A Contrastive Analysis On Lexical Chunks In English And Chinese Scientific Writings

Lexical chunks are a kind of intermediate language structures, possessing both the lexical and grammatical characteristics. They are the main component of language and they also play a critical role in fluency and accuracy of language output. In recent years, researchers have made theoretical and empirical studies on lexical chunks in depth which provide a solid foundation for further studies. However, few contrastive analyses of lexical chunks in scientific writings are available. Scientific writings are worth investigating because of the extensive use in our daily life and work. As such,this study attempts to explore a contrastive analysis in the use of lexical chunks in English and Chinese scientific writings. Based on the contrastive analysis, this study can help learners have a better understanding of the features of English and Chinese lexical chunks so as to reduce mistakes in language use. It may also help learners avoid the negative transfer of Chinese and use English appropriately.This study is based on the theory of Nattinger & Decarrico, which classifies lexical chunks into four types: polywords, institutional expressions, phrasal constaints and sentence builers. 60 pieces of English and Chinese scientific writings are used for this study. They are collected from periodicals and magazines confined to scientific expository essays. Steps for data analysis are as follows: identifying and marking the four types of lexical chunks, counting and calculating their frequencies, analyzing their characteristics in four categories and contrasting the similarities and differences between English and Chinese lexical chunks.This study investigates lexical chunks from the following aspects: describing the general distribution of use of lexical chunks in English and Chinese scientific writings,analyzing the specific characteristics of lexical chunks in each of category,identifying the similarities and differences in the use of four categories in lexical chunks and discussing the possible causes of the differences.Data analysis indicates that the number of lexical chunks in English is more than that in Chinese. The structures of lexical chunks in English are more fixed. In the four categories, the number of phrasal constraints is the most and institutionalized is the least, with polywords and sentence builders nearly the same in between. The similarities of the use of lexical chunks are mainly reflected on polywords. Most of them are the same in the meaning and structure. However, the differences are obvious on the structures of lexical chunks. In phrasal constraints, the structures are fixed andthey are often collocated with prepositions in English lexical chunks. But there are lots of collected words in Chinese lexical chunks. In sentence builders, there are many clauses and fixed sentence structures in English while Chinese sentence builders are loose and flexible. The possible cause of these differences in use is believed to come from the distinct ways of thinking which results in the different structures of language.The way of linking is hypotaxis in English language which makes the discourses use more transitional words and relatives to link contexts. The way of linking is parataxis in Chinese language which results in loose sentences without explicit linkers.On the basis of the above findings, some suggestions are made. Teachers should raise learners’ awareness of lexical chunks and enhance the input and output of lexical chunks. Also, teachers should analyze similarities and differences in the use of them between English and Chinese so as to improve the fluency and accuracy of learners in language use.