Noun Phrase Complexity,Variation And Accuracy: A Study Of The Use Of English Noun Phrases In Writings By Chinese English Majors

This dissertation, with Quirk’s (1985) noun phrase classification and Ma Dongmei’s (2008) proposal of three dimensions, takes an exploration of Chinese English majors’use of noun phrase complexity, variation and accuracy and four types of noun phrases in English writings from a longitudinal perspective. Research questions:1. Complexity:(1) Compared with the English native speakers, to what extent do Chinese English majors demonstrate differences relating noun phrase complexity and four types of noun phrases.(2) What changes can be spotted across four years relating the use of noun phrase complexity and four types of noun phrases.2. Variation (1) Compared with the English native speakers, to what extent do the Chinese English majors demonstrate differences relating noun phrase variation in using of noun phrases (2) What changes can be spotted across four years relating use of noun phrase variation.3. Accuracy (1) What changes can be spotted across four years relating use of noun phrase accuracy and four types of noun phrases?The data collection is realized by randomly selecting the amount of writing compositions from Wen Qiufang’s Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners (SWECCL), published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press in2008. Author in present study selected40compositions in every grade from this corpus, so there are160compositions. Then, author in this paper selected about40native writers’argumentative samples from the New Concept English3(patterns of argumentation) to build the available data. This part is to summarize these findings as follows;First, significant differences were found in both noun phrase complexity and variation in comparison between Chinese English majors and natives. In comparison of natives’use of these four types, Chinese English majors’overuse of NP1and underuse of NP2, NP3and NP4is similar to that of Ma’s study on students’using of noun phrases in oral production.Second, the changes of Chinese English majors’use of noun phrase complexity, variation and accuracy experienced different forms, for example, noun phrase complexity appeared as a linear trend, being a continuingly increasing one; noun phrase variation took the trend of increase-decrease-decrease; while in the respect of noun phrase accuracy the trend showed increase-increase-decrease form. In noun phrase complexity and accuracy, the highest rate of change occurred in the second stage, while in noun phrase variation the highest rate of change happened in the first stage. Students in high grades shift their attention to the writing accuracy and complexity from variation. These findings are similar to Wen Qiufang’s (2007) study of Chinese English majors’lexical features in writings. The further exploration of changes of four types of Chinese English majors’use of noun phrases brought out different changing patterns in the fluctuation, for example, NP1exhibited gradual decrease, which get the lowest point in Grade Four; while NP2, NP3and NP4displayed a slow rise, in which the highest point in both of NP2and NP4occurred in Grade Three, and NP3’s the highest point appeared in Grade Four.From these findings, the appearance of either nonlinear or linear forms turned up in the whole process, proving the availability of multidimensional changes of Chinese English majors’noun phrase using, which serves as the further research of Chinese English major’s use of noun phrases in English writings. Besides, based on these findings, properly pedagogical advices on noun phrase teaching are necessarily responsible for enhancing students’use of noun phrases. First, English teachers should emphasize the importance of using noun phrases in accordance to learners’multidimensional changes of using noun phrases in three dimensions, stressing the reducing use of NP1and increasing use of NP2, NP3and NP4. In addition, English teachers should conceive language transfer as the important contributing factor that hold more sway over students’language acquisition, reminding students to distinguish features in written and spoken language. Besides, enhancing training offered by teachers is also the effective way to increase the input and improve the quality of output.