A Corpus-Based Study of Entirely Collocations -Investigating Semantic Prosody and Its Pedagogical Implications-

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study investigates the associational arrangements and semantic prosody of the maximizer entirely within the academic spoken environment of the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (the MICASE). While traditional lexicography treats entirely as a maximizer synonymous with completely or wholly, the present research argues that its discursive role in pedagogical contexts deviates significantly from its dictionary-defined meaning. Based on a combined quantitative and qualitative analysis of 55 instances, this article delineates four primary usage patterns: literal reinforcement, contextual shift, negation-triggered prosody, and counter-intuitive reversal. Quantitative analysis reveals that negative semantic prosody is predominant, accounting for 69.1% (38 out of 55 instances) of the total occurrences. This negative evaluative force is most evident in negated structures, such as not entirely certain or not entirely clear. In such contexts, the maximizer effectively overrides the positive orientation of its associates. These results contradict the decontextualized and dictionary-defined categorization of maximizers found in traditional linguistics. For EAP (English for Academic Purposes) learners, our findings highlight a critical need to cultivate prosodic competence—the ability to identify the subtle evaluative aura that governs the maximizer entirely in academic speech.