英語中‘CHALLENGE’一字之語意韻探究：以語料庫為本

A CORPUS-BASED STUDY ON THE SEMANTIC PROSODY OF CHALLENGE

本研究以探討CHALLENGE一字之語言表現為中心。CHALLENGE通常被歸類為 dispute、defy、confrontation或contest等字之近義詞，具有負面涵義。但根據字典釋義，CHALLENGE一字卻亦具有正向的意義，例如可用以表示「鼓舞、促進從事具有挑戰性競爭性之事」。本研究試圖觀察CHALLENGE這個同時具有正向及負面意義的字與其鄰近的搭配詞組所形成之特定語意，透過收藏約十五億字的ukWaC線上英文語料庫，我們分析CHALLENGE在作為動詞與名詞時，其在四個不同句型結構中的語意韻。本研究的目標詞組分為兩組，第一個詞組包含CHALLENGE與其左右最鄰近的搭配詞，第二個詞組的範圍則延伸涵蓋CHALLENGE與其左右搭配詞周邊鄰近詞。研究結果顯示，CHALLENGE除了描述「高難度」或「引起、面臨困擾」等較負面的語意韻，也可與其鄰近字詞共同呈現正向的意思，例如 set a simple challenge、ready to meet a challenge、bring on exciting CHALLENGE等。此外，本研究也發現了在不同句式中CHALLENGE與周邊字組所形成的語意韻具有獨特的意義，例如當CHALLENGE作為動詞並與受詞一同出現時，通常會帶有較具正向意思的語言韻，亦即「需要（想要）質疑或挑戰不合理（不公平）的概念」，但當CHALLEGNE作為名詞並與形容詞一同出現，則較傾向出現於具有負面意的語意韻情境，用來表達「導致或蒙受極度艱困的狀態」。整體言之，透過語料庫資料分析本研究鎖定的句型結構可得知，雖然CHALLENGE 普遍被視為負面意義較強的字，但其語意韻並非一致性地偏向負面概念。本研究具體呈現出CHALLENGE如何與其周邊環境互動而形成正面或負面的語意連結，使我們對於CHALLENGE 的用法有了新的認識。研究結果可以作為語言教學的基礎，幫助第二語言學習者更精確的理解與使用詞彙，避免錯誤的語意韻認知過度延伸。

CHALLENGE is generally perceived as a negative word synonymous with dispute, defy, confrontation, and contest. However, when resorting to dictionary definitions, CHALLENGE has unexpectedly been found to possess positive senses such as ‘stimulating’ and ‘arousing competitive interest, thought, or action’. This study aimed to investigate how CHALLENGE, identified as having pleasant senses yet often categorized with negative words, interacts with neighboring words to achieve particular meanings. The semantic prosody of CHALLENGE as a verb and a noun in four grammatical relations was investigated by analyzing data from ukWaC, a web-based corpus containing approximately 1.5 million words. Two target units were analyzed: collocates with CHALLENGE and broad units (longer sequences) with CHALLENGE. The results showed that, in addition to the unpleasant prosody describing the intensity of difficulty or causing and meeting trouble (e.g., pose a huge challenge, face a tremendous challenge), CHALLENGE expressed positive prosody (e.g., set a simple challenge, ready to meet a challenge, bring an exciting challenge). Moreover, evidence was uncovered indicating that the semantic prosody of a particular syntactic structure in broad units is distinctive. For example, [CHALLENGE N.] had a more favorable prosody, such as ‘needing or desiring to challenge unfair/unreasonable ideas’, while [ADJ. CHALLENGE] tended to occur in an unpleasant environment that suggested ‘causing or suffering from an extremely undesirable situation’. In summary, the present study showed that although CHALLENGE was found in the same category of words possessing negative senses, its prosody could be positive. These findings have renewed our understanding of CHALLENGE, illustrating how CHALLENGE acquires positive or negative associations through its collocational environment. Pedagogic-wise, the findings herein can serve as a base for language instructors to design teaching materials and to help EFL/ESL learners avoid making overgeneralizations in their use of semantic prosody.