An Experimental Research On Formulaic Language Teaching In ESP Vocabulary Acquisition

Vocabulary always plays an indispensible role in language learning. And formulaic language, as an important component of vocabulary, plays a very crucial role in the process of second language acquisition. Recent years have witnessed that formulaic language teaching has been paid great attention in second language teaching. With the development of ESP (English for Specific Purposes), ESP vocabulary learning has become a heated topic, and the fundamental role of ESP vocabulary in ESP research cannot be neglected. However, for a long time, ESP vocabulary teaching hasn't received wide attention and ESP vocabulary has been considered as the main obstacle for learners to shift from EGP (English for General Purposes) learning to ESP learning, which to a great extent restricts the improvement of learners'ESP vocabulary acquisition. Therefore, that will be a new and bold attempt to apply formulaic language teaching into ESP vocabulary learning and teaching. Formulaic language learning can accelerate language processing and production, and establish great significance on promoting second language acquisition and improving the proficiency, fluency, fidelity and accuracy of language output. In this thesis, based on formulaic language teaching theory, the author explores the application of formulaic language teaching in ESP vocabulary acquisition, endeavors to solve the difficult problems ESP learners are confronted with in ESP vocabulary learning, and finally helps promote learners'ESP vocabulary acquisition.Based on formulaic language teaching, three research hypotheses were given:(1) Can the formulaic language teaching in ESP vocabulary acquisition be very effective to improve learners'English vocabulary proficiency?(2) Can the formulaic language teaching in ESP vocabulary acquisition help enlarge learners'English vocabulary a lot?(3) Can the formulaic language teaching in ESP vocabulary acquisition help strengthen learners'awareness of formulaic language and promote learners'ESP vocabulary acquisition?In this paper, an experimental study was launched to test whether the three hypotheses are valid or not. The research methods of questionnaires, interviews, case studies and literature review were employed. An 18-week and 180-minute teaching session experiment was conducted among 60 students from two parallel classes majoring in International Trade of Guangxi Economic and Trade Polytechnic. The two parallel classes were randomly separated into Experiment Class and Control Class, with each class 30 students. From the same lecturer, Experiment class received formulaic language teaching and Control Class received traditional grammar-translation teaching. A pre-test was given to test the feasibility of experiment, four unit tests were given to test students'vocabulary proficiency during experiment and a post-test was given to check effectiveness of our experiment. What's more, pre-test and post-test questionnaires were given to test whether there is a significant difference on learners'ESP vocabulary learning methods and strategies. After the experiment, all the data was analyzed by SPSS 13.0 and we found out that our hypotheses were valid. The formulaic language teaching in ESP vocabulary acquisition can be very effective to improve learners'English vocabulary proficiency, can help enlarge learners'English vocabulary a lot, can help strengthen learners'awareness of formulaic language and promote learners'ESP vocabulary acquisition.There are totally five chapters in this paper. Chapter I begins with the introduction to the research background, research questions, research significance and the outline of research paper. Chapter II refers to the literature review, including the definition, features, classifications of formulaic language, definition of ESP and the roles and functions of ESP vocabulary research, the relationship between formulaic language and ESP vocabulary acquisition, and the related studies home and abroad. Chapter III introduces the research hypothesis, participants, instruments and procedures of the whole experiment. Chapter IV includes the questionnaire analysis, interview analysis, data analysis and discussions about the research results. Chapter V gives a summary of the paper, talking about the major findings and limitations of present study as well as the suggestions for future study.