Factors accounting for the patterning features

Typical patterning features in learner English are summarized into the frequently used intensifi ers based on the investigation. Factors accountable for typical pat-terning features are listed as follows:

(1) The misuse of intensifi er patterns in learner English can be traced to L1 transfer.

Patterning features of intensifi ers 85 The present research supports the argument that learners’ non-native-like expressions are, to a great extent, due to L1 transfer. Similarities and differences between the target language and the mother tongue exert infl uence on L2 (Odlin, 1989). Negative transfer leads to errors, over-production, underproduction, mis-comprehension and other effects that constitute a divergence between the behavior of native and non-native speakers of a language (Odlin, 1989: 167). The present research shows that the problems of misuse in learner English are negatively trans-ferred from learners’ Chinese. Pattern vt A LITTLE adj is a good illustration of this point. Examples like have a little afraid of plane and have a little unhappy are cases in which learners misuse adjective afraid and unhappy as nouns. The transfer from Chinese grammar causes learners’ confusion of nouns with pronouns in Eng-lish. To express the meaning of “being afraid, being unhappy,” learners just trans-late Chinese “有些害怕” “有点不高兴” literally into English, ignoring differences in the parts of speech of words in the two languages.

Another example of negative L1 transfer is the misuse of the pattern “ TOO MANY adj n ” in learner English, in which expressions of too many beer , so many oil , so many homework , so many food , etc., are found. Collocations of too much assignments and too much mountains are of the same problem. In English, too many collocates with countable nouns and too much with uncountable nouns. In Chinese, adjectives or adjectival phrases do not change in form when they modify countable or uncountable nouns. Therefore, it is very likely that learners will trans-fer their habitual way of using Chinese nouns into the way they use English nouns.

They use too many and too much interchangeably to modify a noun. Knowledge in Chinese is transferred when learners use English. Thus we can fi nd the colloca-tions too much friends and too much assignments in learner English. Differences between learners’ native language (Chinese) and their target language (English) cause diffi culties in learning the target language, especially when learners have partial command of the target language.

(2) Teaching and learning materials are responsible for the overuse and underuse of certain patterns in learner English.

A close relationship between the overuse and underuse of certain patterns and the textbook content has been detected in the present research. Learners tend to overuse some patterns and underuse others. The overused and underused patterns are closely related to the textbook input and dictionary inventories. When a pattern appears early and frequently in the textbooks, learners have a good chance of becoming familiar with it. Such patterns investigated in this research include MORE AND MORE adj , TOO adj to vt n , etc., which appear at the earlier period of Chinese learners’ English study and more frequently in their textbooks. Thus they consequently tend to become learners’ “teddy bears” in their daily expression and keep learners staying “safe,”

especially in test conditions (Hasselgren, 1994). In contrast, some patterns – for example, INCREASINGLY adj and SOMEWHAT adj – are underused by learners because they are introduced in the textbooks with a relatively lower frequency and at a rather later period of the learners’ English study. Learners “play safe” by holding

86 Patterning features of intensifi ers

tight to those “teddy bears” and avoid using new and unfamiliar patterns. They often fall back on using the linguistic system that is more familiar to them, especially when they want to express a complex concept. Therefore, it is suggested that linguistic patterns should be carefully selected for textbook material with the aid of corpus data. The input of representative and authentic patterns in language learning can be of help for language learning and teaching.

(3) Learners’ use of synonyms causes non-native expression.

The present study and many others (Ren, 2008; Wang, 2009; Lu, 2012) have proved that “near synonyms are lexical pairs that have very similar cognitive or denotational meanings, but they differ in collocational or prosodic behaviours. As such, synonymous words are not collocationally interchangeable. . .” (Xiao &

McEnery, 2006: 108). Synonyms share denotational meaning but have different connotational, syntactical and functional meanings in most cases. Therefore, more often than not, synonyms cannot substitute one another. Sun (2006) traces this type of error to learners’ communication-based errors of holistic strategy.

The present study shows that synonymous maximizers totally , completely , abso-lutely , entirely and fully do not fi ll in the MAX slot in the pattern neg MAX adj with equal opportunities. Learners use the fi ve synonymous maximizers inter-changeably and therefore they produce the pattern neg ABSOLUTELY adj and the pattern neg COMPLETELY adj , which are not used by native speakers. Poor awareness of colligational and collocational restrictions of synonyms is found to be learners’ major diffi culty. The non-native expressions need attention from lan-guage book publishers, teachers and the learners themselves. The collocation, col-ligation, semantic preference and semantic prosody of synonyms should all be taken into account in the learning and teaching process of synonyms. Native cor-pora can provide authentic data to distinguish synonyms and should be taken advantage of in language learning and teaching.

(4) Poor register-awareness results in awkward expressions in learner English.

Different registers have different expressions in vocabulary and grammar (Halli-day, 1978). Many previous studies have detected that lexis and patterns are register restrictive (Altenberg, 1991, 1997; Biber et al., 2000). The evidence from this study shows that learners have poor register awareness. For example, the pattern VERY VERY adj is a device employed to intensify an attitude in spoken rather than in writ-ten discourse. But learners overuse this pattern signifi cantly in writwrit-ten texts. Another example is the usage of the pattern neg MAX adj . Native English speakers tend to use entirely in the pattern neg MAX adj in written texts. Learners, however, are likely to use the pattern neg ABSOLUTELY adj in oral registers. Learners’ poor register awareness leads to non-native expressions in learner English. Raising learners’ reg-ister awareness is necessary to guarantee the production of native-like English.

(5) Weak pragmatic skill causes the over-simplifi cation of patterns and rigid expression in learner English.

Patterning features of intensifi ers 87 Intensifi ers may contribute to illocutionary force modifi cation of certain speech acts, serving the function of either aggravation or mitigation (Merlini, 1997). The use of multi-intensifi ers is found in native written English to aggravate an attitude, as in the uses of FAR TOO adj to vt n , ALL TOO adj to vt n and MUCH TOO adj to vt n . Intensifi ers of far , all and much before the pattern TOO ADJ to vt n serve as an reinforcement of the expressed attitude. Mitigation devices are neces-sary in certain communicative situations, in which speakers can pass the primary message and express the desired attitude in polite manners. Because “. . .some acts are intrinsically threatening to face and thus require softening” (Brown & Levin-son, 1987). Therefore, speakers will employ politeness strategies which are soften-ing devices to make strong assertions more acceptable to boost smooth communication. Prefabs of a little too much , almost too much , almost too adj to vt n , just too adj to vt n , etc., found in this research are politeness devices to soften the face-threatening acts.

In contrast, the aforementioned pragmatic devices cannot be found in learner English. To show a strong attitude, learners simply use the patterns TOO MUCH adj or TOO ADJ to vt n , etc., which reveals learners’ weak pragmatic competence.

However, pragmatic capacity is critical in communication because it may ulti-mately determine whether or not a successful communicative interaction can take place. Therefore, raising learners’ pragmatic awareness and building up learners’

pragmatic competence are important tasks for language learning and teaching.

5.4 Summary

To summarize, an in-depth study of the frequently used intensifi ers has been con-ducted in terms of their patterning features. Learner data demonstrate learners’

distinctive patterning features in using intensifi ers. We have found that although the pattern distribution trend in learner English is similar to that in native English, learner English displays remarkable deviant patterning features from native Eng-lish. For example, learners over-rely on familiar patterns and avoid unfamiliar patterns; they coin new patterns, which are problematic and never used by native speakers. For all the investigated cases, L1 transfer appears to be the main cause for the misuse of intensifi ers patterns. In addition, the biased input of teaching and learning material, the using of synonymous intensifi ers as interchangeable items, etc., are also causal factors for the learners’ errors in using intensifi ers. As far as the learner knowledge is concerned, the over-simplifi cation of intensifi er patterns and rigid expression of learner English all point to learners’ inadequate pragmatic knowledge.

Notes

1 Register categories fi eld, tenor, mode (Halliday & Hasan, 1985) and is confi gured with the three variables. In this research, the variation of register mainly refers to the variation of the mode – i.e. spoken versus written.

2 The word much is not an adjective in all the concordance lines, but they are worth men-tioning since they are fi xed expressions concerning the node word so .

6 Semantic preference and semantic