| Complex-transitive pattern is a kind of common argument structure.As a member of it,as-predicative with its notable symbol that the complement is closely followed by the particle as is commonly used in native English.However,it is found that for Chinese English learners the use of the structure is limited and confined to expressions like regard…as…and treat…as…Learners tend to regard them as fixed phrases to learn and remember,which restricts the learners'language output flexibility,richness and authenticity to a certain extent.If the structure is learned as a collostruction and then learners grasp its frequency distribution,structure features and the construction meaning,learners'abilities of language output,language comprehension and language learning can be improved to some extent.The previous studies of the as-predicative either only focus on its meaning or only pay attention to the lexical characteristics of its verb slot.It is insufficient for a more in-depth and comprehensive study of the structure.Hence,based on corpus collostructional analysis,applying as-predicative as research objective,using COCA as data resource,selecting R software as research tool,this thesis attempts to explore in depth the as-predicative in the light of usage-based theory and then answers the following three questions:(1)What are the characteristics of frequency distribution,verb type and its distribution of the as-predicative?(2)What are the semantic characteristics of the as-predicative?(3)How should Chinese EFL learners acquire the as-predicative?Research findings are as follows:(1)The total token frequency of as-predicative is 119,468 and its total type frequency is 1,291,which shows that it is of a certain productivity and entrenchment.With regard to genres,the rank of frequency from high to low is academic journals,newspaper,magazine,spoken and fiction and that of sub-constructions is NP,AP,NFC(ing)and PP.The verbs appearing in the as-predicative show preference for some certain types of verbs.Cognition verbs(50%)and communication verbs(34%)take large proportions.Social verbs(10%)account for a relatively small percentage.Creation verbs(4%)and consumption verbs(2%)seldom occur.In terms of genres,communication verbs are the most frequently used in spoken while cognition verbs are the most frequently used in academic journals.Other verbs types are broadly consistent with general features.However,when comes to concrete context,even the same verb types have different usages in various genres.With respect to sub-constructions,verbs types are the same as the overall features but in sub-construction with NP,verbs types are the most abundant.(2)The central meaning of the as-predicative is to represent the cognitive psychological process.Concretely,it is subject's epistemic stance or reservation towards the relationship between the object and its complement in aspect of entity,property and state,or the subject offers characteristics and classifications to the object.Different levels of cognition verbs occurring in the construction,the subject's judgment or reservation is reserved or prudent or doubtful or clear.The extended meaning of the as-predicative:?The subject conveys the content of the relationship between the object and its complement through speech-act activities.The relationship is intentionally expressed and established by the subject.? The subject appoints or dismisses the object by social relation behavior,which leads to the benefit or damage to the object in terms of social status and position and highlights the equivalent relationship between the object and the complement.?The subject gives characteristics to the object,which the subject changes the characteristics of the object through material behavioral activities so that the object possesses the attributes of the complement.At this time,the relationship between the object and the complement is often temporary.? The subject creates the complement by material behavioral activities and brings a resultative meaning to the object.From the central meaning to the extended meaning,the usage of the construction is extended from static to dynamic,which conforms to human cognitive preference for dynamics.(3)It is advised that Chinese EFL learners learn the as-predicative from the usage-based perspective.Pay attention to frequency effects and increase the type frequency and token frequency of the construction;Focus on collexemes of both high co-occurrence frequency and strong collostruction strength;Master the central meaning and extended meaning of the construction and apply more verb types to it;Grasp the distribution characteristics of verb types,structures and genres and then combine them with different constructional meaning.Based on a corpus collostructional analysis,the study of the as-predicative is expected to provide suggestions for Chinese EFL learners' acquisition of the construction and then help improve learners'abilities of language output,language comprehension and language learning. |
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