Formulaic Language In Argumentative Writings By Chinese Advanced EFL Learners-a Corpus-based Comparative Study

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the role and significance of formulaic language (FL) in language acquisition and application. Formulaic language has recently become widely considered as a vital aspect of second language competence. In view of the formulaic language’s significant role and the difficulties that Chinese learners (CL) have in using them, the aim of this research is to investigate quantitatively and qualitatively on the features of formulaic language in argumentative writings used by Chinese EFL learners compared with native speakers.The data source of the study is two corpora, that is, CLEC (Chinese Learners English Corpus) and LOCNESS (Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays), from which some argumentative writings will be selected for the research. With the help of WordSmith Tools and manual filtering procedure, all three-to-six-word lexical chunks are retrieved from the two corpora. In conformity with Nattinger and Decarrico’s framework, four types of lexical phrases are given from the structural perspective:poly words, sentence builders, phrasal constraints, and institutionalized expressions.The author tries best to make full use of quantitative method as well as qualitative analysis in the process of carrying on with the study. On the one hand, we can use quantitative method to investigate the differences and similarities between Chinese EFL learners’ use of formulaic language and native speakers’ in argumentative writings. On the other hand, we can apply qualitative method to analyze the possible reasons for the phenomenon.The study has obtained the answers of the following questions presented at the beginning of the paper:1. Compared with native speakers, what are the features of Chinese advanced EFL learners’use of formulaic language argumentative writings?1) What are the characteristics of native speakers’use of formulaic language in argumentative writings?2) What are the characteristics of Chinese EFL learners’use of formulaic language in argumentative writings?3) Are there any similarities and difference?2. What are the main factors influencing the learning of formulaic language by Chinese EFL learners?From the results of the study we can conclude that formulaic language is frequently used by English learners and native speakers. Three-word lexical chunk is the largest in number and the highest in occurrence frequency, while the number and the occurrence frequency of six-word lexical chunk the smallest. In addition, among the four structural types of lexical chunks which are categorized by Nattigner and Decarrico, polywords come first in number and occurrence frequency in the two corpora and institutionalized expressions have the lowest frequency. What’s more, this study finds that seniors have the tendency to use longer and regular expressions/semi-fixed phrase more frequently, while the juniors tend to use shorter and regular responses more frequently.However, Chinese EFL learners’competence to use formulaic language is far from satisfactory for they have the tendency to overuse and underuse some chunks, which may be possibly caused by insufficient formulaic language input, the negative transfer from their first language, colloquial tendency and so on.There exist a few deviations in the present study on account of some problems, such as, the researcher’s own judgment in the procedure of manual filtering, the deficient research capability of the researcher and so on. As for the problems, some suggestions are presented. Besides, suggestions for formulaic language teaching and learning are provided.