1 Compare the word ‘thing ’ in one textbook, one dictionary and untagged CSPAE

This paper submitted the comparison for the word ‘thing ’ in one textbook, one student dictionary and untagged CSPAE. Using MP 2.2 as the corpora analytical tools with various functions, the finding might offer a second thought for the simple word ‘thing ’ not only from the grammatical discovery but also the lexical, collocation patterns which may well explain the different gaps from the perspectives of the native speakers and the non-native speakers. In addition, the findings demonstrate various applications for the word in aspect of collocations, L1/R1grammatical usages and reassure the incompetence and lack of confidence for the non-native speakers. In other words, the results present broader view for the simple word ‘thing ’ not merely from the prototypical aspects of dictionary, grammatical perspective but also from quantitative corpora analysis. In particular, these different applications in formal/informal, positive/negative with native speakers ’ top choices might encourage future university students or users in Taiwan like NNS to utilize confidently for the word ‘thing ’ in various phenomena and genres, not merely limited within the meaning of ‘unknown object’. To conclude, the results might contribute slightly to the long existing linguistic debate as a stimulus to merge the technology into the classroom