A Corpus-based Contrastive Study On Semantic Features Of Color Terms In Chinese EFL Learner English

Sinclair proposes co-selection as the central descriptive mechanism of language in use, which is co-defined by collocation, colligation, semantic preference and semantic prosody. Based on this theory and corpus-data from CLEC, BNC and CCL, this study has sought to explore semantic features of color terms in Chinese EFL learner English under the colligation of "Color term+NP"(including RED, GREEN, BLACK and WHITE and their Chinese translation equivalents). The above four color terms are all high-frequency words in three corpora, and they have a wide collocational range, which can well represent patterning features of word-combination with moderate collocability in learner English. Color terms have rich cultural connotations, and when collocating with other terms, they tend to build up special attitudinal meanings, which are helpful to semantic prosody studies.In recent years, many corpus-based studies have been conducted on patterning features of learner English, which have shown that Chinese learners tend to overuse and misuse some expressions. LI transfer is greatly responsible for the above phenomenon. Present studies mainly focus on certain dimension of patterning features, and discussions on LI influence are mostly based on researcher’s subjective judgment. However, researches have shown that language communication is always realized by interaction of collocation, colligation, semantic preference and semantic prosody. Therefore, studies based on certain dimension cannot comprehensively reflect patterning features of learner language. CCL can help us discuss L1influence systematically by providing objective evidence. Based on the analysis of corpus-based data, this paper mainly explores three questions as follows:1) what are the differences and similarities between English and Chinese color terms in semantic features?2) Compared with native speakers, what are the semantic features specific to Chinese EFL learners in using English color terms?3) What are the underlying factors responsible for the above features? CLEC, as the research subject in this study, includes five sub-corpora, namely learner corpora of high school learners, the ist-2nd year non-English major learners, the3rd-4th year non-English major learners, the lst-2nd year English major learners and the3rd-4th year English major learners. These corpora can well represent Chinese learners’ development of interlanguage. Besides, BNC and CCL are used as reference corpora in this study, and Wordsmith4.0is used to extract concordance lines from the above corpora.Based on quantitative and qualitative analysis of corpus-data, this study has generated the following major findings:Firstly, English and Chinese color terms exhibit both similarities and differences in their semantic features. Frequency distribution of them in three corpora shows that these four color terms are all high-frequency words in native English and Chinese. Corpus data also shows that both Chinese learners and native speakers tend to use the conceptual meaning of color terms. However, metaphorical meanings of these color terms have great difference between Chinese learners and native speakers, their translation equivalents tend to co-occur with collocates of different semantic features in order to realize specific semantic prosody, and this is the focus of this study.Secondly, compared with native English, learner English exhibits differences in semantic preference and semantic prosody. Learners tend to choose collocates according to the semantic prosody of their Chinese translation equivalents. For instance, in learner English, RED tends to co-occur with items expressing the meaning of festival celebration or victory, which builds up a pleasant and happy semantic prosody among the context. However, this feature is totally opposite to that of native speakers.Finally, this study analyzes the underlying factors for these differences stated above. The main factor is L1transfer, learners present totally different semantic features from native speakers, but highly consistent with native Chinese.This study, to a great extent, is tentative and exploratory, so drawbacks unavoidably exist. For example, the semantic categories we subdivided for metaphorical meaning are hard to avoid subjective judgment, though we have consulted to the Collins CoBuild Learner’s Dictionary. However, this study leaves an enormous space for future researches on color term collocation.