A Multi-dimensional Analysis On Verb Valency Patterns Used By Chinese EFL Learners

Centering on lexical item,a pattern-related view of valency is successful in combining different levels for language description.It offers insights into the interface of lexis and grammar,which is a vital subject in language research.In recent years,there is an increasing number of researches of valency based on corpora.However,previous studies mainly focused on one or more languages,paying little attention to learners‘ English.Moreover,few studies focused on verbal synonyms.This thesis explores the valency patterns in Chinese EFL learner English,using a case study of three synonyms PROVIDE,OFFER and SUPPLY,compared with those in native English and their Chinese counterpart tigong.The methodology fuses corpus linguistics and valency grammar,analyzing and comparing valency patterns in BNC,TECCL and CCL under the dimension of distribution of valency pattern and realization of different meaning.Drawing on the multivariate statistical technique,Correspondence Analysis in R software,the correlation between these semantic properties of complements and those verbs is visualized and interpreted.Research questions include:(1)What are the characteristics of the valency patterns of the three verbal synonyms in BNC? To what extent can these patterns distinguish synonyms?(2)What are the similarities and dissimilarities of the valency patterns used by Chinese EFL learners and native speakers?(3)What are the characteristics of the valency patterns of tigong in Chinese? To what extent do these patterns differ from their counterparts in English and learner English?Findings can be summarized from three aspects in line with three research questions.(1)Although the three synonyms PROVIDE,OFFER and SUPPLY are considered as synonyms,valency patterns can provide substantial evidence to distinguish among them.The three verbs vary both in types and frequencies of valency patterns.Their distinctive patterns could realize different meanings and each verb has different semantic restrictions on its complements.(2)The contrastive analysis between Chinese EFL learners and English native speakers indicates there exist significant differences,which not only lie in the types and frequency of valency patterns,but also in meaning and collocational properties of complements.Native speakers employ a wider variety of valency patterns.Learners show less possibility for the realization of different meaning.Besides,similarities and dissimilarities are illustrated with regard to the semantic features of object complements in two corpora.What‘s more,some errors were found both in the pattern and the complements used by learners.(3)All the verbs in the three corpora discussed are basically identified to co-occur with divalent and trivalent patterns,but the proportion varies.English native speakers show a preference for divalent pattern,whereas learners and Chinese native speakers present an opposite distribution.As for the semantic restriction on object complements,tigong in Chinese shares basically same profile with OFFER.It is for this reason that learners share basically same usage with English native speakers,which reflects the vital role played by L1 as implicit knowledge for L2.Based on the aforementioned findings,it is suggested that valency pattern should be applied to language teaching.By learning accurate valency patterns and collocational properties,learners can comprehensively and accurately grasp the lexicon and the distinctive features.