The present study investigates the effects of congruency and frequency on adjective-noun collocational processing for Chinese learners of English at two proficiency levels based on the data obtained in an online accep...The present study investigates the effects of congruency and frequency on adjective-noun collocational processing for Chinese learners of English at two proficiency levels based on the data obtained in an online acceptability judgment task.The subject pool of this research included 60 English majors studying at a university in China;30 were selected as a higher-proficiency group and 30 as a lower-proficiency group according to their Vocabulary Levels Test(Schmitt et al.,2001)scores and their self-reported proficiency in English.The experimental materials were programmed to E-prime 2.0 and included six types of collocations:(1)15 high-frequency congruent collocations,(2)15 low-frequency congruent collocations,(3)15 high-frequency incongruent collocations,(4)15 low-frequency incongruent collocations,(5)15 Chinese-only items,and(6)75 unrelated items for baseline data.The collected response times(RTs)and accuracy rates data were statistically analyzed by the use of an ANOVA test and pairwise comparisons through SPSS 16.0 software.The results revealed that:(1)the adjective-noun collocational processing of Chinese English learners is influenced by collocational frequency,congruency and L2 proficiency;(2)the processing time is affected by the interaction of congruency and frequency;and(3)the interactive effect of L2 proficiency in conjunction with congruency and frequency also influences the processing quality.展开更多
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 nat...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.展开更多
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 ...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.展开更多
Transfer plays an important role for language learners in second language acquisition. In regards to tautology, there are many differences between Chinese and English. This paper surveys the transfer of tautology from...Transfer plays an important role for language learners in second language acquisition. In regards to tautology, there are many differences between Chinese and English. This paper surveys the transfer of tautology from Chinese to English among English learners at three levels. The statistical results show that transfer does exist and there are significant differences between the three levels of subjects. The author also presents suggestions for English teachers to help learners avoid transfer of tautology from Chinese to English in the process of language learning.展开更多
文摘The present study investigates the effects of congruency and frequency on adjective-noun collocational processing for Chinese learners of English at two proficiency levels based on the data obtained in an online acceptability judgment task.The subject pool of this research included 60 English majors studying at a university in China;30 were selected as a higher-proficiency group and 30 as a lower-proficiency group according to their Vocabulary Levels Test(Schmitt et al.,2001)scores and their self-reported proficiency in English.The experimental materials were programmed to E-prime 2.0 and included six types of collocations:(1)15 high-frequency congruent collocations,(2)15 low-frequency congruent collocations,(3)15 high-frequency incongruent collocations,(4)15 low-frequency incongruent collocations,(5)15 Chinese-only items,and(6)75 unrelated items for baseline data.The collected response times(RTs)and accuracy rates data were statistically analyzed by the use of an ANOVA test and pairwise comparisons through SPSS 16.0 software.The results revealed that:(1)the adjective-noun collocational processing of Chinese English learners is influenced by collocational frequency,congruency and L2 proficiency;(2)the processing time is affected by the interaction of congruency and frequency;and(3)the interactive effect of L2 proficiency in conjunction with congruency and frequency also influences the processing quality.
文摘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.
文摘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.
文摘Transfer plays an important role for language learners in second language acquisition. In regards to tautology, there are many differences between Chinese and English. This paper surveys the transfer of tautology from Chinese to English among English learners at three levels. The statistical results show that transfer does exist and there are significant differences between the three levels of subjects. The author also presents suggestions for English teachers to help learners avoid transfer of tautology from Chinese to English in the process of language learning.
