A Corpus-based Contrastive Study: Comparing Usage Rates of English Denominal Verbs

Presenter Information

Mingzhen Cheng

Abstract

This paper delves into the influence of second language (L2) proficiency on the usage of English denominal verbs (DVs) by Chinese learners of English. The previous study suggested that advanced Chinese L2 learners with higher English proficiency should be able to use DVs more regularly. However, the research found that heightened frequency of DV usage does not necessarily reflect higher proficiency of the language learners. Examining 20 DVs in both the Brown Corpus and the Chinese Learner English Corpus, the results revealed that those learners exhibited distinct DV usage patterns. Surprisingly, those learners did not consistently display a lower percentage of usage of DV compared to native speakers, even in cases where they lacked prior knowledge in Chinese regarding specific DVs. The result indicates potential influences from pedagogical and sociocultural factors on second language acquisition.

Keywords:

linguistics, corpus analysis, second language acquisition, English denominal verb, teaching pedagogy

Status

Graduate

Department

Linguistics

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Campus

Athens

Faculty Mentor

Oshita, Hiroyuki

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A Corpus-based Contrastive Study: Comparing Usage Rates of English Denominal Verbs

This paper delves into the influence of second language (L2) proficiency on the usage of English denominal verbs (DVs) by Chinese learners of English. The previous study suggested that advanced Chinese L2 learners with higher English proficiency should be able to use DVs more regularly. However, the research found that heightened frequency of DV usage does not necessarily reflect higher proficiency of the language learners. Examining 20 DVs in both the Brown Corpus and the Chinese Learner English Corpus, the results revealed that those learners exhibited distinct DV usage patterns. Surprisingly, those learners did not consistently display a lower percentage of usage of DV compared to native speakers, even in cases where they lacked prior knowledge in Chinese regarding specific DVs. The result indicates potential influences from pedagogical and sociocultural factors on second language acquisition.