浙江林学院国际育学院.pptVIP

A Corpora Study of English Dimension AdjectivesIn Academic Speaking and Writing Chen Shengwei International College Zhejiang Forestry University 陈声威 浙江林学院国际教育学院 1. Adjectives Biber et al. (1999): central adjectives peripheral adjectives color, size, dimension, time, etc - descriptive, characterizing the referent of a nominal expression 2. What dimension adjectives in focus? broad deep high long low tall wide high vs. tall Tsui (2001): …high to be used in a metaphorical sense with more abstract nouns; tall to be used more frequently with concrete nouns such as people, trees and buildings. 3. Research questions What is the relationship of dimension adjectives between literal and non-literal uses in academic English speaking and writing? What are the features of academic adjectives in their non-literal uses? Defining literal uses of dimension adjectives: where they define the spatial extents of concrete and visible objects 4. The corpora 4.1 MICASE - 1.7 millions words from 152 speech events recorded the University of Michigan 1997 – 2001 - lectures, colloquia, research group meetings, dissertation defense, faculty meetings, student study groups - English Language Institute, The University of Michigan; Rita Simpson, John Swales 4. The Corpora 4.2 Hyland - 1.3 million words - 80 recent (by 2004) research articles, 10 each from eight fields - Professor Ken Hyland of the Institute of Education of University of London 5. Data collected 6. The findings 6.1 All have been used more or less in literal sense. tall: 24 out of 26 in M, 4 of 5 in H; Majority ranging between 10 – 50 %; Average: 27.7 for M, 21.3 for H. 6. The findings The dimension adjectives are rather frequently used, and more frequently used in non-literal sense than literal sense, in both academic speaking and writing Literal uses of tall vs.