A Study on Grading and Sequencing of Senses of Grade-A Polysemous Adjectives in A Syllabus of Graded Vocabulary for Chinese Proficiency

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Abstract ublished in 1992, A Syllabus of Graded Vocabulary for Chinese Proficiency has played an important role in TCFL and served as a guideline for HSK and the development of Chinese materials. However, it has yet to be improved. Some of the inadequacies lie in the absence of polysemy senses and the lack of grading for words with two or more parts of speech. Based on a detailed analysis of the Grade-A polysemous adjectives in the Syllabus and corpus samples as well as lexical-semantic research findings from The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, this thesis offers some suggestions about how to work out and arrange main senses of such polysemous adjectives. Here are the four principles for grading and sequencing of main senses of polysemy and adjectives with over 2 parts of speech: A. Practicability principle: senses which enter the Syllabus should carry heavy communication load and meet the communication needs of foreign learners of Chinese. This is the most fundamental of all. B. Frequency principle: senses and parts of speech which are used more frequently should be given priority in grading and sequencing. This is the most feasible of all. C. Complexity principle: the easier the collocation of an adjective with other words is, the lowest grading of its senses should be arranged. If two senses have similar frequency, the one which is easier to learn should come first. This servers as a useful supplement to the frequency principle. D. Cultural difference principle: the difference between Chinese culture and the learners own culture may also cause misunderstanding and abuse of adjectives. This principle considers the learner s possible errors originated from different cultural connotations of adjectives. Keywords : grading and sequencing of polysemy; adjectives; vocabulary syllabus; TCFL III

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Contents Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 The nature, principles, significance and basis of A Syllabus of Graded Vocabulary for Chinese Proficiency 1.2 A review of the Syllabus: researches and major problems 1.3 Scope, significance, approach and corpora of this research 1.4 Summary Chapter 2 Standards of distinguishing senses in a L2 vocabulary syllabus 1.1 A review of research in word senses from the lexical-semantic and lexicological perspectives 1.2 Principles of distinguishing senses from the L2 teaching perspective 1.3 Summary Chapter 3 A study of some Grade-A polysemous adjectives in the Syllabus 1.1 Selection of Grade-A polysemous adjectives 1.2 An analysis of adjectives with two senses 1.3 An analysis of adjectives with three or more senses 1.4 Summary Chapter 4 Conclusion References Postscript V

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