Polysemous Words In English For Senior High Schools Published By Beijing Normal University Press:A Corpus-Based Analysis

In second language learning,a puzzling problem for English learners is how to correctly understand and use polysemous words.However,few studies have focused on the analysis and evaluation of polysemous words in textbooks.The present study,taking English for Senior High Schools published by Beijing Normal University Press as research object,specializes in the analysis of the vocabulary,frequency and distribution of polysemous words in the textbooks,hoping to provide inspiration and help for the teaching and learning of the textbook.The series of English for Senior High Schools consist of compulsory textbooks,selective compulsory textbooks and elective textbooks.The textbooks in this study mainly refer to three volumes of the compulsory and four volumes of the selective compulsory.By analyzing polysemous words in the seven textbooks,this study tries to answer the following questions:(1)How many words are there in the textbooks that meet the curriculum standard?Furthermore,how many polysemous words are there in the textbooks that meet the curriculum standard?(2)What is the frequency and distribution of these polysemous words in the textbooks?And to what extent do the different senses of polysemous words with high frequency and wide distribution occur in the textbooks?In this research,all the corpus in the seven concerned textbooks are firstly transcribed into word documents,and then are put into Range ECV-poly,so as to observe the frequency and distribution of polysemous words in these textbooks.Then,by using Excel tools to screen the data of Range analysis,the specific number of polysemous words in different frequency and distribution is obtained.Finally,by referring to the wordlist of the textbooks and Longman dictionary,and by analyzing the context of polysemous words in teaching material corpus with AntConc software,this study is to acquire the presentation of polysemous words with high frequency and wide distribution in the textbooks.The research results show that:(1)In terms of vocabulary coverage,there are 2730 words in the curriculum standard vocabulary(excluding homographs,synonyms,derivatives and inflected words),among which 2541 words are presented in the textbooks,with a coverage rate of 93.08%.There are 1170 polysemous words in the curriculum standard vocabulary,among which 1100 are presented in the textbooks,with a coverage rate is 94.02%(2)In terms of the frequency and distribution of polysemous words,71.36%of polysemous words are presented more than 6 times,and 12.55%of them are presented less than 3 times;53.73%of polysemous words are distributed in more than 6 units,and 22.82%of them are distributed in less than 3 units.In addition,different senses of polysemous words with high frequency and wide distribution are well presented in the textbooks,88.81%of them presenting two or more different senses.Generally speaking,the seven textbooks have covered almost all the polysemous words required by the curriculum standard,and most of them enjoy high frequency,balanced distribution and effective presentation of various senses in the textbooks.Therefore,the textbook series can satisfactorily meet the requirements of polysemous words teaching and learning.However,in comparison with the compulsory textbooks,the selective compulsory textbooks still need to be improved because of the low frequency,random distribution,and insufficient coherence and cohesion of polysemous words in the selective compulsory textbooks.Thus,the present research can familiarize teachers with the arrangement and help their teaching of polysemous words in the textbooks.On the other hand,it can give some inspirations to the compilers in terms of how to present polysemous words more systematically and rationally in high school textbooks.