The Role Of Lexical Phrases In Improving Oral English Skills

Since long time ago, language researchers have found that lexical phrases play a very important role in language production as well as language use. Recently, with the development of corpus linguistics, people find that there are many pre-fabricated phrases (lexical phrases) in language performance. Lexical chunks are a kind of common phenomenon in actual communication. Their forms are fixed or half-fixed. They combine grammar, meaning and context. They so commonly appear in people's oral performances. However, people use them in a sub-conscious way. They have not been systematically analyzed. To apply them in language teaching will be quite different from other teaching approaches. Lexical chunks approach has great feasibility. This approach prove from the theoretical perspective that language teaching, focusing on lexical chunks, will greatly help language learners with native-like language performances.However, most Chinese students, even some teachers, know little about lexical phrases except some fixed collocations. They have not paid much attention to other types of lexical chunks in language. Based on the current research findings, this thesis aims to illustrate the importance of lexical phrases in language production and language use, to enlighten Chinese students about lexical phrases, and to encourage the application of lexical chunks approach. We designed an experiment that shows use of lexical phrases between native speakers and Chinese students of different English levels. We chose three groups of participants, ranging from native speakers, English majors (TEM 8 passers) to non-English majors (CET4 passers). We collected the records of their spontaneous answers to three questions. Then we transferred these records to text files and analyzed them. The analysis results show that differences do exist in the use of lexical phrases by natives and Chinese. There are also differences between English majors and non-English majors.This thesis first describes the nature of lexical phrases (pre-fabricated chunks) according to the theory of Nattinger and Decarrico, including their definition, categorization, and several major functions. Then it illustrates the role and importance of lexical phrases both from theoretical and from factual perspectives. Theoretically it bases on the Levelt production mode to explain the advantages of using lexical phrases in language production. Through analyzing samples from the experiment, it shows the relationship between oral English level and the use of lexical phrases in oral English. We hope that more and more Chinese English learners can understand the importance of lexical phrases and use them actively in learning English and improving oral English skills.