A Corpus-based Study Of High-school EFL Learners' Use Of Definite Article The

English article system primarily consists of three types:definite article the,indefinite article a/an and zero article(?),but the usages of them are quite complicated.Master(1990)says"The English article system is one of the most difficult aspects of English grammar for nonnative speakers and one of the latest to be fully acquired".Acquisition of articles is not only a key point,but also a difficulty for second language learners.According to Ellis(1994),the rules of articles now being used can not cover all the usages of them and the use of articles is determined by the semantics in the context on various occasions.Due to the lack of article system in Chinese language,Chinese learners are confronted with bigger obstacles than others.Master(1990)proposes the Binary System of English article and divides the English articles into Classification(a/an and(?)1)and Identification(the and(?)2),which enriches the theory of English article system further.Thus,on the basis of the Binary System of English article,the author takes native English as a reference for the sake of investigating the distinctive features of definite article the used by Chinese senior high school students.The author hopes this study could provide a helpful guidance for English teaching and learning.To be specific,the three research questions of this research are as follows:(?)Compared with native speakers,what's the distribution feature of definite article the in terms of colligation in the writings by Chinese senior high school students?(?)Compared with native speakers,what are the specific functions of definite article the in the writings by Chinese senior high school students?(?)What are the reasons responsible for the features of definite article the in both colligation and function?Corpus-based approach was adopted in the present study.First of all,the author sampled texts from ST2 of CLEC and LOCNESS respectively to establish a new database.And then,the forms and functions of definite article the were labeled respectively with different tags.At last,the author chose 300 samples respectively from the texts in ST2 of CLEC and LOCNESS,which had been marked in the new database.Based on the deep analysis of samples,the research data was obtained.In order to guarantee the objectivity and validness of research results,quantitative method and qualitative method were adopted to reorganize and discuss the data.The major findings of this research are as follows:(i)There are some distinctive distribution features of definite article the in terms of colligation in the writings by Chinese senior high school students in comparison with native speakers.In general,Chinese senior high school students,on one hand,are prone to use the first colligation category of definite article the "THE+PRE-MOD+N",among which the forms"THE+N","THE+R-ADJ+N" and "THE+C-ADJ+N" are overused.On the other hand,Chinese senior high school students rarely use the second category "THE+N+POST-MOD",however,among which the form "THE+N+PREP(of)"is used more than others relatively.(ii)There are some specific features of definite article the in the writings by Chinese senior high school students in comparison with native English speakers.Generally speaking,Chinese senior high school students are inclined to choose "THE+PRE-MOD+N" to realize the functions "Subsequent mention","Shared knowledge" and "Ranking adjective" while native speakers prefer to use the "THE+N+POST-MOD" to achieve the function "Limiting post-modification".To be specific,the specific functions of definite article the in the writings by Chinese senior high school students are:(a)Compared with native English speakers,Chinese learners are prone to overuse the form "THE+N" to realize the function "Shared knowledge" rather than "Subsequent mention".(b)In order to realize the function "Shared knowledge",Chinese learners tend to overuse the form "THE+C-ADJ+N",which is used seldom by native speakers.(c)The form "THE+N+PREP(of)" is overused by Chinese learners while the form "THE+N+RL" is less used in the function "Limiting post-modification".(iii)Two reasons responsible for the features of definite article the in both colligation and function are identified:(a)The influence of L1 transfer:Under the influence of Chinese determiners“?”,“??”,“?”and“??”and pre-modification structure "ADJ+N" and subordinate structure "......? +N",Chinese senior high school students tend to overuse the forms "THE+N","THE+C-ADJ+N" and "THE+N+PREP(of)",but the form "THE+N+RL" is less used;(b)The influence of grammar teaching:During practical teaching progress,most teachers usually teach English articles mainly according to the rules summarized in English grammar books.The rule that definite article the must be presented in front of nouns which are not firstly mentioned makes students tend to put definite article the in front of nouns to achieve the function "Subsequent mention".Therefore,the form "THE+N" is overused.In addition,the rule that superlative adjectives must be combined with definite article the leads to the overuse of the form "THE+R-ADJ+N".The findings of this research mentioned above have some pedagogical implications on English teaching and learning:(a)Teachers should figure out the relationships between forms and functions of definite article the instead of summarizing the usages of it in teaching procedures.What teachers should do is to teach students how to choose proper forms of definite article the according to the functions that will be achieved in specific context.In addition,both teachers and students should realize the importance of authentic language materials for language teaching and learning instead of remembering all the usages listed in grammar books mechanically.In practical teaching procedures,on the basis of teaching contents,teachers should make great effort to employ the authentic language materials to make the students realize the diversity of language in real situation,(b)Both teachers and students should reduce the negative influence of mother language in English learning to the greatest extent.And Chinese learners should monitor the usages of definite article the consciously to avoid the improper use of it.