【作者】 刘吉；

【导师】 穆林华；

【作者基本信息】 首都师范大学 ， 课程与教学论， 2007， 硕士

【摘要】 情态意义表示说话者对所述命题的真实性判断(李基安，1999)，也是表达人际关系的重要因素之一，不同的情态或语气具有不同的表达方式。由于情态涉及讲话者对自己讲话的命题的成功性和有效性所作的判断，在命令中要求承担的义务，或在提议中要表达的个人意愿，情态助动词就理所当然地成了表达情态意义的一种主要方式(李杰、钟永平，2002)。情态动词是一个复杂的语言系统的一个分支，具有满足语义和语用两个方面的需要，在表达语用上，各个情态动词之间具有微妙的变化含义，即使母语使用者也无法解释其中的微妙变化。很多学者从不同角度对情态动词的使用进行了相关研究。首先，研究者发现很多第二外语学习者在选择使用合适的情态动词上具有一定困难，与本族语使用者存在很大的区别(郑晓园，1999)，在使用表示“必须”和“义务”含义的情态动词也不例外，包括MUST，HAVE TO，SHOULD，OUGHT TO and NEED TO. DeCarrico对非母语使用者第二语言写作中的情态动词以及老师对这些使用方法的反应进行了研究，发现非母语使用者在使用情态动词时存在过度使用的情况，特别是在母语使用者避免使用情态动词的地方(1986)。Cook提出非母语使用者在使用情态动词的过程中之所以存在障碍，主要原因来自于这些情态动词本身所具有的以及当时语境所隐含的含义(1978，转引自Hinkel，1995)。另外，Hinkle(1995)关于情态动词的最新研究则认为，对上述情态动词MUST，HAVETO，SHOULD，OUGHTTO和NEEDTO表述“必须”和“义务”的过程中，其正确选择和使用取决于使用者的文化习惯和当时的语境，即使是英语水平高的使用者，甚至那些国外生活多年的人，在使用这些情态动词表达“必须”和“义务”时仍然会回归到自己的文化习惯中。也就是说，这些情态动词的使用与英语水平无相关，那么，同一母语不同英语水平的外语学习者在使用上述情态动词也应该没有使用频率上的显著差异。基于上述假想，本文通过对四个年级的385份学生作文中使用该五个情态动词表示“责任”和“义务”时的频次进行显著性差异对比，对Hinkle的结论进行印证。结论表明四个年级的学生在使用该五个情态动词表达“责任”和“义务”时在使用频次上没有显著性差异，在某种程度上说明在其使用过程中受到母语的决定性影响，发生了文化迁移，而英语水平在此过程中没有发挥明显的作用，从而使第一个假设失败。但是根据数据结果，大三学生的使用频次上较符合预期的期待，虽然与其他三个年级的比较没有出现显著性差异，但由于差异，说明其文本语气比较礼貌、更加委婉、更能说服读者接受其观点。所以该文章建议，教师在教授该类情态动词时，不要过分强调其语法上的正确使用方法，尤其是在大学的教授过程中，而应该把重点放在其内在隐含的语用意义上，提醒学生注意文化以及文体和在写作过程中的作用，除此之外，还应提高学生的读者意识。更多还原

【Abstract】 Researchers find that nonnative speakers of English have different problems in using root modal verbs, MUST, HAVE TO, SHOULD, OUGHT TO and NEED TO, to express obligation and necessity in appropriate contexts. Some find these modals have some kind of underlying meanings and contextual implications (cook, 1978), which is difficult for language learners. What is more, Hinkle doubts that there is a certain relationship between the usage of these modal verbs and the first language culture of speakers; therefore, he conducts a research by comparing the texts of native speakers and those who use English as a second language with a higher language proficiency level. The results of this study indicate that the usage of the root modals must, have to, should, ought to, and need to in NS and NNS writing appears to be culture and context dependent (Hinkle, 1995). That is to say, the usage of these modal verbs is specific to the learner’s first language environment; meanwhile, the language proficiency level and exposure to the foreign language do not play an important role during the communicative process. Therefore, a hypothesis may be obtained that, with Chinese as their common native language, Chinese English learners at different English proficiency levels do not vary significantly in their ability of using modal verbs to express root meanings of obligation and necessity.To verify the hypothesis, a writing test was held in The English Education Department of The Capital Normal University on October the 27th, 2005. 384 students from freshman to senior students took part in the test simultaneously. All the students were asked to have an important writing assessment rather than an educational research to guarantee the results. These essays were compared and analyzed qualitatively and quantitively. The 385 essays afterwards were typed into computer to form a small corpus about 135,000 words by using software called WordPilot, then the frequency of each modal verb was counted by the way of concordancing to observe the differences among the five modal verbs and different proficiency levels. Furthermore, other results, including mean and deviation, were also computed and analyzed by T-test by software SPSS. As for the quality data, the texts also were studied to get some information that how the usage of these five modal verbs was influenced by Chinese culture. Such modal verbs as can, may, might, shall were also counted and analyzed in the same way to study other problems of stylistics and tone. The results of the study indicate that these college students of all proficiency levels are inclined to overuse such root modal verbs must, have to, should without significant differences to express obligation and necessity due to Chinese culture that attached great importance to social and family responsibility, loyalty, the supreme of education and so on. And their essays tended to be impolite and offensive.Modal verbs are an important tool to realize pragmatic and semantic function in communication, as a result, the lack of appropriate usage of modal verbs will cause people to feel uncomfortable and awkward inevitably, especially to native speakers. Therefore, both teachers need to raise their awareness as well as students themselves to use modal verbs to perfect their communicative skills.更多还原