This study aims to examine how Chinese learners develop in their use and misuse of English modal verbs from Grade 7 to 9. Specifically, it examines form-function connections and explores the factors behind learners' development. The main focus is on the modal verbs "can," "could," "will," "would,"…

English and Chinese have typological differences in finiteness. English has morphological finite and nonfinite distinction, whereas Chinese has no morphological finiteness, and multiple verbs in a clause appear in the form of bare verbs with optional aspectual morphemes, such as the perfective morpheme "le". The current study explores…

Drawing on the framework of Modality from systemic functional linguistics, the present study aimed to explore adolescent ESL learners' interpersonal meaning-making. Data were collected from 10 writing tasks completed by a group of 50 adolescent ESL learners in China. Functional text analysis was utilized to analyze the data, including Modality…