Research On English And Chinese Modal Verbs In Conversation Under The Framework Of Contrastive Phraseology

Contrastive phraseology aims to discover and describe phrasal units from cross-linguistic perspective,which is particularly interested in their bilingual equivalence status.The model of extended units of meaning is currently a leading theoretical framework for the study of phraseology in contrast and the model is composed of such categories as core word(s),collocation,colligation,semantic preference and semantic prosody.Among them,semantic prosody conveys the attitudinal meaning of the whole units,reflecting the speaker’s communicative purpose,and plays a leading role in the choice of vocabulary and grammatical items,which is the main influencing factor of the shift of meaning units.However,the existing research on semantic prosody mainly focuses on written texts,while spoken language,especially spoken conversation has rarely been carried out.Compared with written expressions,co-occurring lexical sequences in spoken expressions are often shorter,but contain more abundant means for expressing meanings and attitudes such as phonetics and intonation.It can be seen that there are still a lot of topics to be studied in semantic prosody research.The realization of semantic prosody in spoken conversation is an important issue to be addressed,which has certain significance for extending the study of semantic prosody.Modal expressions are closely related to people’s feelings and attitudes,which are ubiquitous but the most elusive.The frequent use of modal verbs contributes considerably to the expression of semantic prosody in spoken language.In view of this,this study investigates the semantic prosody expressed in oral English and Chinese conversation,their bilingual correspondence and relevant influencing factors through examining the phraseological behaviour of modal verbs can and neng2.The research questions in this thesis include:(1)What are the characteristics of can in colligation,semantic preference and semantic prosody?(2)What are the characteristics of neng2 in colligation,semantic preference and semantic prosody?(3)What are the corresponding relationships between the main patterns of can and neng2 and possible factors underlying them?This is a corpus-based study and the major findings of this research are as follows:In both English and Chinese spoken conversations,can and neng2 tend to appear in multiple patterns and express multiple semantic prosodies.The main patterns of can include can+VP,can+pron.+VP,can+Neg.+VP,Pron.+can(End),Wh-/H-words+can and can+"only/just"+VP.In these patterns,VP has specific semantic characteristics.Among them,can+VP can be divided into[1st]pron.+can+[notional]VP,[2nd]pron.+ can+[notional]VP,and[3rd]pron.+can+[notional]VP according to the previous NP.And they respectively express"affirmation,positiveness,willingness","advice,support" and "certainty".The main patterns of neng2 include neng2+VP,neng2gou4(能够)+VP,zhi3neng2(只能)/cai2neng2(才能)+VP,neng2bu4neng2(能不能)+VP.Among them,neng2+VP is divided into positive structure Affirm.+neng2+VP,negative structure Neg.+neng2+VP,and Wh-/H-structure neng2+ VP+(Wh-/H-particle)+"?" Each pattern expresses a specific semantic prosody or multiple prosodies.It shows that the both can and neng2 have multiple patterns,each expressing a specific semantic prosody or prosodies and only part of the bilingual patterns correspond to each other.The same pattern may express multiple semantic prosodies,which need to be determined by conversational speech.For example,according to the vocabulary and grammatical information provided by这个呀,这真看不出来是你。你怎么能找到这个工作?(Well,I can’t tell it’s you.How can you find the job?),the pattern of(zen3me1(怎么))+neng2+VP+"?" can not determine whether the semantic prosody is "doubt,uncertainty" or "praise,admiration".The pattern of zhi3neng2(只能)/cai2neng2(才能)+VP usually expresses the semantic prosody of"negative:difficult,helpless",but in some concordance lines,it expresses "indirect praise" or"depreciating oneself and elevating others".For another example,"Can I?" and "Can you?" are used to express the semantic prosody of "expecting to get support from the other side" and"determining and hoping for confirmation".The analysis of oral conversation data shows that some texts may be ambiguous in terms of attitude and meaning,which can only be recognized by corresponding speech materials.There is a complex corresponding relationship between can and neng2 in colligation and semantic prosody:the main patterns tend to correspond both in colligation and semantic prosody;some patterns correspond in colligation,but not in semantic prosody;or have no corresponding relationship in colligation and semantic prosody.For example,in the spoken Chinese conversation,neng2gou4(能够)+VP expresses that the target event has a certain degree of difficulty,and it takes time and effort to do it,whose semantic prosody is inclined to be"admiration".However,in spoken English conversation,the can+VP pattern has not been found to express this kind of attitude.For another example,in oral English conversations,people are used to using"Can you/I...?" and other ellipsis to further confirm the attitude and meaning of the person being spoken in order to expect the other person to affirm or support it.In contrast,in oral Chinese conversations,people usually use the complete form of neng2＋VP+"ma1?" to express similar meaning or semantic prosody.It shows that even if the modal verbs such as can and neng2 tend to be highly corresponding,there are great differences in co-selection patterns such as colligation and semantic prosody.The above findings have certain implications.Unlike written expressions,oral expressions,in addition to relying on lexical grammatical sequences to express attitude and meaning,also rely on factors such as phonetic intonation.It shows that in addition to the linear co-occurrence of lexis and grammar,the extended units of meaning and attitudinal meaning in speech expression are also affected by prosodic elements such as phonetic intonation.Therefore,an in-depth discussion of the features of spoken semantic prosody has some enlightenment to enrich and develop the theory of semantic prosody.The above findings remind us that to examine meaning in oral communication,especially attitudinal meaning,we do not only need to consider co-occurring words,but also need to take into account such factors as the co-occurring prosodic features of different words.Different languages may have obvious differences in these characteristics,which is an important part of oral teaching.of the above findings can have considerable pedagogical implication for oral English teaching.