Contrastive Study On The Correlation Of EFL Students’ Writing Performance With Lexical Chunks Application And Lexical Richness

Through the statistic analysis in computer, some linguists find that English language communication is not mainly achieved by grammar and lexicon, but by the semi-fixed chunks between grammar and lexicon. Chunks constitute90%of language communication. They are stored in the brain as a whole and can be retrieved immediately without generation and analysis. The mastery of lexical chunks has direct impact on English proficiency. The appropriate application of lexical chunks in English writing can make a fluent and well-organized essay with accurate language expression. Based on ideas above, good mastery of lexical chunks will absolutely improve students’writing performance. Meanwhile some other scholars think that high degree of lexical richness is one of the features of high quality writings.Lexical chunks or lexical richness, which factor is more relevant to the students’ actual writing performance? Or is there any connection between them after all? To answer these questions, firstly this thesis tries to look for answers from their definitions and features, through which the two’s functioning schema may be clearly revealed. After that, empirical study will be introduced in three dimensions. First, from the perspective of lexical chunks, the author tries to find out the correlation between chunks’use and students’writing performance. Similarly, in the next chapter, the author will bring the same question to lexical chunks. Both of these studies will take advantage of students’TEM4writing practice finished in class, with data being extracted from the compositions. The last part of empirical study is an experiment involving the author’s attempt in developing the lexical instruction within writing courses, with the aim to compare the acceptability of lexical chunks and vocabulary.It is hoped that our study can provide support or advice to the deepening of understanding the significance of lexical instruction in EFL students’writing courses, and diversification in the assessment of EFL students’timed writing performance.