Vocabulary is a fundamental element of a language. It undertakes the task of conveying semantic meanings. And it guarantees the implement of language communication. Thus, accumulation of a certain amount of vocabulary...Vocabulary is a fundamental element of a language. It undertakes the task of conveying semantic meanings. And it guarantees the implement of language communication. Thus, accumulation of a certain amount of vocabulary and the master of proper use of them is the essential condition of skillful employment of a language. The current lexical teaching in College English is far from satisfaction. Based on the findings of psycholinguistic research, this paper intends to explore an effective way to help the students enlarge their vocabulary and use them correctly with the help of various psychological associations with English vocabulary through analysis of some lexical mistakes committed in students＇ daily writing exercises.展开更多
This paper discusses the lexical approach in college English teaching and learning. The lexical approach can help students learn to use English in an idiomatic way rather than in a Chinese way which may cause misunder...This paper discusses the lexical approach in college English teaching and learning. The lexical approach can help students learn to use English in an idiomatic way rather than in a Chinese way which may cause misunderstanding or confusion of native English speakers. As for the college English Teaching in China, the lexical approach works better than the traditional word-based teaching and learning. It can help students to learn ＂real＂ or ＂authentic＂ English and improve the students＇ ability to use English in all-around way.展开更多
In this research, the author considers the evidence provided by a corpus of Late Modem English grammars for our understanding of the development of the modals as politeness markers. It is possible to see how the modal...In this research, the author considers the evidence provided by a corpus of Late Modem English grammars for our understanding of the development of the modals as politeness markers. It is possible to see how the modals and their accompanied senses are explained in an official （and often either prescriptive or proscriptive） perspective. This is another aspect which cannot be ascertained from the usage based on corpora which seem to be popular as sources of evidence in historical pragmatics. In this sense, this research brings some novel perspective to this aspect of academic study. It is possible to notice that the significations involves concept or senses which extend across a semantic--pragmatic domain which includes politeness. We can see that certain softening senses are key elements to mark polite usage. The main data used come from the descriptions of the modal auxiliary verb in a corpus of grammar books from the period. Usage and manner books are also consulted as a secondary resource. The manner book in particular is quite helpful for our understanding of how linguistic politeness was regarded at the time. Such texts also help us to find a certain network of senses which are related to polite expressions.展开更多
A hybrid approach to English Part-of-Speech(PoS) tagging with its target application being English-Chinese machine translation in business domain is presented,demonstrating how a present tagger can be adapted to learn...A hybrid approach to English Part-of-Speech(PoS) tagging with its target application being English-Chinese machine translation in business domain is presented,demonstrating how a present tagger can be adapted to learn from a small amount of data and handle unknown words for the purpose of machine translation.A small size of 998 k English annotated corpus in business domain is built semi-automatically based on a new tagset;the maximum entropy model is adopted,and rule-based approach is used in post-processing.The tagger is further applied in Noun Phrase(NP) chunking.Experiments show that our tagger achieves an accuracy of 98.14%,which is a quite satisfactory result.In the application to NP chunking,the tagger gives rise to 2.21% increase in F-score,compared with the results using Stanford tagger.展开更多
In the ESP （English for Specific Purposes） tradition of genre-based approaches to academic literacy, one of the most noteworthy language features lies in lexical phrases. The lexical phrases investigated in the curr...In the ESP （English for Specific Purposes） tradition of genre-based approaches to academic literacy, one of the most noteworthy language features lies in lexical phrases. The lexical phrases investigated in the current study consist of both general lexical phrases （i.e., lexical bundles/clusters/formulaic sequences in vocabulary and linguistic studies） and move- specific lexical phrases （i.e., lexical phrases specific to the move/steps） as both are necessary for students to master in the construction of academic texts. Studies on either type have, however, tended to neglect the importance of the other and few studies have looked at students＇ acquisition of these phrases within the genre-based framework. This study reports on the process of acquisition of lexical phrases in two cases with distinct starting levels over a period of one semester in an EAP genre-based academic writing classroom. The study was part of a larger project conducted in a tertiary level institution in southern China for instructing disciplinary-specific academic writing. From the analysis of rewritings, genre analysis assignments, in conjunction with a weekly interview and learning journals, it was found that both students＇ awareness of lexical phrases was raised noticeably and a favorable number of phrases were used throughout the instructional period. Different patterns in the use of both general and move-specific lexical phrases were also found in their rewriting tasks, in terms of source of acquisition, perceived usefulness, number and appropriateness of use. This study is expected to offer pedagogical insights into the teaching and learning of academic lexical phrases for tertiary contexts.展开更多
Integrating letters and sounds are essential for successful reading in alphabetic languages. It remains unclear if native speakers of non-alphabetic languages integrate letters and sounds in reading an alphabetic lan-...Integrating letters and sounds are essential for successful reading in alphabetic languages. It remains unclear if native speakers of non-alphabetic languages integrate letters and sounds in reading an alphabetic lan- guage in the same way as native alphabetic readers do. Chinese is a morpho-syllabic system （each character cor- responds to one syllable） and contrasts sharply with alphabetic languages such as English. Several fMRI studies have shown that native Chinese speakers apply their native language system to read English words. By using the cross- modal mismatch negativity （MMN） paradigm, we directly investigated letter-sound integration for reading in English among native Chinese speakers. To investigate the effect of native language background on letter-sound integration in second language reading, a group of native Korean English learners served as a comparison group. We compared MMN responses between an auditory only condition （only vowels presented） and two audiovisual conditions （AV0, vowel presented synchronously with the corresponding letter; AV200, the letter presented 200 ms before the corresponding vowel） for both native Chinese and native Korean speakers. Native Chinese speakers demonstrated significantly attenuated MMN amplitudes in audiovisual conditions compared with the auditory only condition, regardless of their phonological decoding speed. In con- trast, native Korean speakers showed amplified amplitude MMN in AV200 compared with that in the auditory only condition. The results suggest that native language may shape the brain responses of second language learners to reading a second language in the early stages. Native non- alphabetic language speakers may be unable to use visual information to facilitate their phonological processing in the early stage while naT：lye alphabetic language speakers are capable of integrating letter sounds automatically.展开更多
This study seeks to explore a more practical way to acquire fluency in English. Against the normal concept of 'accuracy' and 'fluency', it offers a new insight into fluency to assist English learners t...This study seeks to explore a more practical way to acquire fluency in English. Against the normal concept of 'accuracy' and 'fluency', it offers a new insight into fluency to assist English learners to operate in the English language the same way as in their mother-tongue languages. The author suggests teaching lexical phrases whilst expecting the active use of language to reach what Brumfit calls 'natural language use' and provides a new remedy for the so-called 'deaf-mute' English learning situation in China.展开更多
Some Chinese learners of English, even though with a good command of English grammar and a large vocabulary, still make mistakes in writing sentences with respect to lexical combination and semantic well-formedness.Th...Some Chinese learners of English, even though with a good command of English grammar and a large vocabulary, still make mistakes in writing sentences with respect to lexical combination and semantic well-formedness.This paper aims to prove that there exist collocation differences across languages and discusses their effect upon English vocabulary teaching. It introduces the types of collocation and explores the factors that trigger cross-linguistic differences in collocation. We suggest that great attention to collocation be given in English vocabulary teaching.展开更多
文摘Vocabulary is a fundamental element of a language. It undertakes the task of conveying semantic meanings. And it guarantees the implement of language communication. Thus, accumulation of a certain amount of vocabulary and the master of proper use of them is the essential condition of skillful employment of a language. The current lexical teaching in College English is far from satisfaction. Based on the findings of psycholinguistic research, this paper intends to explore an effective way to help the students enlarge their vocabulary and use them correctly with the help of various psychological associations with English vocabulary through analysis of some lexical mistakes committed in students＇ daily writing exercises.
文摘This paper discusses the lexical approach in college English teaching and learning. The lexical approach can help students learn to use English in an idiomatic way rather than in a Chinese way which may cause misunderstanding or confusion of native English speakers. As for the college English Teaching in China, the lexical approach works better than the traditional word-based teaching and learning. It can help students to learn ＂real＂ or ＂authentic＂ English and improve the students＇ ability to use English in all-around way.
文摘In this research, the author considers the evidence provided by a corpus of Late Modem English grammars for our understanding of the development of the modals as politeness markers. It is possible to see how the modals and their accompanied senses are explained in an official （and often either prescriptive or proscriptive） perspective. This is another aspect which cannot be ascertained from the usage based on corpora which seem to be popular as sources of evidence in historical pragmatics. In this sense, this research brings some novel perspective to this aspect of academic study. It is possible to notice that the significations involves concept or senses which extend across a semantic--pragmatic domain which includes politeness. We can see that certain softening senses are key elements to mark polite usage. The main data used come from the descriptions of the modal auxiliary verb in a corpus of grammar books from the period. Usage and manner books are also consulted as a secondary resource. The manner book in particular is quite helpful for our understanding of how linguistic politeness was regarded at the time. Such texts also help us to find a certain network of senses which are related to polite expressions.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No.61173100the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant No.GDUT10RW202
文摘A hybrid approach to English Part-of-Speech(PoS) tagging with its target application being English-Chinese machine translation in business domain is presented,demonstrating how a present tagger can be adapted to learn from a small amount of data and handle unknown words for the purpose of machine translation.A small size of 998 k English annotated corpus in business domain is built semi-automatically based on a new tagset;the maximum entropy model is adopted,and rule-based approach is used in post-processing.The tagger is further applied in Noun Phrase(NP) chunking.Experiments show that our tagger achieves an accuracy of 98.14%,which is a quite satisfactory result.In the application to NP chunking,the tagger gives rise to 2.21% increase in F-score,compared with the results using Stanford tagger.
文摘In the ESP （English for Specific Purposes） tradition of genre-based approaches to academic literacy, one of the most noteworthy language features lies in lexical phrases. The lexical phrases investigated in the current study consist of both general lexical phrases （i.e., lexical bundles/clusters/formulaic sequences in vocabulary and linguistic studies） and move- specific lexical phrases （i.e., lexical phrases specific to the move/steps） as both are necessary for students to master in the construction of academic texts. Studies on either type have, however, tended to neglect the importance of the other and few studies have looked at students＇ acquisition of these phrases within the genre-based framework. This study reports on the process of acquisition of lexical phrases in two cases with distinct starting levels over a period of one semester in an EAP genre-based academic writing classroom. The study was part of a larger project conducted in a tertiary level institution in southern China for instructing disciplinary-specific academic writing. From the analysis of rewritings, genre analysis assignments, in conjunction with a weekly interview and learning journals, it was found that both students＇ awareness of lexical phrases was raised noticeably and a favorable number of phrases were used throughout the instructional period. Different patterns in the use of both general and move-specific lexical phrases were also found in their rewriting tasks, in terms of source of acquisition, perceived usefulness, number and appropriateness of use. This study is expected to offer pedagogical insights into the teaching and learning of academic lexical phrases for tertiary contexts.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(31221003)National Basic Research Program of China(2014CB846103)
文摘Integrating letters and sounds are essential for successful reading in alphabetic languages. It remains unclear if native speakers of non-alphabetic languages integrate letters and sounds in reading an alphabetic lan- guage in the same way as native alphabetic readers do. Chinese is a morpho-syllabic system （each character cor- responds to one syllable） and contrasts sharply with alphabetic languages such as English. Several fMRI studies have shown that native Chinese speakers apply their native language system to read English words. By using the cross- modal mismatch negativity （MMN） paradigm, we directly investigated letter-sound integration for reading in English among native Chinese speakers. To investigate the effect of native language background on letter-sound integration in second language reading, a group of native Korean English learners served as a comparison group. We compared MMN responses between an auditory only condition （only vowels presented） and two audiovisual conditions （AV0, vowel presented synchronously with the corresponding letter; AV200, the letter presented 200 ms before the corresponding vowel） for both native Chinese and native Korean speakers. Native Chinese speakers demonstrated significantly attenuated MMN amplitudes in audiovisual conditions compared with the auditory only condition, regardless of their phonological decoding speed. In con- trast, native Korean speakers showed amplified amplitude MMN in AV200 compared with that in the auditory only condition. The results suggest that native language may shape the brain responses of second language learners to reading a second language in the early stages. Native non- alphabetic language speakers may be unable to use visual information to facilitate their phonological processing in the early stage while naT：lye alphabetic language speakers are capable of integrating letter sounds automatically.
文摘This study seeks to explore a more practical way to acquire fluency in English. Against the normal concept of 'accuracy' and 'fluency', it offers a new insight into fluency to assist English learners to operate in the English language the same way as in their mother-tongue languages. The author suggests teaching lexical phrases whilst expecting the active use of language to reach what Brumfit calls 'natural language use' and provides a new remedy for the so-called 'deaf-mute' English learning situation in China.
文摘Some Chinese learners of English, even though with a good command of English grammar and a large vocabulary, still make mistakes in writing sentences with respect to lexical combination and semantic well-formedness.This paper aims to prove that there exist collocation differences across languages and discusses their effect upon English vocabulary teaching. It introduces the types of collocation and explores the factors that trigger cross-linguistic differences in collocation. We suggest that great attention to collocation be given in English vocabulary teaching.
