英语专业学士与硕士毕业论文中情态动词使用的对比研究

论文总字数：37464字

摘 要

本研究以东南大学外国语学院近三年的30篇本科生毕业论文和选自上海外国语大学、北京外国语大学以及吉林大学近三年的30篇研究生论文为语料,然后对比分析两者在使用情态动词方面的差别。本研究的目的是分析两者在学术论文中情态动词使用频率和分布上的特征。本论文的主要研究方法是基于语料库的对比分析。通过对比分析两者的差异，本研究提出以下研究结果：

1. 本科生和研究生在论文中使用情态动词的频次和分布的确存在比较明显的差异。与陶恒（2009）研究相比较而言，本研究发现，英语专业学术论文没有过多使用must这一高肯定的情态动词。但是，两者都存在过多使用can, may should.
2. 与本科生论文相比较而言，研究生更加注意学术论文写作规范。研究生更偏向使用低肯定的情态动词以达到让读者更好的接受自己的观点。基于这点可以判断情态动词的使用与英语水平有关。
3. 与研究生相比较而言，本科生在使用情态动词时往往仅偏向选择某些情态动词的一个意思，从而导致对某些情态动词的误用或过多使用。

本研究为英语教学和学习提供一些借鉴价值。第一，英语专业的学生在进行英语学术写作中提出自己的意见建议时应该尝试使用低肯定的情态动词，比如could. 第二，英语专业学生应尽量避免以中国学生的传统思维和写作模式，过多使用should这一高肯定的情态动词。 第三，学生应该对情态动词对情态动词进行深入的研究，避免仅仅选用其中的一个意思，从而造成误用。 第四，在学术论文写作中，要考虑到各个部分的不同功能，从而有选择的使用情态动词。

关键词： 情态动词 频次 分布 语言水平 本科生 研究生 学术论文

Abstract

This study analyzes the difference of modal verbs used in the academic theses written by undergraduate students in Southeast University and postgraduate students in Beijing Foreign Studies University, Shanghai International Studies University and Jilin University. The purpose of the study is to investigate the characteristics of modal verbs such as the frequency and distribution used by English majors in their academic theses. The major method employed in this study falls in the realm of contrastive analysis based on the corpus. Through the use of advanced software, this thesis reaches the following results after the data collected and analyzed.

Firstly, there are differences in the frequency and distribution of modal verbs used by MA and BA in academic theses. Compared with the previous Tao’s (2009) study, MUST is not frequently used by English majors in this study. However, both the MA and BA students frequently use the modal verbs such as CAN, MAY and SHOULD.

Secondly, compared with BA students, MA students are well aware of the rules of academic paper writing. MA students prefer to use the low affirmative modal verbs which indicate that the use of modal verbs is relevant to the language proficiency.

Thirdly, in contrast with MA students, the BA students usually frequently use only one of meanings of modal verbs so that lead to misuse some modal verbs.

This result shows some light on English teaching and learning. First, the English majors should try to use some low affirmative modal verbs such as COULD in terms of the readers’ response when they put forward some suggestions in order to avoid causing arguments. Second, the students should change the Chinese thinking in order to avoid overusing certain modal verb such as SHOULD. Third, students should make a close study on some modal verbs in order to avoid using the single meaning of some modal verbs. Last but not least, the students should consider the functions of different part of an academic paper when they use the modal verbs.

Key words: Modal verbs Frequency Distribution Language proficiency MA and BA Academic theses

Contents

Acknowledgements i

摘要 ii

English Abstract iii

Chapter One: Introduction 1

1.1 Background 1

1.2 Significance 1

1.3 Layout of the Theses 2

Chapter Two: Literature Review 2

2.1 Corpus linguistics 2

2.2 The previous study of modal verbs 3

2.2.1 Previous Studies of the modal verbs based on native corpora and non-native learner corpus 3

2.2.2 Previous Studies of the modal verbs based on non-native learner corpus 3

2.2.3 Previous Studies of the modal verbs in language teaching 4

2.3 Summary 4

Chapter Three: Research Methodology 4

3.1 Research Questions 4

3.2 Data Collection 5

3.3 Data Analysis 5

Chapter Four: Research Findings and Discussions 6

4.1 The Overall Frequency of Modal Verbs 7

4.2 The Frequency and distribution of Modal Verbs in different parts of the theses 7

4.2.1 Comparison on CAN between two groups 9

4.2.2 Comparison on MAY between two groups 10

4.2.3 Comparison on SHOULD between two groups 11

4.2.4 Comparison on MUST between two groups 12

4.2.5 Comparison on COULD between two groups 13

Chapter Five Conclusion………………………………………………………..14

5.1Summary………………………………………………………………………14

5.2 Enlightenment for English teaching and learning ……………………….……14

5.3 Limitations and Suggestions…………………………………………………..15

References…………………………………………………………………………16

Table Lists

Table 4.1 The Frequency of Modal Verbs in MA and BA These……………………..6

Table 4.2 The Modal Verbs in Each Part of the MA Theses………………………….8

Table 4.3 The Modal Verbs in Each Part of the BA Theses…………………………..8

Table 4.4 Comparison on CAN between Two Groups……………………………….9

Table 4.5 Comparison on MAY between Two Groups………………………………10

Table 4.6 Comparison on SHOULD between Two Groups………………………….11

Table 4.7 Comparison on MUST between Two Groups……………………………..12

Table 4.8 Comparison on COULD between Two Groups…………………………....13

Chapter one: Introduction

• 1. Background

Listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating are essential for English majors. “Writing” in the five skills mainly presents the ability of language output. It makes a big difference in improving the English logical thinking for English learners. English writing has been an important aspect in English teaching. All kinds of English tests attach great importance to them. In English writing, modal verbs have some special meanings. They are used before lexical verbs indicating the speaker’s opinion or subjective assumption for certain behavior. Though the number of modal verbs is not much, they have a wide range of functions. In academic papers, whether we find the contents of a paper accurate and rigorous or not largely depend on how the writer uses the modal verbs. Meanwhile, modal verbs as a means of realizing the interaction between the author and reader can talk the readers into accepting their opinions readily. However, the present situation of English teaching focuses on whether the lexical verbs are appropriate or suitable and the structure of the sentence is reasonable or not. As a result, they pay little attention to the modal verbs. In fact, the reason is that we are not well aware that English writing is kind of interactive language. This study will make a comparative analysis of the modal verbs in the 30 BA and 30 MA theses of English majors in order to find out the different usage of modal verbs between the BA and MA and put forward some suggestions on English academic writing.

1.2 Significance

The author selects two representative theses from AM and BM respectively as the object of the research. This research, from the perspective of Systemic-functional Grammar, based on statistical analysis software, will make a comparative study of two groups of theses. The research aims to find the similarities and differences of the use of modal verbs in academic writing between MA and BA.

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