The Use of Modal Verb in English Writing: Corpus Views

Abstract

This study analyzes the use of modal verb based on the corpus of Chinese English learners. The purpose of the study is to investigate the situation of modal verb used by English majors in China in their writing. Through the application of advanced software, this study reaches the results that the fr equency of the English majors using modal verb is phased and a ssociated with students' language competence, but differs greatly. However, the students who have low level of English tend to use the modal verb. In troduction Modal verbs have been a heated topic in writing circle during the past 30 years. By now, it is very common to use a corpus to investigate the application of modal verb. It seems that students need to take notice of modal verb. Learners try to do the research, but modal verb got little attention. This thesis seeks to remedy this omission, applying an approach to modal verbs in English by comparing the native corpus with the learner corpus. The study of modal verbs used by the corpus is more objective and comprehensive. This study aims to find out the using tendency of modal verb English majors in writing by comparing the native English corpus with the Chinese learner corpus. The motivation of this paper is like this: Firstly, modal verb is helpful to encourage the author to write this thesis. The modal verbs are very important to the writing of English. Students can use the modal verb to know the sequences of Language. But we know about our world so little that we need to use some words and to talk about what may be true and may be not, what ought to be and ought not to be, what certain individuals are capable of and what is impossible for them, what obligations we have to do or refrain from doing. Secondly, there is a certain degree of practical significance, our English teaching and learning. Hope that the results of this study will reveal the modal sequence common problems in ESL/EFL writing environment. At the same time, also hope that, by the high score group and low score group are established using modal series automatic scoring system useful. This study can help us to know the use of modal verbs in English writing by Chinese English learners. Also, it is helpful to improve English writing skills.