Valency Dictionaries and Chinese Vocabulary Acquisition for Foreign Learners

Jun Gao,Haitao Liu

doi:10.5788/30-1-1548

Abstract

Valency is a major source of lexical errors in foreign language learning. Accordingly, the research question is how the syntactic and semantic properties of a word can be retrieved from the corpora and represented in a Chinese valency dictionary to facilitate foreign learners' vocabulary acquisition. Within the three aspects of the valency framework — logical-semantic, syntactic and semantic-pragmatic valency — this study examines 60 cases of Chinese lexical misuse extracted from the HSK (Chinese Language Proficiency Test) Dynamic Compositions Corpus. The results suggest that the majority of cases of misuse occur in the dimension of semantic-pragmatic valency and that this semantic-pragmatic misuse can be ascribed to various factors such as semantic collocations, emotive variables, text styles, registers, and other contextual factors. The results are then utilized as syntactic, semantic and pragmatic information to be presented in a Chinese valency dictionary. Specifically, the results obtained from a case study of a misused word by referring to a large-scale native Chinese speaker corpus help retrieve a relatively full list of complementation patterns, based on which the study designs a Chinese valency entry that embodies three basic elements — quantitative valency, qualitative valency and valency patterns.

Highlights

A word, as a 'composite unit of form and meaning' (Lyons 2000: 23), has invariably been in the limelight of foreign language teaching and learning
The Chinese valency dictionary examined in this study aims to meet the user needs of language acquisition in general and text production in particular
This study focuses on the lexical level, but due to the limitation of time and space, it does not attempt to examine all the types of lexical misuse committed by foreign learners of Chinese, only selecting some samples

Summary

Introduction

A word, as a 'composite unit of form and meaning' (Lyons 2000: 23), has invariably been in the limelight of foreign language teaching and learning. The teaching of Chinese as a foreign language has centered on grammar while neglecting vocabulary to some extent. Only a handful of lexical problems such as synonyms are posed and addressed in the classroom; whereas, a considerable number of lexical puzzles emerge from learners' daily study due to the specific features of Chinese vocabulary such as flexibility of word order and lack of inflections and derivations (Sun 2006). What follows is a case of misuse of baifang (拜访, visit) found in the HSK Dynamic Compositions Corpus (a corpus that collected the writings of nonnative Chinese learners who participated in the HSK advanced level writing tests).

Objectives

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion