英文學術期刊論文中連接副詞與情態助動詞：臺灣研究生與英語母語者之比較

Conjunctive Adverbials and Modal Auxiliaries in English Academic Journal Articles: Taiwanese Graduate Students vs. Native Writers

李姿靜(Tzu-ching Li)

指導教授 ： 曹逢甫 ； 蔡維天

國立清華大學/人文社會學院/語言學研究所/博士(2015年)

摘要

本研究旨在探討英語為外國語的台灣研究生在撰寫語言學與英語教學和電機電子學術期刊論文的「前言」時，使用英語連接副詞以及情態助動詞和英語為母語的研究生有何差異。研究分析的語料是由作者收集編輯而成的四個語料庫。台灣學生語料庫各收集100篇學術論文，而英語為母語的學生語料庫則各包含50篇的期刊論文。本研究運用語料庫大量語料的特色採取量化研究，連接副詞以及情態助動詞出現的頻率統計是採用AntConc的語料庫統計功能，並從後設言談(metadiscourse)的語用觀點探討兩者的功能及使用。研究結果顯示台灣研究生與母語研究生一般，傾向於使用固定種類的連接副詞，而台灣研究生尤其侷限於較常使用的連接副詞。在各語意類型的連接副詞方面，台灣學生有偏好使用連接副詞來表達某些語意的傾向，且有些語意偏向少用。從質性分析所得的結果，研究發現台灣研究生誤用besides和therefore等連接副詞，而且在一些較不熟悉的連接副詞使用上也有問題。在情態助動詞部分，can的出現率最高，尤其是在台灣研究生撰寫的電機電子學術期刊論文。另外，對於學生在學術期刊論文中使用連接副詞以及情態助動詞在後設言談的語用功能，也進行分析與探討。而對比分析結果則顯示相較於英語為母語的研究生，台灣研究生較少以情態助動詞作為謹慎語(hedges)的使用。在四組語料的交叉對比分析之下顯示出連接副詞及情態助動詞在不同學科領域的使用差異。本研究結果對於科技英文與學術英文的教學上有實質的助益並可幫助學生在學術寫作上更能正確使用連接副詞與情態助動詞。

關鍵字

連接副詞 ； 情態助動詞 ； 以語料庫為本的研究 ； 學術寫作 ； 學術領域差異

並列摘要

This study investigated the usage of conjunctive adverbials (CAs) and modal auxiliaries in the introduction section of linguistics/TESOL-related and IEEE journal articles written by English native and Taiwanese graduate students. The four corpora compiled by the author were used for analysis. Each of the Taiwanese learner corpora consists of 100 academic articles and per native English-speaking student corpus contains 50 journal papers. The frequency of CAs and modal auxiliaries in the data was calculated by using AntConc. Their functions and uses were interpreted according to metadiscourse from a pragmatic perspective. On a large-scale, corpus-based study, the quantitative results have presented that both Taiwanese EFL learners and English native writers were inclined to use a fixed and limited set of CAs; however, non-native students relied heavily on some of the most commonly used CAs in particular. The analysis in terms of the discrepancies per 10,000 words indicated that some semantic relations are more preferred by student writers whereas other semantic relations are less preferred. In addition, the qualitative analysis demonstrated that some of the Taiwanese students used certain CAs such as besides, therefore inappropriately and had problems with the use of some CAs which were less familiar to them. The modal auxiliary can was calculated to have occurred most frequently, especially in Taiwanese electrical/electronics engineering students’ writing. We also analyzed how the two sets of devices function as metadiscourse markers like hedges, emphatics, attitude markers, and engagement markers in academic writing. Taiwanese writers used modal auxiliaries as hedges less often than native writers. Disciplinary variations in the use of CAs and modal auxiliaries were also revealed under the cross examination of the four sets of writings. The results of our research may assist learners to employ these two linguistic devices efficiently in academic writing.

並列關鍵字

conjunctive adverbials ； modal auxiliaries ； corpus-based study ； academic writing ； disciplinary variation

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