A Study Of The Use Of English Noun Phrase Constituents Demonstrated By College Students In The Case Of WECCL

Biber et al classified noun phrase (NP) constituents in the Hypothesized Developmental Stages for Complexity Features, emphasizing the important role of NP in academic writing (2011,2013). The complex NP constituents are characteristics of academic language and increase syntactic complexity in formal writing. Meanwhile, argumentative writing, a text type of using logic reasoning, facts and hard evidence to demonstrate the soundness of a position (Xu Kerong 2006), requires frequent uses of formal English. Therefore, empirical researches on the use of NP constituents applied by English and non-English majors serve to gain an insight into the acquisition of formal English syntactic structures in their argumentative writings.Previous studies related with syntactic complexity (Bao Gui 2009) have limits in the types of NP constituents, such as reduced structure etc. Meanwhile, current college students have not laid solid foundation in the use of NP constituents and have features of oral style in their English composition writing (Wen Qiufang et al 2003). This study aims to help figure out students’problem, increasing students’ ability in syntactic complexity.In the developmental stages, Biber et al (2011) divided NP constituents into three categories:conversational, fictional and academic NP constituents. Taking the classification as the analytical framework, this paper examines the use of noun phrase constituents by Chinese EFL learners--English and non-English major students in WECCL. The thesis aims to explore what differences are revealed involving the use of conversational, fictional and academic NP constituents demonstrated by English major students of different grade and differences demonstrated by English and non-English major students. Statistical methods like descriptive analysis, ANOVA analysis and independent T-test are applied.Based on the data analysis, the results can be summarized as follows:1) According to results of NP constituents applied in English major students of different grade:in the use of conversational NP constituents, adj+NP has mean difference that is statistically significant. Hence, students of Grade 3 have a better ability in the use of adj+NP; in the use of fictional NP constituents, (noun/-ing/-ed)+NP has mean difference that are statistically significant between Grade 2 and Grade 3, Grade 1 and Grade 2. Therefore, in the use of (noun/-ing/-ed)+NP, students of Grade 3 uses most frequently; students of Grade 1 frequently uses it; students of Grade 2 seldom uses it; in the use of academic NP constituents, there is no statistical significance among English major students of different grades.2) According to results of NP constituents applied in English and non-English major students: in the use of conversational NP constituents, adj+NP has a p of 0, suggesting mean differences that are statistically significant. Hence, English major students have a better ability in the use of adj+NP; in the use of fictional NP constituents, linguistic expressions like (noun/-ing/-ed)+NP and NP+of have mean differences that are statistically significant. In the use of academic NP constituents, there is no statistical significance.According to aforementioned results, this paper firstly discusses the overall difference in the use of NP constituents for students of different grades majoring in English and non-English major students. Then differences in the use of premodifiers and postmodifiers are illustrated. Finally, this paper clarifies why there is no statistical significance for English and non-English major students.In light of above results, some pedagogical advice is proposed to English teaching and writing to help EFL learners use more complex NP constituents to increase the syntactic complexity in argumentative writings. Because of the scarcity in the use of academic NP constituents for students of English and non-English major, teachers should attach great importance to the teaching of complex NP constituents and students should frequently take relevant exercise, thus increasing the awareness of academic language.