A Corpus-based Comparative Study Of Vagueness Tags In Spoken English By Chinese EFL Learners And Native English Speakers

Vagueness tags are frequently used in spoken English by native English speakers.However, for most of the Chinese EFL learners, it is relatively difficult for them touse vagueness tags correctly and appropriately in that their cognition of the particularexpression is not sufficient. The present study would analyze the top five frequencyvagueness tags (or something, and so on, and that, and everything, and or anything)to conduct a comparative study on how the native English speakers use vaguenesstags and what differences between the Chinese EFL learners and native Englishspeakers in the use of vagueness tags.This thesis carried out a case study of Guangxi Teachers Education University(shortened as GXTEU) from the perspective of the Chinese EFL learners who studyEnglish as their second major. Based on the corpus-based approach, the study isconducted in the following steps. First, by using the software SARA (SGML AwareRetrieval Application), the concordances of the top five frequency vagueness tags inBNC are obtained. Afterwards，the five tags’ concordances are retrieved from theCOLSEC and SCGXTEU. Second, concordances used for investigation are extractedfrom BNC, COLSEC, and SCGXTEU by the program Concordance-sampler, and thefrequencies of the five vagueness tags in each corpus are calculated. Lastly, throughutilizing the Chi-Square Calculator, the Chi-square value of each vagueness tags inthe three corpora are calculated so as to prove that there exist significant differencesamong the five tags in three different corpora. Based on the above procedures, theformal features and pragmatic functions of the vagueness tags are analyzed betweennative English speakers and Chinese EFL learners.According to the comparative study, Chinese EFL learners underuse most of thetop five frequency vagueness tags exception the one “and so on”, especially thestudents of GXTEU. In relation to the formal features, Chinese EFL learners employthe same prototype of vagueness tags as the native English speakers. However, they also misuse and create vagueness tags，which are caused by the first language transferand pragmatic competence deficiency. It is found that the frequency of usingvagueness tags by native English speakers is higher than that of the Chinese EFLlearners. In terms of the form of vagueness tags, they tend to use the prototype ofthem, but there exist variants. The variants are realized by extensions, lexical variants.Besides, these tags possess the property of inferential function, adapting function,intensifying function, and interpersonal function.This thesis objectively analyzed how the Chinese EFL learners use the top fivefrequency tags, which would help teach spoken English for the English learners whostudying English as second major.