Abstract This research is corpus-based research. It uses the BNC as a referenced corpus to study the usage of amplifiers in the texts of the TWENTY-FIRST CENTUYR COLLEGE ENGLISH (TCCE). The study question is whether amplifiers in the texts of the TCCE are overused or underused. The research comes to the conclusions that: 1) as a whole, there is no significant difference between the frequencies of the target amplifiers in TCCE texts and BNC; 2) part of the amplifiers are overused like “badly” while some of the amplifiers are underused like “quite” in TCCE. According to the conclusions, some teaching advice is proposed including that teacher should pay more attention to the teaching method of certain amplifiers like “badly” and students are encouraged to do more self-learning on amplifiers.54673

Keywords: amplifiers; overuse; underuse; TCCE

摘要本研究以语料库研究方法为基础，以英语国家语料库为参照语料库，研究强势词在《21世纪大学英语》文本中的使用情况。研究问题涉及强势词在《21世纪大学英语》文本中是否存在超用或少用现象。研究结果表明：1）就整体而言，所选强势词在《21世纪大学英语》文本与英语国家语料库中的频数分布没有显著性的差异；2）在《21世纪大学英语》文本中，某些强势词存在一定的超用现象，比如“badly”，而有一些词则存在少用现象，如“quite”。其后，根据所得结论，提出了简单教学建议，包括老师更注重 “badly”等强势词的教学以及鼓励学生在强势词方面多进行自主学习。

毕业论文关键词：强势词；超用；少用；《21世纪大学英语》

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 The Definition of Amplifier 1

2.2 The Researches on the Amplifiers 2

3. Research Design 3

3.1 Research Questions 3

3.2 Research Materials 4

3.3Research Method 4

4. Results and Analysis 4

4.1 Description of the Frequency of Amplifiers 4

4.2 Overused Amplifiers 6

4.3Underused Amplifiers 8

5. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 12 

1. Introduction 

Intensifier plays an important role in language communication. One could strengthen the semantics of what they say and highlight the key information if he or she uses an intensifier. From the semantic perspective, an intensifier is used to modify adjectives, adverbs, verbs and prepositional phrases, representing the degree of the quality or state of something; from the perspective of functional grammar, an intensifier can realize the interpersonal function, expressing the speaker's tone and manner. What’s more, amplifier is an important part of intensifier.  Amplifiers can strengthen the function of the semantics and intensify the degree gradually, such as completely，absolutely，very much .etc. The use of amplifiers is restricted by many things such as words, semantics, syntax and text. Therefore, the use of amplifiers is full of complexity and is worth studying. Nowadays, college English teaching materials play a very important role in the college in China. For teachers, preparing lessons, interpretation of the teaching contents, as well as the evaluation at the learning effectiveness of a student are dependent on the teaching materials. For students, drawing and construction of knowledge points, vocabulary acquisition and cross-cultural communication ability, after-school reviewing and preparing for CET exams, also cannot leave the college English teaching materials. As the most widely used college English teaching material, the study on the TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY COLLEGE ENGLISH (TCCE) shows its importance.