An Analysis of L2 Learners’ Overuse and Underuse of

Intensifiers in English

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• Quirk et al. (1985) ��������

examples

Amplifiers Maximizers absolutely, completely, extremely,

Boosters very, highly, strongly, terribly

Downtoners Approximators nearly, virtually

Compromisers enough, rather

Diminishers partly, slightly, somewhat

Minimizers hardly, scarcely

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• Firth (1968) : “one possible explanation for their overuse may well be that they have direct translational equivalents which are very frequent in French”. (for example, completely and complètement)

• Xiao $ McEnery (2006) explored the collocational behavior of intensifier and adjectives of Chinese-speaking English learners.

• Tuncar (2016) exaimined the use of maximizers and semantic prosodic awareness of Turkish speaking English learners.

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ICNALE (��10��������������������)

BNC (��������������)

COCA (��������������)

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ICNALE(per mil) BNC(per mil)

very 2433 901

really 319 88

much 294 166

so 711 532

too 478 363

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• Downtoners . • downtoners.

Amplifiers Downtoners

BNC 81.6% 18.4%

ICNALE 97.9% 2.1%

ICNALE(per mil)

BNC(per mil)

virtually 2 20

partly 2 8

slightly 3 40

somewhat 5 27

hardly 2 17

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• Quirk et al. (1985) ��������

examples

Amplifiers Maximizers absolutely, completely, extremely,

Boosters very, highly, strongly, terribly

Downtoners Approximators nearly, virtually

Compromisers enough, rather

Diminishers partly, slightly, somewhat

Minimizers hardly, scarcely

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• very • so

BNC ICNALE

good important

much much

little bad

difficult good

different difficult

BNC ICNALE

much much

many bad

bad many

close important

easy easy

. .

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. .• too

BNC ICNALE

good important

much bad

little much

difficult good

different difficult

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�ICNALE�������

• Important��bad�����(per million words)

ENS in BNCLearners inICNALE

ENS inICNALE

important 393.43 1501.12 2120.22

bad 151.59 2399.32 860.76

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• absolutely • extremely

BNC ICNALE

difficult (harmful)

important high

useful bad

rare important

valuable dangerous

BNC ICNALE

right necessary

neccesary wrong

clear true

essential right

sure correct

. .

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• totally • very

BNC ICNALE COCA

Rate (%) Rate (%) Rate (%)

Positive 16.2 18.9 29.8

Negative 60.9 54.1 55.1

Neutral 22.9 27.0 15.1

BNC ICNALE COCA

Rate(%) Rate(%) Rate(%)

Positive 57.6 58.3 52.4

Negative 31.0 34.6 35.6

Neutral 11.4 7.2 12.0

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• very • so

words CEFR-level

important A1

bad A1

much A1

good A1

difficult A2

happy A1

words CEFR-level

much A1

bad A1

many A1

important A1

easy A1

close A2

- . 4

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• extremely • highly

words CEFR-level

high A1

dangerous A2

bad A1

important A1

essential B1

useful A2

words CEFR-level

likely B1

possible A1

dangerous A2

important A1

competitive B2

successful B1

- . 4

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• (3rd edition) : “The intensifier very does not

modify adjectives that include the meaning of very in themselves, such

as awful, great, wonderful, and so on”.

ØICNALE very wonderful, very terrible

4 / 5 (very terrible 21 )

./

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5 5 /5 5

• very non-gradable adjectives

. Quirk et al. (1985) : “most adjectives are gradable” but

some of them, such as right or perfect are not.

ØICNALE5 4 very right very wrong5

Ø 5very quite4

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