A Phrase-frame Study Of Chinese EFL Learners’ Writing Across Proficiency Levels

Corpus-based research on academic English shows that many language entities in discourse communication are composed of fixed or semi-fixed multi-word sequences.Phrase-frame(p-frame)is one of the formulaic sequences which facilitates learners to improve their discourse organization ability in writing English.A systematic and detailed discussion on the use of p-frames in the writing of learners at different proficiency levels can reveal the discourse characteristics and vocabulary application abilities of certain learning groups.Moreover,it is of great significance for second-language(L2)learners to understand and learn a language using contrastive interlanguage analysis to compare the use of p-frames between native and non-native speakers.To this end,this study examines the similarities and differences in the use of p-frames in the writings of Chinese English as a Foreign Language(EFL)learners at different levels,and conducts a contrastive analysis between Chinese and native English speakers.Specifically,three questions were discussed:1)How do the variability and predictability of p-frames vary across’ proficiency levels of Chinese EFL learners?2)How do the structural and functional characteristics of p-frames vary across proficiency levels of Chinese EFL learners?3)What are the differences between Chinese EFL learners and native English speakers in the usage of p-frames?It was found that p-frames in texts with higher proficiency levels are more variable and less predictable.The functional categories were mostly referential and stance expressions.Their structural characteristics are slightly different from those of lower-level students,where most are verb-based frames.However,the use of p-frames by native English speakers is quite different from that of Chinese EFL learners.The variability and unpredictability of p-frames in native English speakers are much higher than in high-level Chinese EFL learners.Most p-frames realize the referential and discourse organizing functions,and are primarily function word frames in structure.The results of this study reveal differences in p-frame usage among Chinese EFL learners at different levels,which are more distinct in comparison to native English speakers.In the future,foreign language teaching can adopt the corpus-based method to extract p-frames most frequently used by native English speakers for comparative analysis,to provide more accurate and efficient learning methods for Chinese EFL learners.