中国英语学习者评价语言局部语法特征分析

An Investigation of Chinese EFL Learners’Characteristics in Local Grammar of Evaluation

局部语法为探索不同人群评价语言的意义特征提供了一种新的视角。已有研究集中于对不同母语背景的学者评价意义表达异同的分析,疏于对其他人群,尤其是英语学习者评价局部语法特征的讨论。文章基于中国英语学习者语料库、英国大学生书面语语料库及西方学者期刊论文语料库,以“目标+链接+评价+限定”及“链接+评价+目标”两个评价意义序列(即评价局部语法型式)为出发点,观察其在三个语料库中的短语实现与频数分布,揭示中国英语学习者评价语言的特征性意义规律及局限。结果显示,与更高水平的英语作者相比,中国学生所掌握的评价短语资源有明显局限。研究同时揭示,中国学生评价短语内部意义匮乏,其观察问题的视角趋于狭窄,评价观点趋于简单、集中。

Local grammar has provided a new perspective for exploring the distinctive semantic features of the evaluative language by different language users.Previous studies are dedicated to the contrastive investigation of ways of expressing evaluation by scholars from different language backgrounds.Regrettably,they have not discussed the distinctive local grammar features of other language user groups,especially L2 learners.This paper,based on a corpus of Chinese students’English essays,a corpus of British college students’academic writings and a corpus of western scholars’published articles,compares the use of evaluative language across different language users and reveals Chinese EFL students’characteristics and limitations in evaluative language by observing the phraseological realizations of two meaning sequences of evaluation(i.e.local grammar patterns of evaluation)-“Target+Hinge+Evaluation+Specifier”and“Hinge+Evaluation+Target”and their frequency distributions across the three corpora.The results indicate that compared with the language users of higher English proficiencies,Chinese students have a more limited command of the phraseologies of evaluation.Moreover,they tend to give less complicated evaluative opinions from narrower perspectives,showing a lack of concrete meanings in their phraseologies.