The Collostruction-based Definition Model Of Chinese Collective Classifiers “Bǎ 把” And “Shuāng双” In Language-specific Chinese-English Learner’s Dictionaries

Language-specific Chinese-English learner’s dictionaries are learner’s dictionaries compiled for English-speaking Chinese learners,whose definitions should take the noncorrespondences between Chinese and English into full consideration,besides following the learnability feature of the general learner’s dictionaries.Based on the Collostructional Analysis,the study,taking Chinese collective classifiers as the research object,selecting the corpus of modern Chinese,Chinese-English bilingual parallel corpus,and the corpus of global English as the data for linguistic analysis,analyzes the collostructional features of Chinese collective classifiers and the collostructional non-correspondences between Chinese and English collective classifiers,and constructs the collostruction-based definition model for defining collective classifiers in language-specific Chinese-English learner’s dictionaries.Firstly,it is found from the collostructional analysis of the collective classifiers “bǎ 把”and “shuāng 双” that “bǎ 把” mainly has two constructions: “numeral+bǎ 把+noun” and “yī一+bǎ 把+noun”,while “shuāng 双” mainly has the construction of “numeral+shuāng 双+noun”.“Numeral+bǎ 把 +noun” and “numeral+shuāng 双 +noun” have the meaning for measuring quantity,and collocate with the nouns denoting concrete things or people.The construction of “yī 一+bǎ 把+noun” is the rhetorical construction for describing feelings or states,in which the meaning of the classifier is deviated.And “yī 一+bǎ 把+noun” collocates with abstract nouns and abstracted concrete nouns.Secondly,the findings from ChineseEnglish bilingual parallel corpus show that “numeral+bǎ 把+noun” corresponds to English collective classifier constructions “a handful of+noun” or “a bundle of+noun” when collocating with different categories of nouns,and “yī 一+bǎ 把+noun” construction is a rhetorical construction and translated freely,and “numeral+shuāng 双+noun” corresponds to English collective classifier construction “a pair of+noun” when collocating with different categories of nouns in most cases.Further,the comparative study on the collostructional features between Chinese and English collective classifiers finds that there are only partial correspondences between them.Next,the studies of definition models in six Chinese-English learner’s dictionaries show that the trend of language-specificity has appeared in the lexicographical practices of Chinese-English learner’s dictionaries;most dictionaries pursue accurate definitions and English equivalents in terms of the definition principles;and wordtype and phrase-type are the main forms of definition languages in the core system,while the definition deixis “for” and annotations in brackets are used as the main forms in the peripheral system of definitions;and there are seven models for defining collective classifiers.Furthermore,seven definition models of collective classifiers and the microstructure definitions of the collective classifiers “bǎ 把” and “shuāng 双” are studied,and it is found that incomplete and unclear usage information about headwords is provided in existing Chinese-English learner’s dictionaries,and learnability and language-specificity need to be strengthened.On the basis of the preliminary findings,the three principles for language-specific definitions,including the principle of language-specific user orientation,the principle of seeking correspondences and the principle of highlighting non-correspondences,are proposed and expounded,and the collostruction-based definition structure is designed,based on which the collostruction-based definition model for collective classifiers is constructed,which is a usage-based definition model fully integrating and presenting the constructional information,collostructional features and high-frequency collocations of collective classifiers.And exemplar entries of the collective classifiers “bǎ 把” and “shuāng 双” are written by applying the proposed model.The study explores the definition model of the newly-born variant of Chinese-English learner’s dictionaries.Theoretically,it contributes to the theoretical construction and improvement of contemporary learner’s dictionaries;practically,it provides instructive suggestions for writing definitions of collective classifiers in language-specific Chinese-English learner’s dictionaries.