Use of Especially and Its Synonyms by Chinese and Korean EFL Learners: A Corpus-based Study

Abstract

The present study examines the use of especially and its synonyms, particularly, specially, specifically, and in particular, in Chinese and Korean EFL learners` writing in comparison with native English speakers` use and then investigates the relationship between English textbooks and learners` language use. To do this, a Chinese learner corpus, a Korean learner corpus, and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) were utilized. Furthermore, widely used middle and high school English textbooks from China and Korea were scrutinized. It was found that especially and particularly were the only of the studied synonyms from the COCA that occurred with comparable frequency, the rest appearing much less frequently. Chinese and Korean EFL learners overused especially and underused particularly compared to native speakers. The earlier introduction and more frequent occurrence of especially than particularly in textbooks could possibly influence EFL learners` selection of the former over the latter. Chinese and Korean EFL learners tended to put especially and particularly in the sentence-initial position functioning as a sentence modifier, while native speakers by and large employed them in sentence-medial position functioning as a modifier of an adjective. The collocates of especially and particularly in Chinese and Korean EFL learners` texts were mostly nouns, whereas adjectives were the most common collocates in native speakers` texts. Some implications of the findings are also discussed.