【作者】 谈言玲；

【导师】 俞洪亮；

【作者基本信息】 扬州大学 ， 英语语言文学， 2007， 硕士

【摘要】 本研究从语义学的角度对比分析了情态动词can、could、may和might在中国英语专业二年级学生口语和本族语口语中的使用情况,并研究不同口语水平学习者之间的差异,旨在回答两个主要问题:1)中国二语学习者与本族语者在口语中使用情态动词can、could、may和might的情况有何差异?2)学习者英语口语水平的差异对情态动词can、could、may和might的使用有何影响?本研究采取对比分析方法。所取语料源于学习者语料库SECCL的口头作文部分共抽取210个测试者,并从中选取60人,按照测试总体成绩分为高低分组。本族语语料来源于国际英语语料库英国部分(ICE-GB)的即席发言,涉及22个发言人和30个样本(含45个相关副本)。通过数据统计和分析,有以下主要发现:一　总体看来,中国学习者口语中使用的“可能”类情态动词与本族语者有显著差异。中国学习者使用的can和could多于本族语者,但may和might则少于本族语者。首先,与本族语者相比,中国学习者在使用can和could时,“知识”情态、“道义”情态和“动力”情态三类意义在他们的口头表达中分布呈明显的不平衡趋势。具体地说,在“动力”情态五类意义中,“能力”意义是中国学生的首选意义,“知识”情态意义使用较少,但“道义”情态意义则被过度使用。此外,在中国学习者can和could的使用中,增加了本族语者没有使用到的“责备”义项。上述发现表明,中国学习者没有完全掌握can和could相关语言知识,对使用与其相匹配的意义还可能产生混淆。此外,文化差异也会夸大或束缚他们对情态意义的表述,这一点与Hinkel关于本族语者和非本族语者对其固有的社会文化的忠诚与坚持的解释是一致的。其次,数据表明,中国学习者倾向于只选择may和might的“知识”情态意义来表达“可能”类意义,在表达“道义”情态意义时,也过多依赖can和could,这一点解释了中国学习者为何过少使用may的原因。与此相关,中国学习者趋于过多使用maybe来表达“可能”意义。按照Hsieh的解释,这一现象可能与母语迁移有关,因为中文中的“可能”和“也许”无论在语序上还是在意义上均接近于maybe。二﹑无论与本族语相比还是高低分组间比较,中国学习者在使用这四个情态动词时最突出的一个问题是时态错误。他们对can和could不加以区分,甚至随意互用。而Palmer指出,当表达“知识”情态时,时态应体现在命题上,而非情态动词上;当表达“道义”情态时,无论是命题还是情态动词都不能指代过去发生的事情。只有在表达“动力”情态时,can和could才可能出现时态的变化。三、高分组与低分组在can和could三类“可能”意义的组间分布上存在显著性差异。这表明对can和could意义的理解和使用可视作区分学习者语言水平的一项指标。换言之,高分组与低分组相比更倾向使用can和could表示“可能”,同时也说明高水平学习者掌握了can和could的基本义项,即“能力”义项。高分组与低分组在误用can也呈现出显著差异,低分组误用率高,这一点部分验证了上述发现。有趣的是,低分组在could使用上比高分组好,这可能与低分组误用时态有关。高低分组在may和might使用上频次过低,一方面可能受can和could使用频次的影响,另一方面中国学生在选择情态动词表示“可能”时过分依赖can和could。本研究结果对教学有两点启示:1)情态动词学习的难点不在于各情态动词具有多种涵义,而在于如何正确地匹配情态动词的意义与形式。通过比较学习者语言与本族语,本研究的主要发现可以帮助教师和学习者关注到在本族语者使用频次最高的情态意义,做出接近本族语者对情态意义的选择。2)“可能”类情态动词在学习者和本族语者口语中使用的差异有母语迁移的因素,也有学习者文化差异和不同国家教育环境的因素。在教学中,突出英语国家文化中被普遍接受的价值观以及区别它们在母语和目标语社会文化中所起的不同作用,将有助于更有效地掌握情态动词的不同意义和用法,以点带面,最终促进学习者中介语的发展。更多还原

【Abstract】 This thesis reports a study that investigated the Chinese tertiary learners’use of the four possibility modals“can, could, may and might”in their oral production. The purpose of the study is to locate the difficulty for Chinese EFL learners to associate the right modal forms with the right meanings and to shed light on the common problems behind Chinese EFL learners’acquisition of the modal auxiliaries.The major method employed in this study falls in the realm of Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (CIA). The data were selected from the monologues in the Spoken English Corpus of Chinese Learners (SECCL) and the spontaneous speech in the British component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-GB). The research design is quantitative by nature supplemented by a close analysis of some individual cases. The statistical calculation and analysis yielded the following findings:Firstly, Chinese learners’use of the four possibility modals significantly deviates from Native speakers’norms. Chinese EFL learners tend to use more tokens of modal can and could and less tokens of may and might than native speakers of English to express“possibility”.The semantic distribution of can and could tend to be imbalanced in“epistemic”,“deontic”and“dynamic”senses. Chinese learners have trouble associating the right modal with the right meaning, which is consistent in some way with Cook’s finding. To be specific, Of the three modal senses for both can and could, Chinese learners tend to take“dynamic”sense as their first choice, and“ability”sense in particular, and more or less to ignore“epistemic”sense, but“deontic”sense is most likely to be over-emphasized, which may be due to NNS culturally bound understandings of the nature of permission and the adherence to socio-cultural norms and codes fundamental to L1 cultures, as mentioned by Hinkel.With respect to may and might, Chinese learners are found to use them exclusively to express“epistemic possibility,”brushing aside the“deontic”and“existential”sense of may. To ask for permission, they may rely more on can and could than the use of may. And statistics showed that the adverbial equivalence maybe in the learners’corpus significantly exceeds that in native speakers’corpus. This may result from mother tongue transfer in the sense that maybe is the literal translation of“epistemic”keneng and yexu in Chinese.Secondly, the inappropriate usage of can and could is mainly represented by misuse of tense. L2 Learners may have the false assumption that they may use can and could interchangeably without the knowledge that, unlike“dynamic”can,“epistemic”and“deontic”can is never used with the past tense.Finally, high-achievers perform significantly better than low-achievers in understanding and use of different senses of can and could, suggesting that the use of can and could may be taken as one of the indicators to the learners’linguistic proficiency. The significant difference also expresses itself in the misuse of can between high- and low-achievers and the latter were more likely to misuse can, which partially confirms the claim made earlier. Interestingly, low-achievers performed better than high-achieves in use of could, for which the possible explanation is related to the misuse of tense. The occurrence of may and might is too small to draw any meaningful conclusion. However, the less use of may and might may be attributed to the over reliance on the use of can and could to express“possibility”.The pedagogical implications generated from the findings are at least two fold: 1) The difficulty of the four possibility modals lies not in the meanings, but in how to associate the right modal with the right meaning. This study can do much to bring learning of modals into accordance with actual language use, and more attention should be paid to the more commonly chosen senses by native speakers, such as the later acquired“epistemic”and“hypothetical”sense of can and could, the delineated sub-division of“dynamic”can and could, the past tense of can, and the connection between past-tense of can and could and politeness. 2) The discrepancy between NS and NNS use of the four modals can be traced, at least partly, to L1 language transfer and the cultural and educational contexts to NNS students. Practically, the teaching of modals can be made more effective if the fundamental notions and values accepted in target language related culture are explicitly elaborated and the differences in how NS and NNS understand and use the modal senses in their respective cultures are highlighted.更多还原