The Acquisition Of Chunks In L2Written And Spoken Corpora: The Case Of Chinese EFL Learners

In1975, Becker first proposed the term “chunks” which was later widely used toexplain strings of language structure with high frequency in the field of languageteaching and learning. In recent years, with the development of the linguistics andcorpus, lexical chunks have played a highlighted role in second language acquisition(SLA). However, domestic theoretical discussions of the relevant researches are notdeep enough, and empirical studies also have some limitations. With Spoken andWritten Corpus of Chinese Learners (SWECCL) as source data, this paper makes acomparative analysis of the characteristics and distributions of four-word chunks usedin English majors’ written and spoken registers. In addition, the present study aims toinvestigate the internal and external factors which can affect Chinese EFL learners’acquisition of lexical chunks. The research questions to be addressed in this study areas follows:1. What are the most frequent four-word lexical chunks used by Chinese EFLlearners in written and spoken registers?2. What are the differences of distribution of four-word lexical chunks betweenL2written and spoken registers?3. What are the factors that influence Chinese EFL learners’ use of lexical chunksin written and spoken registers?In order to answer these questions, with the assistance of software AntConc3.2.4and manual filtering, this study extracts target chunks respectively from SpokenEnglish Corpus of Chinese Learners (SECCL) and Written English Corpus of ChineseLearners (WECCL). In addition, a qualitative and quantitative analysis of SECCL andWECCL are undertaken from the functional classification. First, with the guidance of previous useful researches, the frequencies of the two corpora SECCL and WECCL areextracted and the quantitative analysis is made. Second, the target chunks are classifiedinto functional categories and the qualitative analysis is made in light of specificcontext. Besides software AntConc3.2.4, this study also uses word graphical tools andmanual filtering to increase the linguistic credibility and validity.The findings indicate that:(1) the most frequent four-word lexical chunks arereferential bundles and discourse organizers in the selected written and spoken corpora.Specifically, in terms of functions of lexical chunks, SECCL uses referential bundlesmost frequently, while WECCL uses discourse organizers most frequently;(2) thedistribution of the most frequent four-word lexical chunks used in SECCL andWECCL are obviously different. And even the same category of four-word chunksdisplays different distribution in different corpora. The findings indicate that thefrequency of referential bundles in SECCL is obviously higher than that in WECCL;(3)on the basis of the comparative analysis of lexical chunks used in WECCL and SECCL,it is indicated that L1transfer, input intensity and stylistic awareness have differenteffects on the use of lexical chunks. What’s more, differences of using lexical chunksbetween EFL learners and English native speakers are also found. Some lexical chunksare overused, and some are underused and some misused. It also indicates that Englishmajors’ outputs of lexical chunks are far from enough.In accordance with the findings, this paper suggests that future pedagogicalefforts should be made to raise students’ awareness of lexical chunks and cultivatetheir strategy of acquisition, combine lexical chunks with grammar and lexis inlanguage teaching and learning, and incorporate lexical chunks into the syllabus design.Chinese EFL learners should pay close attention to the acquisition and application ofchunks which are the indispensable components in SLA.