A Study On Chinese EFL Learners’ Lexical Redundancy In Chinglish

Lexical redundancy, as a prevailing and the most likely to be overlookedmanifestation of Chinglish, regularly occurs in the oral and written English output ofChinese EFL learners. It refers to the oversuppliance or misuse of words or phrasesthat cannot make any new contribution to the information of the original sentence.This phenomenon has been frown upon for a long time in Chinese English classes,but many EFL learners experience great difficulty getting rid of it.Since lexical redundancy has hindered Chinese L2learners from acquiringidiomatic English, this phenomenon has attracted much attention of researchers inrecent years. However, the majority of previous studies on lexical redundancy areeither purely theoretical or corpus-based studies and they mainly concentrate on theclassifications and cause analysis of lexical redundant errors. Up to date, few studieshave been systematically carried out on different types of lexical redundant errorsoccurred in written and oral output of L2learners. Therefore, both quantitative andqualitative research methods are employed in the present study to carry out acomprehensive investigation on the overall distribution and variation characteristicsof main types of lexical redundant errors among Chinese L2learners at differentEnglish proficiency levels.To achieve this purpose, three steps are taken:(i) to ensure that the participantschosen in this study represent three different English proficiency levels by havingthem perform the Quick Placement Test;(ii) to systematically describe the redundanterrors committed by Chinese L2learners through quantitative research methods (i.e.,Grammatical Judgment Test);(iii) to unveil the in-depth causes of lexicalredundancy from qualitative aspect (i.e., Chinese-English Translation Task andretrospective interviews). Through contrastive analysis of lexical redundant errorscommitted by Chinese L2learners at different English proficiency levels, the present study will make an attempt to explore and answer the following three key researchquestions：(i) What is the overall distribution of three types of lexical redundant errors (i.e.,noun and verb redundancy, redundant modifiers, unnecessary prepositions andarticles) among Chinese EFL learners at different proficiency levels?(ii) What is the relationship between the occurrence of lexical redundant errors andL2learners’ English proficiency?(iii) What are the possible factors contributing to the lexical redundancy in theinterlanguage of Chinese EFL learners?To answer the above research questions, the cross-sectional investigativeapproach is adopted in the current study. One hundred and twelve Chinese EFLlearners, representing three levels of English proficiency,(i.e., low, intermediate andadvanced), were recruited to participate in the present study. They were required toperform two tasks,(i.e, a quick placement test, and a grammatical judgment test).The quantitative analysis of the GJT yielded the following major findings:(i)Lexical redundant errors exist on all phases of English learning and Chinese L2learners still have great difficulty overcoming these errors even if their Englishproficiency continue to enhance.(ii) Different types of lexical redundant errors havetheir own manifestations at different English proficiency levels. Participants atlow-level committed more “noun and verb redundancy” compared with redundancyof modifiers (i.e adjectives and adverbs), and function words (i.e, preposition andarticles), whereas the redundant modifiers and function words are committed moreby participants at intermediate and advanced proficiency levels compared with theredundant nouns and verbs. The reason for this finding might be the fact that at thefirst stage of English learning, L2learners often neglect the correct usages ofspecific words since they pay more attention to redundant nouns and verbs and thefull expression of meaning. However, with the improvement of their Englishproficiency, they have a better command of specific English words and come to realize the importance of correctness and conciseness in English expressions. Thus,they are able to avoid some obvious lexical redundant errors while expressing theirideas.(iii) Lexical redundant errors committed by the participants, regardless ofwhich type it belongs to, reduces gradually with the increase of the participants’English proficiency levels, indicating that Chinese L2learners’ abilities to overcomelexical redundant errors increase as Chinese L2learners’ English proficiencyimproves.Furthermore, three participants were chosen from each participant group to do aChinese-English translation task (CETT) and then have a follow-up retrospectiveinterview. Qualitative analyses of the CETT, the GJT and the transcripts of thefollow-up retrospective interviews reveal that the occurrence of lexical redundancyis mainly caused by negative transfer of mother tongue, inappropriate vocabularylearning behaviors, overgeneralization of the target rules.