The Use Of Lexical Chunks In EFL Writing-A Study Of Learners With Different Writing Proficiency

Lexical chunk (LC) is a sequence of two or more words, continuous or discontinuous, variable or fixed, which semantically and/or syntactically forms a meaningful and inseparable unit. It plays an important role in the language learning and teaching.Of all the studies investigating the differences of lexical chunks used by learners with different language proficiency, most of them focus on the product of lexical chunks, but few pay attention to the way they use lexical chunks. The present study attempts to investigate the differences in the type and frequency of lexical chunks by analyzing the writing products of learners with different writing proficiency, and to explore the differences in the generating pattern of lexical chunks by stimulated recall and follow-up interview.The participants are sixty non-English major sophomores. They are divided into high-score group (H-group) and low-score group (L-group) according to their writing scores in CET-4. An independent-samples t test shows that there is a significant difference in their writing proficiency. In addition, ten participants (five from H-group and five from L-group) take part in the stimulated recall and follow-up interview. The major findings are as follows:First, among the four types of LCs (i.e., fixed phrases, institutionalized expressions, sentence builders and phrasal verbs), for both H-group and L-group, fixed phrases are used most frequently, followed by phrasal verbs, sentence builders and institutionalized expressions.Second, there is a significant difference in the overall frequency of LCs between the H-group and L-group, but no significant difference in the overall error rate of LCs. Besides, there are significant differences in the frequency and error rate of fixed phrases.Third, when generating lexical chunks in writing, both memory-based and rule-based patterns are adopted by H-group and L-group students. Compared with H-group, L-group tends to adopt rule-based pattern more frequently than H-group.The findings of the present study provide a better understanding of the students'use of lexical chunks, so the teachers can better assist students in improving their writing. This study also has some pedagogical implications for both EFL teachers and learners. For EFL teachers, especially writing teachers, they should raise students'awareness of lexical chunks and teach lexical chunks in context. For learners, they should pay as much attention to lexical chunks as to rules of language, and learn lexical chunks in context, so that they can develop their lexical chunk competence and ultimately improve their writing proficiency.