Phraseology of SO in English News Reports-a Corpus-based Study_英语论文

摘要

在大多数情况下，分析语料库数据是研究词汇的佳法。本文采用的是基于外媒对广州的报道的自建语料库。本文统计了单词SO分别作为连词和副词的频率，与其常见的搭配词也被统计和分析研究。通过分析SO此单词本身和其搭配词的频率，发现并总结了SO的一般规则和具体用法。其中短语so far出现频率最高，位于句首和句末的频率大致相当，且其常单独出现在句首。常用短语so that和so…that…使用频率尾随其后，其中后者的搭配更为多样。SO作为连词出现频率高于其作为副词，但副词的搭配方法更为多样和灵活。

通过目标词的搭配综合分析得出，SO的中性语义韵出现频率最高，而其积极语义韵与消极语义韵使用频率大致相当。短语so far的中性和消极语义韵使用频率远远高于其积极语义韵，其中消极语义韵使用更广泛；常用搭配so called的语义韵使用规律与前者类似，但其消极语义韵倾向与其词义有关。

关键词：语料库  连词  副词  搭配词  语义韵

Abstract

In most cases, analyzing corpus data is a great way to study vocabulary. The study is based on the self-built corpus from foreign news reporting on Guangzhou. Frequency of the word SO is counted respectively as a conjunction and as an adverb. The collocations of SO are also counted as well as studied. Through analysing the frequency of it alone and its collocations, general rules and specific usages are discovered and summarized. In terms of frequency, the phrase “so far” ranks first, whose frequency of appearing at the beginning and at the end of the sentence is roughly equal, and it often appears alone at the beginning of the sentence. The commonly used phrases “so that” and “so...that...” follow the frequency, and the latter is more diverse in collocation. SO appears more frequently as a conjunction than as an adverb, but the adverb's collocation method is more diverse and flexible.

Through the comprehensive analysis of the target word collocations, it is concluded that the neutral semantic prosody of SO has the highest frequency, while the positive semantic prosody and the negative semantic prosody are of similar frequency. The neutral and negative semantic prosody of the phrase “so far” is used more often than its positive semantic prosody. In addition, the negative semantic prosody is more widely used. The semantic prosody using rules of the common collocation “so-called” is similar to the former, but there is a relationship between its negative semantic prosody tendency and its meaning.

Key words: corpus  conjunction  adverb  collocation  semantic prosody  

Contents

Chapter One  Introduction 1

1.1  The Significance of the Present Study 1

1.2  The Aim of the Present Study 1

1.3  Research Questions in the Present Study 2

Chapter Two  Literature Review 3

2.1  Definitions of Collocation and Semantic Prosody 3

2.2  Previous Studies on Collocation and Semantic Prosody 4

2.3  Previous Studies on SO 4

Chapter Three  Methodology 6

3.1  Self-built Corpus 6

3.2  Software-AntConc 6

Chapter Four  Findings and Analysis 7

4.1  Overall Frequencies of SO 7

4.2  Collocation Features and Frequently-used Collocation Patterns of SO 8

4.3  Grammatical Collocation Rules of SO 11

4.4  Analysis on SO’s Semantic Prosody 14

Chapter Five  Conclusion 17

5.1  Major Findings 17

5.2 Pedagogical Implications 17

5.3 Limitations of the Study 17

Bibliography

Acknowledgements