论文总字数：30954字

摘 要

本文以美国大学生书面语中强势词使用情况作为对比，研究了中国大学生书面语中强势词的使用情况并揭示了中国大学生在强势词使用上的一些特点。为此，本研究使用了中国学生英语语料库和美国密西根大学高年级学生作文语料库中的一些数据。本研究采用Antconc语料检索软件对英国国家语料中使用最多的20个强势词进行了统计分析。研究结果表明: 与本族语者相比，无论是最高程度词还是增强程度词，中国大学生都存在过多使用的现象, 但对于有些强势词，例如“severely” “terribly” 和 “considerably”，中国英语学习者却使用不足。对上述现象，本文从交际补偿策略、母语负迁移和习得年龄等方面进行了解释。

关键词：强势词；增强程度词；最高强化词

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 The Definition of Amplifiers 1

2.2 The Researches on Amplifiers 2

3. Research Design 4

3.1 Research Material 4

3.2 Research Questions and Methods 5

4. Study Results 5

4.1 The General Description of Frequency 6

4.2 The Use of Maximizers 7

4.3 The Use of Boosters 8

5. The Analysis of Results 10

5.1 The Effect of Communicative Compensation Strategies 10

5.2 The Effect of Negative Transfer 11

5.3 The Effect of Age of Acquisition 12

6. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 15

1. Introduction

For nearly a century, especially in recent decades, amplifiers attracted interests of many researchers. Amplifiers generally refer to a particular class of adverbs or adverb phrases, and such words or phrases have the role to strengthen some sentence parts. Amplifiers play a significant role in oral and written expression. By using amplifiers, we can express different degree of commitment, such as care and concern (e.g. fairly certain) and affirmation and stress (e.g. absolutely vital). In addition to expressing the social and emotional position of the speaker, these words also have the interpersonal function so that they can create a sense of belonging and collective. Labov (Labov, 1985:43) defined amplifiers as the emotional language that can express the social trends of language proposition, and pointed out that amplifiers were the most common emotional expression. Halliday (Halliday, 2004:127) noted that amplifiers expressed the metafunction of interpersonal function.

Due to their significance, amplifiers have been studied extensively, including the aspects of syntax, collocation, semantics and pragmatics, as well as language and social factors which may affect their use. Especially in recent decades, with the establishment of the modern English corpora, studies on amplifiers have been further developed. This paper will use the written English of Chinese College students as a pointcut to do some simple study.

2. Literature Review

2.1 The Definition of Amplifiers

Studies on amplifiers are extensive. Some of them consider amplifiers as a class to study, while others do specific studies on individual amplifiers. Different scholars give different definitions to this term. And the definition of amplifiers this article adopts is from Randolph Quirk (Quirk et al. 1985:590).

According to Quirk (Quirk et al., 1985:589), intensifiers constitute a gradable category. According to this widely-held view, intensifiers can be classified into the subcategories of amplifiers and downtoners, the former are often used to increase the meanings conveyed by relevant words, while the latter are often used to decrease the meanings conveyed.

Quirk (Quirk et al., 1985:589) then further classifies amplifiers into maximizers and boosters. “Amplifiers” can take up the function of “maximizers” when they indicate “an endpoint on a scale,” as pointed out by Biber et al. (Biber et al., 2007:210). This category of intensifiers includes “totally, absolutely, completely, and quite (in the sense of ‘completely’)” (Biber et al., 2007:210). The second subtype of“amplifiers” is called “boosters” and does not express an absolute degree, but simply enhances the quality of the modified adjective (Quirk et al. 1985:590).

Common amplifiers, within the two subclasses, include:

(a) maximizers

absolutely, altogether, completely, entirely, extremely, fully, perfectly, quite, thoroughly, totally, utterly, etc.

(b) boosters

badly, bitterly, deeply enormously, far, greatly, heartily, highly, intensely, much, severely, so strongly terribly, violently, well; a great deal, a good deal, a lot, by far, etc.

Amplifiers mostly refer to emphasizing adverbs. Syntactically, they are divided into two categories: 1) as a part of minor sentences, mainly to modify adjectives (e.g. very good), adverbs (e.g. perfectly well), and occasionally to modify qualifiers (e.g. completely no idea), pronouns (e.g. absolutely nothing) or prepositional phrases (e.g. completely in love); 2) as adverbials, to emphasize predicates or predicate components (e.g. partly agree) (Alternberg 1991).

A basic semantic difference between maximizers and boosters is their demands on the gradability of the intensified element. Since maximizers express an absolute degree, they are typically used to modify “non scalar” items, i.e. items that do not normally permit grading (e.g. empty, impossible, wrong) or already contain a notion of extreme or absolute degree (e.g. disgusting, exhausted, huge, marvelous, etc.). Boosters, on the other hand, typically modify “non scalar” items, i.e. items that are fully gradable. Although gradability is a complex phenomenon most clearly revealed by adjectives, it also applies to verbs.

2.2 The Researches on Amplifiers

In recent years, as a result of the rapid development of corpus linguistics, the studies on language by using retrieve tools has been further deepened, which include the in-depth studies on amplifiers. Using the native speakers’ essays in the International Corpus as a reference, Qi Jianxiao (Qi Jianxiao, 2006:48) investigated the use of amplifiers in essays of CET4 and CET6 in CLEC with the method of comparative analysis of interlanguage. The results showed that，on the whole Chinese learners overused amplifiers. And he found that Chinese learners underused maximizers (e.g. utterly, totally, absolutely), but overused boosters (e.g. very, really, very much). Wang Haihua and Chen Guohai (Wang Haihua amp; Chen Guohai, 2007:52) explored the features of collocations of amplifiers of three different groups of Chinese learners high school students, college non-English majors and college English majors. The results of their research showed that the use of maximizers of Chinese English learners was positively related to their overall level of language. English learners in the high school stage overused three “universal amplifiers”, i.e. “so”, “very” and “very much”. As far as the accuracy of using tokens and types in the collocations of boosters, the major differences existed between high school students and college non-English majors, and between college non-English majors and college English majors. Huang Ruihong （Huang Ruihong, 2007:57）used the data of CLEC and BNC to examine the features of adjective amplifiers used by Chinese language learners. She found that semantic prosody of Chinese students using adjective amplifiers is basically the same as that native speakers have, but students at different levels differ greatly in type, frequency and the scope of collocation of using amplifiers. Chen Ying and Ma Wulin (Chen Ying amp; Ma Wulin 2012:48) set ‘very much’ as an example to do a multi-dimensional investigation on the use of amplifiers in written language of Chinese learners of English. And they found learners were significantly different from native speakers in the frequency of use, register features, colligation, syntactic position, and semantic prosody of this target word.

In foreign countries, there are also many researches on amplifiers based on learners corpora. Granger (Granger, 1998:199) comparatively researched the collocation situations of amplifiers ending with “-ly” between French-speaking English learners and English native speakers. The results showed that English learners underused both tokens and types of amplifiers. However, there were some differences in the use of “completely”, “totally” and “ highly” in statistical sense excessive use of “completely” and “totally”, but too little use of “ highly”. Altenberg (Altenberg, 1991:127) did a study based on the data of London Lund Corpus of Spoken English and found that very, so, very much, terribly, jolly, extremely are very commonly used in natives. Based on the data of British National Corpus, Kennedy (Kennedy, 2003:467) systematically investigated the collocations of 24 amplifiers and adjectives and participles. His research showed that fully, perfectly, dead, highly, very much, great1y, considerably tended to collocate with the words with positive prosody; total1y, utterly, extremely, badly, heavily, severely tended to collocate with the words with negative prosody; completely, entirely, absolutely, very, particularly, really, clearly, deeply, terribly, enormously, incredibly can collocate with the words with either positive or negative prosody.

Given previous researches，it is necessary to conduct a specific study on the use of amplifiers in written English of Chinese English learners. Specifically speaking, it is necessary to study the use of amplifiers in written English of Chinese college students. This research topic will make people get a better understanding of the learning situation of English of Chinese college students. To this end, this paper locates the study object to the written English to comparatively study the use of amplifiers in written English in both Chinese and American contexts.

3. Research Design

3.1 Research Material

This study uses some data of Written English Corpus Chinese Learners (WECCL) and the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP).

The design size of WECCL is one million words, and its written materials are mainly collected from the English majors in Grade 1-4 of nine colleges at different levels in China in order to ensure the selected corpora are extensively representative. Contents of the corpus are a number of English compositions of different topics in which the most are arguments and a small part are narratives and expository writings. The lengths of them are from 200 to 800 words. The final capacity of WECCL is 3578 compositions，including 3,059 arguments, 529 narratives, 90 expository writings.

The Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP) is a collection of around 830 papers (roughly 2.3 million words) of different types (e.g. essays, reports, response papers) from altogether 16 disciplines within four academic divisions (Humanities and Arts, Social Sciences, Biological and Health Sciences, and Physical Sciences) of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. All papers included in MICUSP were written by final year undergraduate and graduate students who obtained an A grade for their paper. MICUSP was created by a team of researchers and students at the U-M English Language Institute.

3.2 Research Questions and Methods

The amplifiers this study selected are twenty most commonly used words in BNC (Kennedy, 2003:467). And their occurrences are all more than ten in every million words. They include six maximizers: fully, completely, entirely, absolutely，totally, utterly, and fourteen boosters: very, really, particularly, clearly , highly , very much , extremely ,badly , heavily , deeply ,greatly, considerably, severely, terribly (Qi Jianxiao, 2006:48).

This study employs Antconc to make the retrieval of word frequency of amplifiers, and excludes irrelevant information by hand. Then, it calculates the standard frequencies in every hundred thousand according to the original frequencies. On the basis of comparing the differences of the total standard frequencies in the two corpora, this paper specifically analyzes the use of maximizers and boosters. This paper tries to answer the following questions: (1) Compared with English native speakers, do Chinese college students have significant differences in the use of amplifiers? (2) If such differences exist, what may be the causes?

4. Study Results

4.1 The General Description of Frequency

Firstly, we generally compare the differences of use of amplifiers, maximizers and boosters in written English between Chinese and American college students. We retrieve the frequencies of the twenty amplifiers, six maximizers and fourteen boosters we need out of WECCL and MICUSP, then convert them to standard frequencies, and finally calculate the total standard frequencies of these words. The results are shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1 The general description of the use of amplifiers, maximizers and boosters

Table 1 shows that, generally the frequency of use of amplifiers of Chinese college students in written English is higher than that of American college students, which is in accordance with the results of Qi Jianxiao (Qi Jianxiao, 2006:48). But the total frequency of use of amplifiers in WECCL and MICUSP are both over 4000 with only a slight difference of about 800. It means that either Chinese college students or American college students tend to using many amplifiers when writing articles. But this phenomenon happens more commonly on Chinese college students. And the frequency of use of maximizers of Chinese college students in written English is also higher than that of American college students. But generally speaking, the gap between the two is not too huge. However, the frequency of use of boosters in WECCL is apparently higher than that in MICUSP. Although the total frequencies of use of boosters of WECCL and MICUSP only have a slight difference of about 50, the standard frequencies of the two are quite different. The standard frequency of use of boosters of WECCL is 323.89, while that of MICUSP is only 173.61 which is nearly only a half of the number of WECCL. It clearly shows that Chinese college students use boosters much more than American college students, which is also the same as the result of Qi Jianxiao (Qi Jianxiao, 2006:48).

4.2 The Use of Maximizers

Table 2 use the same study method that Table 1 used to list the standard frequency of use of each of the six maximizers in the two corpora.

Table 2 The frequencies of the use of maximizers in WECCL and MICUSP

The results of Table 2 are in accordance with that of Table 1--- the frequency of use of maximizers of Chinese college students in written English is higher than that of American college students. But generally speaking, the gap between the two is not too huge. Specifically speaking, in WECCL, the two most commonly used maximizers are “fully” and “completely” , and either the sum of total frequencies of the two words or the sum of standard frequencies of them almost takes up one half of that of the six words, which is as same as the condition in MICUSP. It means that both Chinese and American college students like using “fully” and “completely” to express themselves. What’s more, both in WECCL and in MICUSP, the least frequently used maximizer is “utterly” whose standard frequency is less than 1 either in WECCL or in MICUSP. For “totally” and “absolutely”, Chinese college students use them much more than American college students. But the condition of “entirely” is quite different. In WECCL, the total frequency of “entirely” is only 9, and the standard frequency of it is also just 0.82 which is less than 1. But in MICUSP, the frequency of “entirely” is 207 which is far more than that in WECCL, and the standard frequency of it is 8.89. It clearly shows that American college students often use “entirely” in their writing while Chinese college students scarcely use it.

4.3 The Use of Boosters

Next, we will compare the use of boosters in WECCL and MICUSP. Table 3 lists the total frequency and standard frequency of use of each of the fourteen maximizers.

The result of Table 3 shows that the frequency of use of boosters in WECCL is apparently higher than that in MICUSP, which is in accordance to the result of Table 1. Specifically speaking, “very” is the most commonly used booster both in WECCL and in MICUSP. The total frequency of “very” in WECCL is 2257, and that in MICUSP is 1729. Both of them are very high. But the standard frequencies of it in WECCL and in MICUSP are quite different. The standard frequency of “very” in WECCL is 205.87 which is almost takes up two thirds of the sum of standard frequencies of the fourteen boosters, while that of “very” in MICUSP is only 74.22 which is less than one half of the sum. It means that both Chinese and American overuse the word “very”, but the phenomenon happens more commonly on Chinese college students.

Table 3 The frequencies of the use of boosters in WECCL and MICUSP

（in every 100000 words）

The second most frequently used booster in WECCL is “really”. Its standard frequency in WECCL is 60.20 while that in MICUSP is only 13.91. It shows that Chinese college students like using “really” in their writing, but American college students don’t do that. For “particularly”, “clearly” and “highly”, either the total frequency or the standard frequency of each of them in WECCL is far lower than those in MICUSP. So, we can know that American college students use the three words much more than Chinese college students. For “extremely”, “deeply”, “greatly”, “considerably”, “severely” and “terribly”, the gap between their standard frequencies in WECCL and MICUSP is not huge. It should be noted specially that both Chinese and American college students barely use “considerably”, “severely” and “terribly” in their writing, because all the standard frequencies of them is just about 1. In addition, the condition of “very much” is out of expectation. Many people, consider that both Chinese and American students should use “very much” for many times in their writings. But the fact is that both the standard frequencies in WECCL and in MICUSP are not very large.

In shot, the above data show that generally, the frequency of use of amplifiers of Chinese college students in written English is higher than that of American college students. The gap between the frequency of use of maximizers of Chinese college students in written English and that of American college students is not too huge. The frequency of use of boosters of Chinese college students in written English is apparently higher than that of American college students, especially for “very” and “really”；but for some other words , such as “particularly”, “clearly” and “highly”, the results are opposite.

5. The Analysis of Results

Of the twenty amplifiers we study, six words are maximizers, and the other fourteen words are boosters. The results show that, compared with English native speakers, the gap between the frequency of use of maximizers of Chinese college students in written English and that of American college students is not too huge, but Chinese college students clearly overuse boosters. However, for some amplifiers, such as “particularly”, “clearly” and “highly”, they underuse. Three possibilities may account for the cause:

5.1 The Effect of Communicative Compensation Strategies

The above results show that Chinese college students overuse “fully”, “completely” and “totally” in their writings. It may be affected by communicative compensation strategies.

The concept of communicative compensation strategies is the strategies that learners adopt to strive for more opportunities for communication, maintain communication and improve communicative effects, which is put forward by Oxford (Oxford, 1990:247). Communicative compensation strategies aim to compensate for the deficiencies of some communicative skills, especially at the vocabulary aspect. The application of communicative compensation strategies can be divided into ten classes, and Chinese college students subconsciously use two of them: avoiding communication partially or totally and using a circumlocution or synonym.

The phenomenon that Chinese college students overuse “fully” which is shown in Table 2 can reflect it. And the reason for it can be understood easily. When Chinese college students need to express the meaning of “完全地”“彻底地”“充分地”in their writings, they will subconsciously avoid using the words that they have difficulty in using, such as “entirely” and “utterly”, but choose to employ some easy-to-use synonyms. Especially when students are under the pressure of exams, there is no doubt that they will choose “safer” vocabularies, i.e. their familiar vocabulary “fully”, in order to avoid making mistakes. It is bound to contribute to the phenomenon that Chinese college students overuse some words that they use easily, such as “fully”, “completely” and “totally”

5.2 The Effect of Negative Transfer

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