| One of the criteria for evaluating foreign language competence is the fluency and coherence when using a language. The correct use of multiple-word sequences is an important factor in the evaluation process (Simpson,2004; Hyland,2008b). Biber et al.(1999) defined "lexical bundles" as "recurrent expressions, regardless of their idiomaticity, and regardless of their structural status". This definition strictly adheres to frequency without accounting for structural and functional criteria.This study is based on a small self-constructed Maritime News corpus. With the assistance of corpus software, the analysis of the lexical bundles in Maritime News mainly focuses on the frequency distribution of3-6word lexical bundles. It then takes the most representative and widely analyzed bundles by previous researchers as examples, further analyzing their structural and functional features. Finally, when compared with Brown and BNC news corpus, the unique features of Maritime News lexical bundles are fully investigated. The results show that, there are a large number of lexical bundles with incomplete structures in Maritime News and longer bundles tend to incorporate the shorter bundles; a large number of lexical bundles functions as references and the comparison indicate that Maritime News bundles do have unique features.The findings of this study could provide teachers with help on how to choose teaching materials. They could further help the compilation of maritime textbooks and the development of relevant tools and thus help students in maritime majors better read the shipping news and improve their reading and writing abilities. |
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