A Corpus-based Study On Misuses Of English Adverbs As Modifiers By Chinese Learners

Adverb is a very important word class, adverb is very complex among the classifications of English word class. It has a high frequency of occurrence and has different kinds of classifications, which determine the different functions. Therefore, different adverbs have different meanings in different contexts. The functions and positions of adverbs in the sentences are quite flexible, which cause them difficult to be dealt with. English adverbs are mainly used for modifications and supplements. Adverbs make the expressions more precise and avoid the misunderstandings in communication. In a word, mastership of adverbs contributes a lot to English learning.Misuse of adverbs as modifiers is one type of errors frequently occurring in Chinese English learners'writing. However, a number of studies only provide descriptions of the syntactic functions and positional relations with other words. Till now the error-proneness of adverbs as modifiers by Chinese English learners has been attached little analysis. Therefore, the present research is carried out to investigate the errors of adverbs as modifiers by Chinese learners.Based on error analysis theory, corpus linguistics, and language transfer, the present paper aims to throw some light on the empirical study of misuse of adverbs as modifiers.By analyzing the typical features of misuse of adverbs as modifiers characterized by Chinese English learners through a corpus-based approach, it is hoped that the data-driven study will contribute to English language teaching in China. Chinese Learner English Corpus (CLEC) is the corpus used in the study. The English learners of different levels in the five sub-corpora are investigated by doing computer-assisted error analysis. The characteristics of the adverb errors under investigation are discussed in the research. It is indicated that: (1) Learners tend to commit errors when they are using adverbs to modify verbs. Non-English majors in Band 4 (ST3) commit most of the errors. (2) Learners tend to confuse the positions of the adverbs when they are using adverbs to modify verbs. Non-English majors in Band 4 also commit most of the errors. (3) The most frequently misused adverbs by learners are: anywhere,sharply,accordingly,merely,slightly, strongly,equally,slowly,successfully,seldom,also,always,easily,mainly,forever,seriously,recently,clearly, finally, generally.In order to find more evidences of misuse of adverbs, an experiment was designed, where students were asked to write essays. Based on that, interviews with 50 subjects are made to reveal the causes of the occurrences of errors in the use of the English adverbs. Results indicate that errors are caused by interlingual interference, intralingual interference and other interferences. For the purpose of improvement in adverb teaching and learning, the application of corpus is therefore recommended in company with other techniques of teaching English adverbs.