Abstract:

The aim of this study is to examine the use of three reporting verbs: “show”, “indicate” and “demonstrate” in the PolyU Learner English Corpus (PLEC) and Corpus of Research Articles (CRA),respectively. PLEC is a learner corpus with a collection of undergraduates’ assignments. The writers in the PLEC are university students who are English learners. By comparison,CRA is a collection of research articles,and the writers in CRA represent advanced English users. This study adopted a corpus-based method based on quantitative and qualitative analyses to examine the differences and similarities in using three reporting verbs between PLEC and CRA. By comparing these three words in two corpora,the similarities and differences regarding the employment of these three reporting verbs by two levels of English groups are outlined. The findings reveal that the use of three reporting verbs: “show”, “indicate” and “demonstrate” between CRA and PLEC share some similarities among them. However,“indicate”,“show” and “demonstrate” are synonyms with similar lexical meanings. They cannot fully be replaced with each other. Some unique patterns for the use of the three above reporting verbs are also identified,indicating the different preferences for English learners and advanced users.

Key words: reporting verbs, corpus-based study, English learners, advanced English users