Amplification in English: A corpus-based study of the Use of –ly amplifiers in academic English

English intensifiers have become a major area of interest in corpus linguistics studies. Yet, while attention has been given to exploring intensifiers in spoken English, the present study attempts to contribute to their use in the written register. The study investigates the academic section of the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) to provide evidence on lexico-grammatical collocational patterns of the most frequent –ly amplifiers used as maximizers (fully, completely, and entirely) and those used as boosters (particularly, clearly, and highly). Whereas gradability has traditionally been regarded as the most significant determinant of amplifiers’ collocates, the present study focuses on another aspect, i.e. semantic preference. The study highlights the importance of relying on corpus-based evidence to give an accurate account of native-speaker use of amplifiers. It also highlights the importance of integrating computer-based data-driven learning (DDL) in SLA to help ESL learners of academic writing and translators make decisions when using amplifiers.