A Corpus-based Study Of Formulaic Sequences In Doctoral Dissertations Of Advanced Chinese EFL Learners

As an important component of fluent linguistic production, formulaic sequenceshave been attracting attention among linguists for a long time. The study of formulaicsequences in texts by advanced Chinese English as Foreign Language (EFL) learnerswould contribute to the teaching of academic writings. The present study investigated thestructures and functions of four-word formulaic sequences in doctoral dissertations byadvanced Chinese EFL learners. A corpus of doctoral dissertations by Chinese EFLlearners and a corpus of doctoral dissertations by native English speakers were collectedfor the present study. Four-word formulaic sequences in these two corpora wereidentified and analyzed.Results showed that advanced Chinese EFL learners used more four-word formulaicsequences and more different formulaic sequences in the doctoral dissertations thannative English speakers. Structural analysis of those formulaic sequences showed that thelearners and the native speakers used similar amount of verb-phrase-based (VP-based)structures of formulaic sequences. However, the learners used moreproposition-phrase-based (PP-based) structures and less noun-phrase-based (NP-based)of formulaic sequences than the native speakers. As for the functions of those formulaicsequences, learners used less participant-oriented (PO) formulaic sequences than nativespeakers. Nevertheless, the learners used more research-oriented (RO) and text-oriented(TO) formulaic sequences than native speakers. It was argued that the learners use the PPstructure and the functions of RO and TO more frequently than the native speakers forthe reason that most of the learners dissertations were based on empirical data. Itindicated that the learners used these kinds of sequences because they attempted to craftreader-friendly texts to make their readers well engaged. However, it also suggested thatlearners should pay more attention to the use of PO sequences. The investigation in the overuse and underuse of formulaic sequences by the learners indicated that the overuseor underuse of certain sequences was probably related to text length, genre and culturalbackground. The result also revealed that advanced Chinese EFL learners are strategic ofusing formulaic sequences in academic writings.This corpus-based study has provided pedagogical implications for the teaching andlearning of formulaic sequences in EFL field. The limitations of the present study havealso been discussed in the end of this thesis. The ignorance of discontinuous sequencesand the phenomenon of sequence replacement in the present research have recommendedresearchers to consider these aspects in further study.