The Use of Amplifiers in the Doctoral Dissertations of Chinese EFL Learners

Abstract

This paper reports a study into the use of amplifiers and amplifier collocations in the doctoral dissertations of Chinese EFL learners. A sample corpus of doctoral dissertations by Chinese doctoral students and a control corpus of doctoral dissertations by native speaker doctoral students were compiled and used for the analyses. Results showed that the overall number of amplifiers used by the Chinese students and the native speaker students were comparable. However, the Chinese learners overused totally, very and really and underused entirely and highly in their writing. Moreover, the Chinese learners tended to use more amplifier collocations than their native speaker counterparts. In particular, they tended to use clearly much more frequently to intensify the reporting verbs and to use the amplifiers to intensify the meaning of general adjectives in their writing. It was also found that many amplifier collocations used by the Chinese learners were congruent collocations. The findings may indicate a non-native style within Chinese learners’ writing. We argue that Chinese learners overuse amplifiers and amplifier collocations in order to focus the reader’s attention as well as to enhance the meaning of general adjectives. Meanwhile, the Chinese learners’ mother tongue exerts a clear influence on their use of amplifiers and amplifier collocations. Pedagogical implications are also discussed within the paper.