Modals in Chinese Senior High School Students' Written English

摘要

This study examines the characteristics of modal verbs used in ST2 from CLEC. 2. Methods: keyness analysis: frequency of modal verbs used in ST2 from CLEC are unusually high in comparison with those in A Level from LOCNESS as a reference corpus, producing keywords. 3. Results: only the modal verb must which are introduced early in textbooks is overused by Chinese senior high students while would, could, should, will, can that are introduced comparatively late are underused, which shows that Chinese senior high students seldom use these modal verbs bearing the euphemistic meaning. And the paper gives some interpretations for such phenomena.