Bridging contrastive study and language acquisition research A corpusbased study of passives in Engl

1
Bridging contrastive study and language
acquisition research A corpus-based study of
passives in English and Chinese

• Richard Xiao
• z.xiao_at_lancaster.ac.uk

2
Overview of the talk

• Corpora for contrastive study
• Passives in English and Chinese
• Passive errors in Chinese learner English

3
Corpora for contrastive study
4
Parallel corpora? No

• Two types of multilingual corpora
• Parallel corpus source texts translations
• Some misunderstandings, e.g.
• translation equivalence is the best available
  basis of comparison (James 1980 178)
• studies based on real translations are the only
  sound method for contrastive analysis (Santos
  1996 i)
• But

5
Evidence of translationese (1)

• An unrepresentative special variant
• A third code (Frawley 1984 168)
• Four core patterns of lexical use (Laviosa 1998)
• a relatively low proportion of lexical words over
  function words
• a relatively high proportion of high-frequency
  words over low-frequency words
• a relatively great repetition of most frequent
  words
• less variety in most frequently used words

6
Evidence of translationese (2)

• Beyond the lexical level -
• Normalization, simplification (Baker 1993/1999)
• Explicitation (Øverås 1998)
• Sanitization (Kenny 1998)
• Aspect markers twice as frequent in L1 Chinese
  (McEnery Xiao 2002)
• Parallel corpora unreliable for contrastive study

7
Comparable corpora Yes

• Comparable corpus same sampling techniques
  similar balance and representativeness
• Well suited for contrastive study
• Some E-C contrastive studies
• Aspect marking (e.g. McEnery, Xiao Mo 2003)
• Situation aspect (e.g. Xiao McEnery (2004a)
• Collocation and semantic prosody (e.g. Xiao
  McEnery 2005)

8
Passives constructionsin English and Chinese
9
Corpus data

• Two English corpora
• Freiburg-LOB (FLOB)
• BNCdemo
• Two Chinese corpora
• Lancaster Corpus of Mandarin Chinese (LCMC)
• LDC CallHome Mandarin Transcripts

10
Text categories in FLOB and LCMC
11
Two major passives types in English

• Be vs. get-passives
• Dynamic vs. stative
• e.g. Go and get/be changed! (BNCdemo)
• Infinitival complements
• e.g. they liked to be/get seen to go to church
  (BNCdemo)
• Contrast in overall frequencies
• 955 vs. 31 instances of be-passives vs.
  get-passives per 100K words
• Writing vs. speech
• Normalised frequencies (per 100K words)
• Be-passives 854 (W) vs. 101 (S)
• Get-passives 5 (W) vs. 26 (S)

12
Long vs. short forms by register

• Long vs. short passives
• Distribution in speech writing
• Short passives more frequent in S than W
• LL209.225 for 1 d.f., plt0.001

13
Long vs. short forms by passive type

• Get-passives are more likely than be-passives to
  occur in short forms
• LL76.015 for 1 d.f., plt0.001
• Agents in get-passives Impersonal, e.g.
• got caught by the police
• Inanimate, e.g.
• got knocked down by a car
• Personal agents informationally dense,
  semantically indispensable, e.g.
• The bleeding fat girl, he got asked out by her.
  (BNC)

14
Adverbials in English passives

• Passives with no adverbial are much more common
  than those with an adverbial true for both be-
  and get-passives
• Adverbials are more frequent in be- passives than
  get-passives
• 17.7 of be-passives 7 of get-passives
• Less diversified in get-passives
• Typically have an intensifying or focusing role
  (Carter McCarthy 1999 53)
• Proportions of be-passives with an adverbial are
  similar in S W
• 19.5 (S) vs. 17.3 (W)
• BUT the proportion of get-passives with an
  adverbial is much greater in W than S
• 15.2 (W) vs. 6.6 (S)

15
Pragmatic meanings
16
Collocation analysis

• Observation of pragmatic meanings of get-passives
  is supported by collocation analysis
• z scoregt3.0, frequencygt3, L0-R1
• Collocates of get-passives are more likely to
  show a negative pragmatic meaning
• Negative get-passives 46.5 in BNCdemo (one
  collocate in FLOB married)
• Negative be-passives 27 in BNCdemo and 8 in
  FLOB
• Get-passives NOT necessarily more frequently
  negative in S
• Proportions of negative cases 45.8 (W) vs.
  37.3 (S)
• Exceptionally high co-occurrence frequency of a
  few neutral collocates of get-passives in S
  (married , paid , dressed , changed)

17
Collocation vs. style

• Get-passives are more informal in style
• More restricted in collocation, more likely to
  refer to daily activities and be used in informal
  expressions
• GET - dressed, changed, weighed, fed (i.e. eat),
  washed, cleaned
• GET - pricked, hooked, mixed (up), carried
  (away), muddled (up), sacked, kicked (out),
  stuffed, thrown (out), chucked, pissed, nicked
• Rarely found among the top 100 collocates of
  be-passives

18
Style vs. distribution

• Stylistic difference gt distribution
• Be-passives over 8 times as frequent in FLOB
  (A-R) as in BNCdemo (S)
• Of written genres, more common in informative
  texts (A-J) than imaginative writing (K-R)
• Exceptionally frequent in H J (cf. Biber 1988)
• Get-passives typically occur in speech and
  colloquial, informal genres
• Over 5 times as frequent in speech as in writing
• Of written genres, exceptionally frequent in E
  (leisure) R.

19
Syntactic functions

• Finite vs. non-finite
• Finite predicate
• Non-finite adjectival, adverbial, complement,
  object, subject
• Typically used as predicates
• 97 of be-passives and 96 of get-passives
• Sometimes found in object and complement
  positions
• Rarely used as subjects
• Distribution of get-passives is more balanced
  across syntactic functions

20
Passives in Chinese Notional, syntactic vs.
lexical

• Marked (47) vs. unmarked (53) passives
• Unmarked passives notional or pseudo-passives
• Topic sentences (topic comment)
• e.g. fan (meal) ltbei (PSV)gt zuo-hao (do-ready)
  le (PERF) The dinner is cooked (ready) (LCMC)
• Syntactic vs. lexical passives
• Passivised verbs do not inflect morphologically
• Syntactic passive markers
• Bei the most frequent, universal passive
  marker
• Gei, jiao, rang not fully grammaticalised,
  typically in colloquial genres dialects
• Weisuo archaic, only in formal written genres
• Lexical passives ai, shou(dao), zao(dao)
• Inherently passive

21
Long vs. short passives

• Bei and gei in both long (40, 43) and short
  (60, 57) passives
• Wei, jiao and rang only in long passives
• Shou and zao more frequent in short (68, 63)
  than long (32, 37) passives
• Ai almost exclusively in short passives (97)
• Long passives in speech and colloquial genres
  short passives typically in written genres such
  as J, H and G

22
Agent NPs in syntactic vs. lexical passives

• Can be systematically interpreted as attributive
  modifiers of (nominalised) verbs in lexical
  passives, but cannot in syntactic passives, cf.
• A) danshi (but) zhe (this) yi (one) jianyi
  (proposal) zaodao (suffer) Xide (West Germany)
  zongli (prime minister) ltde (PRT)gt jujue
  (reject/rejection) But this proposal was
  rejected by the prime minister of West Germany
  (LCMC)
• B) wo-men (we) na-ge (that-CL) che (car), bei
  (PSV) Xinhuan (Xinhuan) ltde (PRT)gt nong-huai
  (ruin) le (PERF) Our car was ruined by Xinhuan
  (CallHome)

23
Syntactic functions

• Most frequent in the predicate position
• 76 of syntactic passives (74 of bei) 75 of
  lexical passives
• Non-predicate uses
• Attributive modifier second most important
  syntactic function (14)
• Uncommon as subjects or complements

24
Interaction with aspect

• Interacting with aspect closely (Xiao and McEnery
  2004b)
• Syntactic passives convey an aspectual meaning of
  result
• Bare passives account for the largest proportions
  of syntactic (40) and lexical (78) passives
• BUT perfective -le is not uncommon in both
  syntactic (17) and lexical (11) passives
• RVCs and resultative de-structure are more common
  in syntactic passives bare forms are more
  frequent in lexical passives
• Passivised verbs in bare forms are uncommon in
  syntactic passives, especially when they function
  as predicates

25
Pragmatic meanings

• Typically express a negative pragmatic meaning
• usually of unfavourable meanings (Chao 1968
  703)
• Universal passive marker bei derived from its
  main verb usage, meaning suffer (Wang 1957)
• Under the influence of Western languages, Chinese
  passives are no longer restricted to verbs with
  an inflictive meaning
• Proportions of negative pragmatic meaning
• Syntactic passives gei (68), rang (67), bei
  (52), jiao (50), wei (19)
• Lexical passives ai (100), zao (100), shou
  (65)
• Collocates of bei-passives
• 51 negative, 39 neutral, 10 positive

26
Distribution across genres

• 11 times as frequent in writing as in speech
• Most common in religious writing (D) and mystery/
  detective stories (L)
• Mystery/detective stories are often concerned
  with victims who suffer from various kinds of
  mishaps or what criminals do to them
• In religions, human beings are passive animals
  whose fate is controlled by some kind of
  supernatural force
• Least frequent in news editorials (C) and
  official documents (H)
• Universal passive marker bei
• Contrast in proportions between long vs. short
  passives typically less marked in 5 types of
  fiction (K-P), humour (R) and speech (S)
• Predominantly negative in speech (S) more often
  than not negative in news editorials (C),
  mystery/detective stories (L), and adventure
  stories (N) but rarely negative in official
  documents (H) and academic prose (J)

27
Contrast Overall frequencies

• Passive constructions are significantly more
  common in English than in Chinese (nearly 10
  times as frequent)
• English (be-)passives occur in both dynamic and
  stative situations Chinese passives can only
  occur in dynamic events
• Chinese passives typically have a negative
  pragmatic meaning English passives (esp.
  be-passives) do not
• Unmarked notional passives are more common in
  Chinese
• Chinese topic-oriented English subject-oriented
• English tends to over-use passives, esp. in
  formal writing (Quirk 1968 Baker 1985) Chinese
  tends to avoid syntactic passives wherever
  possible
• Chinese uses topic sentences instead

28
Contrast Long vs. short passives

• The agent NP in the long passive follows the
  passivised verb in English but precedes it in
  Chinese
• Short passives are predominant in English long
  passives are not uncommon in Chinese
• Passives are used in English to avoid mentioning
  the agent
• The agent must normally be spelt out in Chinese
  passives
• This constraint has become more relaxed nowadays
• When it is difficult to spell out the agent
• Passives are used in English
• In Chinese, a vague expression such as ren/youren
  someone or renmen people is used instead of
  using passives

29
Contrast Pragmatic meanings

• Chinese passives are more frequently used with a
  negative pragmatic meaning than English passives
• Chinese passives were used at early stages
  primarily for unpleasant or undesirable events
  the semantic constraint on the use of passives
  has become more relaxed, especially in writing
• Rank order of meaning categories
• English neutral gt negative gt positive
• Chinese negative gt neutral gt positive
• In this respect, the get-passive is more akin to
  Chinese passives than the unmarked be-passive
  more stylistically oriented

30
Contrast Syntactic functions

• Passives are most frequently used in the
  predicate position in English and Chinese
• Proportion of passives used as predicates in
  English (over 95) is much greater than that in
  Chinese (76 on average)
• More frequent in the object than subject position
  in both languages
• More frequent as attributive modifiers in
  Chinese more frequent as complements in English
• Passives in Chinese (esp. bei-passives) are more
  balanced across syntactic functions than English
  passives
• Chinese passives in the predicate position
  typically interact with aspect but this
  interaction is not obvious in English

31
Contrast Distribution

• Unmarked English (be-)passives more frequent in
  informative (A-J) than imaginative writing (K-R)
  get-passives more common in speech and informal
  written genres
• H and J show very high proportions of passives in
  English, but they have the lowest proportions of
  passives in Chinese
• Unmarked English passives function to mark
  objectivity and a formal style but Chinese
  passives do not have this function
• In Chinese, wei typically occurs in formal
  written genres jiao, rang and gei are used in
  colloquial genres
• Mystery/detective stories (L) and religious
  writing (D) show exceptionally high proportions
  of passives in Chinese
• Different distributions are associated with
  different functions
• English (be-)passives an impersonal, objective
  and formal style
• Chinese passives inflictive voice

32
Contrast Typological differences

• Klaimans (1991 23) 3-way classification of
  grammatical voices
• Basic (unmarked) voice active/middle voice
• Derived/non-basic (marked) voice passivisation
• Pragmatic voice involving assignment to some
  sentential arguments of some special pragmatic
  status or salience (Klaiman 1991 24)
• English passive derived voice
• Chinese passive pragmatic voice

33
Passive errors in Chinese Learner English
34
Corpora

• CLEC the Chinese Learner English Corpus
• One million words
• Essays
• Five proficiency levels
• LOCNESS the Louvain Corpus of Native English
  Essays
• 324,304 words
• Essays
• British A-Level children and British/American
  university students

35
Under-use of passives
36
Long vs. short passives

• Long passives are slightly more frequent in
  Chinese learner English
• Long passives in CLEC
• 9.14 888 out of 9,711
• Long passives in LOCNESS
• 8.44 461 out of 5,465
• Not statistically significant
• LL2.184, 1 d.f., p0.139

37
Pragmatic meanings

• Passives are more frequently negative in Chinese
  learner English
• CLEC
• Negative 25.7
• Positive 5.9
• Neutral 68.4
• LOCNESS
• Negative 16.8
• Positive 4.4
• Neutral 78.8
• LL7.4, 2 d.f., p0.025

38
Passive errors vs. learner levels

• Learners at higher levels generally make fewer
  passive errors
• Four major types of passive errors
• Under-use is the most important error type
• Learning curve is not a straight line, especially
  for difficult items

39
Error types vs. learner levels

• Error types are associated with learner levels
• LL51.774, 12.d.f., plt0.001
• Similar learner groups make similar types of
  errors
• ST2 gtgt ST3 statistically significant (LL27.303,
  3 d.f., plt0.001)
• ST3 gtgt ST4 not significant (LL6.955, 3 d.f.,
  p0.073)
• ST4 gtgt ST5 statistically significant (LL18.563,
  3 d.f., plt0.001)
• ST5 gtgt ST6 not significant (LL6.987, 3 d.f.,
  p0.072)

• ST2 ST3/ST4 ST5/ST6
• (High (Junior/Senior
  (Junior/Senior
• school non-English
  English major
• students) major students)
  students)

40
Under-use L1 transfer

• Borne out of the contrastive analysis
• Confirmed by the CLEC-LOCNESS comparison
• Result of L1 transfer
• Typically occur with verbs whose Chinese
  equivalents are not normally used in passives,
  e.g.
• A birthday party will hold in Lilys house. (ST2)
• or our efforts will waste. (ST4)
• The woman in white called Anne Catherick. (ST5)
• Also under the influence of Chinese topic
  sentences
• The supper had done. (ST2)

41
Over-use three major types

• Intransitive verbs used in passives, e.g.
• A very unhappy thing was happened in this week.
  (ST2)
• Their friendships are not died off with the
  passing of time (ST4)
• I was graduated from Zhongshan University (ST5)
• Misuse of ergative verbs, e.g.
• the science ltsic. secincegt is developed quickly
  (ST4)
• infant mortality was declined (ST4)
• Passive training effects, e.g.
• many machines ltsic. machinegt and appliances
  ltsic. appliancegt are used electricity as power
  (ST5)
• Because they have been mastered everything of
  this job (ST4)

42
Misformation L1 interference

• Result of L1 interference
• Related to morphological inflections
• Passivised verbs do not inflect in L1 Chinese
• Tend to use uninflected verbs or misspelt past
  participles in passives, e.g.
• The door is wrap with two coats of iron (ST5)
• His relatives can not stop him, because his
  choice is protect by the laws. (ST6)
• Since the Peoples Republic of China ltsic. chinagt
  was found on October 1, 1949 (ST2)
• I was moving at that time, but I didn't cry. (ST2)

43
Auxiliary omission L1 interference

• Result of L1 interference
• Unmarked notional passives are abundant in
  Chinese
• Tend to omit or misuse auxiliaries in passives,
  e.g.
• and we will not satisfied with what we have
  done. (ST4)
• In China, since the new China established,
  peoples life has gotten ltsic. gotengt better and
  better. (ST3)
• I am not a smoker, but why do we forced to be a
  second-hand smoker? (ST5)

44
Conclusions

• While passive constructions express a basic
  passive meaning in both English and Chinese, they
  also show a range of differences which are
  associated with their different functions in the
  two languages
• Most passive-related errors made by Chinese
  learners of English can be accounted for from a
  contrastive perspective
• A combination of contrastive study and learner
  corpus analysis can bring insights into language
  acquisition research

45
Thank you!
46
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