Hunston(2008)提出了语义序列的概念、构成及其研究方法。语义序列指在语料库中有规则地出现的一系列意义成分。本文以Hunston(2008)所论为方法框架,以英语搭配框架"the*of"为研究焦点,以语料库驱动的方法探讨语料库证据显示的不同语类如医学英语和传记英语的语义序列。结果显示,医学英语形成与医疗、疾病、变化等有关的语义序列,而传记英语形成与生平、经历、时间等有关的语义序列。因此,语义序列能够反映语篇特征,对语类区分和预测具有重要意义。

Hunston (2008) puts forward the concept, constituents and research methods of studying 'semantic sequences',which refers to "series of meaning elements" that occur regularly in a corpus. They are therefore more usefully characterized as sequences of meaning elements rather that as formal sequences. This paper applied this theory to explore the semantic sequences based on the collocational framework " the * of" in medical English and biographical English. The findings show that the collocational framework forms the semantic sequences relating to treatments, diseases, changes and so forth in medical English, and forms the semantic sequences relating to life, experiences, time and the like in biographical English. Hence, these semantic sequences can reflect the features of different genres and can be used to distinguish between and predict different genres.