A Probe into Learners'Colligational Use of High-frequency Verbs

This study attempts to examine the colligational use of the high-frequency verbs DO, HAVE and BE in Chinese EFL learners'written production in the CIA (Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis) approach. Findings of the study indicate that: Chinese learners use a much smaller variety of colligational patterns, they tend to underuse the inflected forms of these verbs in their colligations and they tend to use pronouns as the subject of these verbs. Though at advanced level, they still have difficulty with grammar in terms of tense, aspect and voice. The influence of L1 transfer, the learners'spoken style in writing, the classroom teaching and the learners'use of the avoidance strategy are thought to be the major reasons. The findings in this study may have some light to shed on the EFL teaching and research in China.

A Corpus-based Study on Collocation and Colligation of "Soil" in Agricultural English

This paper was based on the corpus built by the writers on agricultural science and technology English. Through corpusbased research and statistical tools Ant Conc 3.2.1 and BFSU Collocator 1.0（Beijing Foreign Studies University Collocator 1.0）, this paper tried to make an analysis of the collocation and colligation of the word ＂soil＂. The result revealed the colligation between ＂soil＂ and its collocates in agricultural academic papers, which was instructive to academic writing and the research method was a practical reference of building a corpus on agricultural science and technology English.

A Comparative Study of the Colligation of the Japanese Degree Adverb“非常に”and“大変”

The abstract collocation of words reflects a grammatical level of relationship that can be summarised as class association,a term introduced by Firth(1957[1968],p.181)as one of the key concepts in the study of corpus.A colligation is a collocation class that shows the different collocations between words.The classification of degree adverbs in Japanese can be divided into“evaluative degree adverbs(評価系程度副詞)”and“non-evaluative degree adverbs(非評価系程度副詞)”according to Watanabe’s(1990)theory.This paper takes“非常に”and“大変”,both of which are non-evaluative degree adverbs,as the objects of the study,using a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches,to analyse“非常に”and“大変”,which belong to the same category of degree adverbs,from a co-occurrence perspective by using relevant statistical tools and the definition of colligation.

A Corpus-based Analysis of Adjective/Noun Collocationwith Big and Large as Examples

Adopting the corpus-based approach, this paper analyzes the adjective/noun collocation with two English words big and large as examples by comparing data from Chinese Learner English Corpus (CLEC) and those from native speaker corpora British National Corpus (BNC). It is observed that collocates chosen by Chinese students differ greatly from those chosen by native speakers, on the basis of which this paper compares and illustrates the differences of these words and aims to highlight the important role of the corpus-based collocational research in English vocabulary teaching.

The use of ＂really＂ in Chinese tertiary-level EFL learners＇ speech： A corpus-based study

The present research reports a comparative study on the use of ＂really＂ by Chinese EFL learners. Taking the perspectives colligation and collocation, the study mainly yields the following findings： （1） Compared with American native speakers, Chinese EFL learners have different preferences for colligations and collocations of ＂really＂; （2） High achievers and low achievers demonstrate a similar pattern of the ranking order of the colligations, but high achievers are closer to the native speakers in the use of ＂really＂ in terms of collocation; low achievers rely more heavily on ＂very＂ to collocate with adjectives than high achievers.

Literature and the Teaching of Stylistics： An Investigation Into the Pragmatics of Community Formation in the Educational Context of Namibia

The author＇s paper is an attempt to investigate the success of the pedagogy of stylistics and pedagogical stylistics in the Namibian context. As an applied linguistics course, stylistics is eminently suitable for study and analysis of literature, because it clearly explicates literary effects through linguistic analysis. Many scholars have illustrated the use of stylistics analysis for the purposes of studying literature and teaching it, which is, pedagogical stylistics. However, this paper combines both the study of Stylistics as a discipline, which is the pedagogy of Stylistics, and the use of stylistics for teaching literature in general and poetry in particular. Namibia adopted English as its official language 22 years ago. Since then, both teachers and students have been struggling with the analysis of poetry. This study is an empirical one using qualitative methods in the author＇s research to determine the impact of the study of Stylistics on the understanding and teaching of literature in Namibia. The author uses traditional British poetry from the 16th century up to the 20th century alongside postcolonial poetry to assess the importance of culture in understanding poetry and examine the advantage of using stylistics to teach the poems that the author selects.

A Corpus-based Analysis of English Near-synonymous Adverbs:Absolutely,Utterly

The analysis of near-synonyms has always been a difficult point in English learning.There have been some relevant studies on the analysis of near-synonyms at home and abroad,but the examples are still insufficient.Based on the Corpus of Contemporary American English(COCA),this paper takes“absolutely”and“utterly”as an example,and makes a comparative analysis from the five aspects of register,collocation,collocation,semantic preference and semantic prosody,aiming to make full use of the corpus in the analysis of English near-synonyms,providing a useful supplement for second language teaching and English learning.The results show that“absolutely”is more common in spoken language while utterly is more formal;regarding the collocation,both words are more associated with adjectives and verbs;in terms of colligation patterns,“absolutely”have six kinds of grammatical patterns while there are only four grammatical patterns of“utterly”;as for semantic preference,the semantic preference of“utterly”has a wider range than that of“absolutely”;for semantic prosody,“absolutely”have more neutral semantic prosody whereas“utterly”have stronger negative semantic prosody.This case study not only provides enlightenment for English learning and teaching,but also further enriches the corpus linguistics-related research.

A Corpus-Based Comparative Study of Synonym Usage: Take accomplish, fulfill and Achieve as Examples

As the foundation of a language,vocabulary is an important object of learning and application.In the process of learningEnglish,vocabulary is a great challenge for learners.There are a large number of synonyms in English,and it has been a difficulttask to distinguish and use them.Based on COCA,the study adopts the method of empirical research to analyze the synonyms of"accomplish""fulfill"and"achieve",mainly from three aspects:word frequency distribution,collocation and colligation.The re-sults show that although synonyms in English are similar in semantics,they are different in word frequency distribution,collocationand colligation.

A Corpus-based Study on Differentiation of English Synonyms:“Conquer”“Overcome”and“Surmount”

Synonym differentiation has always been a difficulty in English learning. Traditionally, definitions and examples from dictionaries are taken to illustrate shades of differences between synonyms, which fails to provide a comprehensive description of these differences for students to differ synonyms. However, with the large volume, authentic materials, fast and convenient retrieval provided by corpus, the corpus-based synonym differentiation method can make a comprehensive description of synonyms in terms of their distinctive features in frequency distribution, collocation, colligation and semantic prosody. A corpus-based method will be employed to analyze the differences among the three English synonyms"conquer""overcome"and"surmount"based on the data collected from COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English), so as to throw new light on synonym differentiation, offering a new way to study synonyms, and to provide references for lexical teaching and second language acquisition.

A Corpus-based Study on English Synonyms"Situation"and"Condition"

English synonym discrimination has always been a heavy difficulty in vocabulary teaching and learning at most Chinese middle schools. With the rise of corpus linguistics, a corpus-oriented study can be used for the learning of synonyms because cor-pus contains a majority of natural, authentic language materials. This article attempts to analyze the different distribution of a pair of English synonyms"situation"and"condition"from different registers based on British National Corpus(BNC). And then the fur-ther comparison between two synonyms is made from the perspective of colligation, semantic prosody. Finally, it concludes that cor-pus is of great help to English vocabulary teaching, therefore teachers are supposed to introduce corpus retrieval appropriately to help students acquire the word knowledge.

On Index System and Quantitative Assessment of Eco-cities:A Case Study on Urban Agglomeration of the Yangtze Delta

Urban agglomeration of the Yangtze Delta （UAYD）, one of the most developed regions of China, has witnessed an increasing prevalence in building ecological cities when the ecological cities are pursued by many modem cities, and great achievements have been made in this regard. It is inevitable, however, that certain problems exist during the construction of ecological city, which include but not limited to non-harmonious development of urban complex ecosystem, and the difficulty in quantifying eco-city construction or incomplete quantification in assessing the construction of present and future eco-city. Based on the analysis on social-economic conditions and regional conditions of the UAYD, this paper attempts to set up an index system of eco-cities combining with local characteristics, and to adopt the indices of eco-city, urban harmony, and eco-city colligate to evaluate the ecological level, urban harmonious development and eco-city construction of cities within the UAYD. Results indicate that among 15 cities in UAYD, Suzhou City ranks the highest in terms of eco-city construction, whereas Nantong ranks relatively lower; sustainable eco-city construction is possible only when cities are developed in every respect of harmony.

Influence of Modifiers on Supercritical Fluid Chromatography (SFC) and Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE), Part I

It is important to understand the mechanism and implications of different modifiers on analytical and preparative processes under chromatography with supercritical fluids (SFs) and under extraction with SFs. Supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) and supercritical fluid extraction are generally carried out with neat supercritical carbon dioxide (SCCO2) or with SCCO2 containing modifiers (or cosolvents), especially for strongly polar compounds. For example, methanol is added as a cosolvent/modifier to SCCO2 for the extraction/separation of polar compounds. This paper discusses the influence of the modifier on the colligative properties of the principal mobile phase, which may define the situation in the total mobile phase in a chromatography column or in parts of a column under SFC. No colligative behavior of solutions reflects individual properties of the solutes. Their cross-interactions with solvents are discussed.

A CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF "ALMOST" AND "NEARLY" IN CHINESE EFL LEARNERS' WRITING

This paper makes a detailed study on the Chinese learners' use of almost and nearly by comparing the evidence from CLEC, WECCL and LOB. The findings show there are some differences in the learners' and the native speakers' use of the two commonly-used synonyms. Specifically, the Chinese learners (1) display an underuse of both almost and nearly in the overall frequency point of view; (2) tend to overuse, underuse and misuse some colligations; (3) use some inappropriate and atypical collocates; (4) get confused in some colligational and collocational patterns of almost and nearly. The discussions about the above differences reveal the learners' mother tongue interference and their confusion of the two synonyms may play important roles in these non-native uses. Some tentative suggestions are provided to English teaching and learning in China.

HOW CORPUS-BASED APPROACH CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THE STUDY OF SEEMINGLY SYNONYMOUS WORDS

In the English language, there are many words which are considered synonymous in that dictionaries and thesauruses often define them in identical meanings. Under such circumstances, EFL learners are confronted with a big difficulty in acquiring these words of similar meanings. They often regard synonymous words as equivalents and use them alternately, which sometimes result in ambiguity or awkwardness of their language. However, with the advent of corpora and concordancing programs, a new way of investigating and learning English synonymous words has emerged. This paper explores colligational patterns, collocational behavior and semantic prosody of two seemingly synonymous verbs, gain and obtain, in two native speaker corpora, the Brown Corpus and the LOB Corpus, in order to show how these 'equivalencies' can be misleading because 'synonymous' words are typically used in different ways. The study also examines EFL learners' behavior in using synonymous words by investigating the Chinese Learner English Corpus (CLEC). From the results of the study, it can be seen that Chinese EFL learners have not yet acquired a full understanding of the usage of gain and obtain with respect to colligation, collocation and semantic prosody. Their underuses and overuses of some grammatical forms and lexical patterns of the two target synonymous words might be influenced either by their mother tongue or by the registers of their English writing or by both. The paper finally discusses the implications of corpus-based study in vocabulary teaching and learning in general.