas native speakers tend to use must to express the meaning of “obligation” and “necessity”.Chinese English learners prefer using can to express the meaning of “ability”,whereas native speakers tend to use can to express the meaning of “possibility”.The usage of could also has this tendency.Chinese English learners prefer using could to express the meaning of “ability”,whereas native speakers tend to use could to express the meaning of “possibility”.(3)The modal sequences used by Chinese English learners differ greatly from those used by nativespeakers.Chinese English learners' typical syntactic pattern of must/can is “animate subject+must/can+ none tense verb”,whereas native speakers' typical pattern is “inanimate subject+must/can+ passive verb form ”or “ inanimate subject+must/can+ verb+ subordinate sentence”.The present study sheds light on the characteristics of modal verbs used in Chinese English learners' writing.It can make learners to find their character of using modal verbs and learn modal verbs more closer to native speakers.It is hoped that the findings of this study will shed some light on the part of teachers in the future teaching and on the part of students in acquisition of modals.