5.1. Research Question 1: Frequency of Word Class
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Nouns
NLPIR segmented and tagged four classes of proper nouns, and noun phrases or idioms. The focus in this study was on proper nouns, which include the names of people, the names of places, the names of an institutes or organizations, and other proper nouns. The results of the Mann–Whitney test are shown in
Table 1.
The results in
Table 1 show that the frequencies of nouns, names of people, and names of places used by EMs were significantly higher than the frequencies used by CMs. This difference may be because English majors must translate many English names of people and places into Chinese. The high frequency of these two kinds of nouns may lead to the total number of nouns in EMs’ abstracts being significantly higher than in the CMs’. However, despite this explanation, there are other reasons that need to be explored. Some Chinese scholars have noticed that, compared with Chinese, nouns are preferred in English to express ideas or describe a person or thing [
24,
25]. Some linguists claim that English is primarily a “nominalizing language” [
26,
27]. In the process of the nominalization of English, three types of nouns are generally used to denote an action: an action noun derived from a verb with the addition of a derivational suffix (e.g., preparation, adjustment); a gerund derived from a verb with the addition of -
ing (e.g., setting, building); and the same word used as a noun without any morphological change (e.g., control, search). English majors are more likely to keep the same nominal class when they translate English into Chinese or write in Chinese. For example:
第二章对弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫独特的女性主义视角进行了探讨…第三章聚焦在对文本《一间自己的房间》中的分析。
(EM No. 19)
(In Chapter two, discussions about Virginia Woolf’s unique feminist perspective will be made…Chapter Three will focus on an analysis of the text of A Room of One’s Own.)
探讨 (discussion) and 分析 (analysis) (in italics) are verbs in traditional Chinese; however, both of them are used as nouns in this EM’s written Chinese. This also occurs in CMs’ abstracts because CMs are not real monolinguals and every university student in China has studied English for at least 10 years. Their Chinese is thus likely to have also been affected by English, although the change in their Chinese is less noticeable.
Another reason is that the serial verb construction, also known as verb serialization or verb stacking, a syntactic phenomenon in which two or more verbs or verb phrases are strung together in a single clause [
28], is frequently used in traditional Chinese, but EMs are inclined to transfer the English nominal structure into Chinese. For example:
牛仔少年们是有血有肉,有生有死,能力有限却也努力逐梦的人。
(EM No.34)
(The cowboys are flesh-and-blood mortal men who insist on the pursuit of their dreams in spite of limited ability.)
A CM may express the same meaning with a serial verb construction without the linking verb, 是, and the noun, 人, which makes Chinese more concise and idiomatic:
牛仔少年们有血有肉,有生有死,能力有限却也努力逐梦。
(The cowboys (are) flesh-and-blood mortal (men), pursue their dreams in spite of limited ability.)
Although the EM’s longer structure is acceptable in Chinese, it sounds verbose and unidiomatic to Chinese native speakers.
The third important reason is that null-subject sentences are common in Chinese when a subject can be inferred from the sentence or context. Usually, it is a noun that functions as the subject. For example, the following is an excerpt from a CM’s abstract without the subject, 本文, in parentheses:
最后,(本文) 探索了《檀香刑》民间叙事在现当代文学史的意义,梳理五四到90年代民间叙事的种种变迁,着眼于当前中国传统文化复苏的大背景…
(CM No. 8)
(Finally, (this paper) explored the significance of Sandalwood Penalty to contemporary literature, reviewed the various development of folk narrative from the May Fourth Movement to the 1990s, focused on the recovery of traditional Chinese culture…)
However, EMs will usually insert the typical English syntactic feature of the subject into their sentences. For example:
本文通过对吉姆·凯尔高动物小说主题的探讨,揭示了其作品的独特魅力…
(EM No.6)
(Through the discussion of Jim Kjelgaard’s animal fiction, this paper reveals the unique charm of his work…)
The common phenomenon of EMs adding subjects to each sentence may lead to the increased number of nouns in their written Chinese.
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Verbs
NLPIR segmented and tagged seven classes of verbs: adverbial verbs (verbs functioning as an adverbial, such as 翻 in 翻读); nominal verbs (verbs functioning as a noun, such as 影响 in 政治影响); 是 verbs (verbs similar to the function of link verbs in English); 有 verbs (verbs expressing the meaning of ’possess’ or ’have/has’); directional verbs (verbs expressing the direction of an action, such as 上); formal verbs (verbs without notional content, but requiring another verb to be its object, such as 给以 in 给以帮助); and intransitive verbs. The results of the Mann–Whitney Test are shown in
Table 2.
The results in
Table 2 indicate that EMs use the different classes of verbs less frequently than CMs, except for adverbial verbs, and the differences in the total number of verbs, nominal verbs, and directional verbs is great enough to be significant. Nominal verbs in Chinese are similar to action nouns and gerunds in English. In fact, since the May Fourth Movement in 1919, through which Western culture was introduced into China through the translation of foreign works during that period, which had a great impact on Chinese lexicon and syntax, nominal verbs have continued to grow in Chinese under the influence of foreign languages [
25]. The results in
Table 2 are in agreement with the results in
Table 1. Compared with their Chinese counterparts, EMs use more nouns and fewer verbs in their written Chinese, seemingly due to prolonged and intensive English learning.
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Adjectives and adverbs
NLPIR segmented and tagged three classes of adjectives: adverbial adjectives (adjectives functioning as an adverb, such as 轻 in 轻放); nominal adjectives (adjectives functioning as a noun, such as 骄傲 in 骄傲使人落后); and distinguishing adjectives (adjectives functioning to classify different things or people, or to designate the nature of things, such as 男 or 重型). NLPIR does not further classify adverbs. Therefore, adjectives and adverbs are discussed together in this section to save space. The results of the Mann–Whitney test are shown in
Table 3.
The results in
Table 3 show that the frequency of distinguishing adjectives in EMs was significantly higher than that in CMs. Distinguishing adjectives cannot be modified by the adverb, 很 (very), in Chinese, as other adjectives can. In English, adjectives that are usually used as attributives, such as ’earthen’, ’atomic’, and ’medical’, as well as some prefixes, such as super-, mini-, multi-, and non-, have been increasingly translated into Chinese and have become an important part of Chinese distinguishing adjectives. Sustained EFL learning may encourage EMs to use these sorts of adjectives more frequently in their Chinese writing.
The results of the Mann–Whitney Test demonstrate that there was no significant difference in adverbs between EMs and CMs, suggesting that adverbial use is not affected by EFL learning. Since the May Fourth Movement in 1919, the number of Chinese adverbs has been increasing under the influence of foreign languages; however, the increase in Chinese adverbs does not occur through the adoption or creation of new words, but rather through adding an auxiliary word, 地 (similar to the English suffix “-ly”), after Chinese verbs, nouns, or adjectives, such as in the adverbs 讽刺地, 科学地, or 冷酷地 [
29]. Perhaps the special word formation of Chinese adverbs caused there to be no significant difference found in the frequency of adverbs between the two groups. Another reason may be that the grammatical features and semantic categories of Chinese adverbs roughly correspond to those of English adverbs. Thus, no notable backward transfer from English was found for Chinese adverbs.
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Pronouns
NLPIR segmented and tagged three kinds of pronouns: personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and interrogative pronouns. The results of the Mann–Whitney test are shown in
Table 4.
The results in
Table 4 indicate that EMs used three classes of pronouns more frequently than CMs did, and there were significant differences in the total number of pronouns and personal pronouns. In English, anaphoric personal and demonstrative pronouns are important to maintain intersentential cohesion and discourse coherence. However, in written Chinese, if a reader knows or can infer the subject from the context, a zero pronoun is preferred and a formal pronoun is considered unnecessary. For example:
凯特·格伦维尔是一位杰出的澳大利亚女性作家,她因《神秘的河流》这本小说而闻名。
(EM No. 5)
(Kate Grenville is a prominent Australian female writer. She is famous for her fiction The Secret River.)
丰子恺生活在传统向现代过渡的特定历史时期, (他)受到传统与现代的双重影响。
(CM No.3)
(Because Feng Zikai lived in a particular transitional period in China from traditional ages to modern times, (he) was influenced by traditional culture as well as modem culture.)
In the EM’s Chinese, 她 (she) is used to refer to Kate Grenville, but in the CM’s Chinese, 他 (he) is deleted because it is unnecessary in written Chinese.
It is plausible to claim that EMs use pronouns more frequently than CMs do because of the influence of prolonged English learning.
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Prepositions
NLPIR segmented and tagged two special classes of Chinese prepositions: 把 prepositions (used for constructing longer sentences that focus on the result or influence of an action by putting the object closer to the front of the sentence and preceding it with a 把), and 被 prepositions (used to form passive constructions). The results of the Mann–Whitney test are shown in
Table 5.
The results in
Table 5 reveal that there is no significant difference in 把 prepositions between the two groups. The explanation for this result may lie in the fact that no equivalent 把 construction can be found in English. Therefore, English learning may not affect the use of the 把 construction in Chinese. However, a significant difference in 被 prepositions can be found between the two groups. 被 prepositions introduce an agent in a Chinese passive construction. The 被 construction in Chinese, however, has a different semantic prosody from that of the passive voice in English. The 被 construction is usually used to denote something bad or tragic that happened in the past, for example, 他被敌人杀害了 (He was killed by the enemy). The passive construction in English does not have such connotations. Since the May Fourth Movement, the semantic and temporal constraints on 被 constructions have been gradually resolved, and the 被 construction can be adopted to express something neutral or positive. For example:
除了引言和结论部分,此篇论文被分为三个章节。
(EM No. 3)
(Except for the part of introduction and conclusion, this thesis is divided into three chapters.)
菲茨杰拉德被誉为“迷惘的一代”的代表作家,“爵士乐时代”的桂冠诗人。
(EM No. 49)
(Scott Fitzgerald is known as the representative of the “Lost Generation”, the poet laureate of the “Jazz Age”.)
The difference between EMs and CMs lies in the frequency of the 被 construction. The statistics reveal that EMs used the 被 construction 112 times, among which it was used 54 times in a negative sense, 26 times in a neutral sense, and 32 times in a positive sense. CMs used the same construction 50 times, among which it was used 24 times in a negative sense, 22 times in a neutral sense, and 4 times in a positive sense. The results indicate that EMs tend to transfer the English passive construction into Chinese more frequently than CMs do because of long and intensive contact with English.
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Conjunctions
NLPIR only differentiated coordinating conjunctions with segments and tags. The other types of conjunction were all grouped under the tag “conjunction.” The results of the Mann–Whitney test are shown in
Table 6.
The results in
Table 6 show that EMs used both conjunctions and coordinating conjunctions significantly more often than CMs. Compared with English, Chinese is a parataxis language, in which phrases or clauses are usually arranged independently without coordinating conjunctions. However, coordinating conjunctions and other conjunctions are needed to maintain intersentential cohesion and discourse coherence in English. Because of prolonged and intensive EFL learning, EMs are more likely to transfer the syntactic features of English into Chinese by keeping English conjunctions. The following example is taken from an EM’s abstract:
小说中的父亲或父亲般角色的缺失揭示了在维多利亚家庭中父权统治的丧失并证明了男性在公共领域的无能。
(EM No. 31)
(The absence of father or fatherly roles in the novels reveals the loss of the patriarchal control in the Victorian home and demonstrates men’s incompetence in the public spheres.)
The coordinating conjunction, 并 (and), is used to link two verbs; however, it is not necessary in traditional Chinese.