确定性与可能性:中国学生口笔语中两类副词人际元话语使用研究

Certainty and Possibility: A Comparative Study of Two Groups of Adverbial Interpersonal Metadiscourse in Chinese College Students' Spoken and Written English

本研究基于中国学习者英语口笔语语料库(SWECCL)和英语本族语语料库(包括LOCNESS,TIME和COCA),对中国英语学习者表示可能性和表示确定性副词性人际元话语的使用进行了调查和对比分析。研究发现:(1)与英语本族语者相比,中国英语学习者两类元话语的使用都体现出口语化倾向。可能性副词人际元话语使用面窄,个别口语词超用,而确定性副词人际元话语存在书面语中超用,口语中则少用的现象。(2)在两类副词人际元话语使用的相对比率上,与本族语者相比,中国英语学习者在书面语中表现了更多的确定性立场倾向,而在口语中表现了更多的可能性立场倾向。文章接着进一步分析了这些现象的成因和对英语教学的启示。

With a corpus-based contrastive analysis, the present study explores Chinese Students' use of adverbial interpersonal metadiscourse indicating certainty and possibility in SWECCL, with reference to native speakers' use of these metadiscourse in LOCNESS, TIME and COCA. The statistical data indicate that Chinese learners' written English tend to be similar to their spoken English in the use of these metadiscourse. Almost all adverbial interpersonal metadiscourses indicating possibility are underused by Chinese learners with the exception of one overused example: maybe. Adverbial interpersonal metadiscourses indicating certainty are overused in Chinese learners' written English but underused in their spoken English. A comparison of the possibility-certainty ratio of Chinese corpora with that in natives' corpora suggests Chinese learners show too much certainty in written English, and too much possibility in spoken English. This paper also suggests possible reasons for the above findings and points out their pedagogical implications.