A Study On Chinese English Learners’ Use Of Negation Based On Markedness Theory

The realizations of negation in English are flexible and changeable, which for Chinese learners is thorny. It is difficult for some students to ascertain and understand some delicate negative expressions even after years of learning. In addition, there exist differences in the cognitive and thinking patterns of people from different cultural background so there are differences between Chinese and English in the realizations of structures of words and sentences, and negation is no exception. For English majors who have been often exposed to both Chinese and Western culture, troubles also arise in expressing negation.This study which aims to reveal the current situation of negative expressions by English learners in their writings is based on large-scale corpora. The data of this thesis come from WECCL(Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners) and LOCNESS(The Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays) with the latter one as a referent. The author refers to negative words, negative phrases and grammatical structures listed by Quick, et.al. in A comprehensive grammar of the English language and classifies those commonly used negative expressions under the framework of Markedness theory. Then the author searches negation of each category in both WECCL and LOCNESS. After all the retrieval works being completed, the results are screened manually and items that are not pertinent to this research are deleted. The marked and unmarked characteristics of negative expressions by Chinese English learners and native speakers can be reflected by the general distribution and frequencies of marked and unmarked expressions in WECCL and LOCNESS.This thesis is composed of six chapters.Chapter One is the introduction part, in which the author presents the research background and significance of this thesis. As one of the important domain of language, negation has always gained attention from scholars at home and abroad. Negative expressions in English are various and intricate. Thus it causes troubles for second language learners no matter in understanding or in producing. Some sentences are devoid of any negative markers, however contain negative information, express negative attitudes and convey negative intents. As advanced English learners, English majors have acquired relatively systematic and comprehensive vocabulary and grammar knowledge and accumulated certain amount of cross-cultural knowledge. However, mistakes can also be found in their writings. By comparing them with native college students, the general trends and characteristics of Chinese English learners as a group can be attained and the gap between them and native speakers can be discovered, which may have guiding significance for English teaching.Chapter Two serves as literature review, which consists of three parts. In the first part, the author spares much space on the classifications of negation within linguistic domain. The second part reviews overseas studies on negation, mainly focusing on two aspects: one is concerned with the constructions and meanings of negation at lexical and grammatical level, especially issues concerning the structures and domains of negation; the other mainly deals with the presupposition of negation and meta-negation at pragmatic level. The third part elaborates on the general status of negation studies at home, which mainly focuses on the structures of negation, negators, the scope and domain of negation and the translation of English negation into Chinese, etc.Chapter Three serves as the theoretical framework of this thesis. Markedness theory is widely applied to analyze the asymmetry at different language layer. Based on Markedness theory, this thesis dichotomizes English negation into marked and unmarked and analyzes the marked and unmarked characteristics of negative expressions produced by Chinese English learners.Chapter Four introduces the research method of this thesis. Firstly, three questions to be solved by this thesis are as follows: 1) What are the lexical features of negation produced by Chinese English learners and native speakers in their writings? 2) What are the syntactic features of negation produced by Chinese English learners and native speakers in their writings? 3) What are the possible factors that account for the differences between Chinese English learners and native English speakers in the use of negation? Then, the author introduces the research tools, including the corpus and the retrieving software. Finally, the author elaborates on the concrete procedures of the whole research.Chapter Five displays the results and discussions. By retrieving marked and unmarked negations in WECCL and LOCNESS both at lexical and grammatical level, comparing and analyzing the frequencies and distributions, the author gets the marked and unmarked characteristics of Chinese English learners and native college students. At lexical level, Chinese English learners overuse unmarked negations, especially certain patterns. Marked negations applied by Chinese English learners are far fewer than those produced by native college students. Underutilizations are very common in noun negation and verb negation. At grammatical level, Chinese English learners differ from native college students slightly. Chinese English learners rely more on sentential negation, particularly negations formed by combining a modal verb and the negator not. Marked grammatical negations have not been attached enough attention, which can be seen from the fact that they are underused in general and frequently misused.Chapter Six draws a conclusion of the thesis. Firstly, the main finding of this research is displayed: Chinese English learners differ from native students to a certain degree in expressing negation both lexically and grammatically. In particular, marked expressions are underused and misused. Next, the research significance is further sorted to enlighten both teaching and learning activities. Finally, the limitations of this thesis are pointed out and suggestions to the follow-up researches are given.