| An increasing number of corpus-based studies have been conducted in recent years, in which great attention has been paid to the multi-word unit in language. However, there is no unified definition about the multi-word unit, nor is there a widely-accepted Chinese translation for this term. Therefore, the author adopts the term’lexical chunk’ to refer to the multi-word unit used in the present study and defines it as a continuous combination of words frequently used in different texts and consisting of at least two words without any punctuation in the words. With reference to the classifications by Biber et al.(1999,2004) in structure and function, the present study compares the three-word chunks in MA theses written by advanced EFL learners and those in academic journal papers written by native speakers of English in order to find the characteristics of lexical chunks in advanced English-maj ors.The present study adopts quantitative and qualitative methods. It reveals that on the whole, the advanced English learners can use a large number of three-word chunks in their writings. In terms of structure, all the lexical chunks in the two corpora can be divided into NP-based, PP-based, VP-based, Clause-based and other chunks. In terms of function, they are grouped into referential expressions, stance expressions and discourse organizers. However the use of them between advanced English learners and native speakers in structure and function are significantly different from each other.With regard to structure, firstly, the advanced English learners use more NP-based and PP-based lexical chunks than native speakers do, of which some are related to research subjects, some are not found hi the native chunk list. Secondly, the use of VP-based lexical chunks by advanced English learners has the characteristic of Chinese grammar such as frequently used active voice. Thirdly, Clause-based lexical chunks show little variation in the MATC such as more use of that-based chunks than which-and as-based chunks.In terms of function, firstly, quantifying chunks in referential expressions by the advanced English learners such as the degree to are used less than by native speakers. Secondly, for advanced English learners little use of hedging chunks in stance expressions indicates their little flexibility and variation. Thirdly, the advanced English learners have recognized the importance of discourse organizers. The overuse of them in the learner corpus becomes a kind of over-generalization. Further investigation indicates that three-word chunks retrieved from the Academic Journal Corpus account for less than50percent in the MA Theses Corpus and some of them are overused or underused by learners.Therefore, the results of this study have some implications for MA theses writing. In addition, this study puts forward some suggestions for applying the teaching method-word chunks in second language acquisition. |
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