Corpus-Based Contrastive Study on the Use of the Definite Article “the” between Chinese EFL learners and English Native Speakers

“The” is a functional word of high-frequency in English. Due to its simple form, Chinese students use it extensively after they have learnt its semantic and grammatical rules, and may show different characteristics from those of native speakers. Based on the use of corpus, this paper compares texts extracted from CLEC and BNC, and finds that both Chinese English learners and native English speakers use “the” most frequently to express “specific reference”, followed by “generic reference”. There is also a feature that Chinese English learners use fixed collocations containing “the” more frequently than native English speakers do, but “the” in these fixed collocations don’t belong to its ideographic function. The enlightenment for English teaching is discussed, as well as reasons for the differences: cultural differences, mother tongue and grammar teaching.