A Corpus-based Study Of Polywords In Speaking Between Native And Non-native English Speakers

In recent years, the study of lexical chunks has become an important project in Corpus Linguistics and SLA. At the same time, polywords enjoy a growing interest.There are a large number of repeated lexical chunks in language(Lewis, 1993). Lexical items that composed by more than one word are called lexical chunks, which can also be named as prefabricated chunks(Becker, 1975), lexical phrases(Nattinger & De Carrico, 1992), and formulaic sequences(Wray, 2000) and so on. According to Lewis(1993), lexical chunks can be sub-divided into four categories. They are polywords, collocations, institutionalized utterance and sentence frames and heads. Polywords defined by Lewis(1993) are extension of words, which are often considered to be the essential vocabulary for learners in acquisition. Collocations refer to pairs of words that frequently co-occur with each other. These frequent associations merge into habitual connection and sometimes they are in a fixed order. Institutionalized utterances are whole units and conventionalized in the language. They tend to express pragmatic rather than referential meaning. These chunks may be full sentences, usable with no variation but always with instantly identifiable pragmatic meaning. Sentence frames and heads serve as the framework builders of the whole sentences.Previous studies on lexical chunks abroad and at home have presented the characteristics of focusing on the following aspects: lexical chunks used by ESL; lexical chunks used by native English speakers and corpus-based approach oriented studies(Weinert, 1995; Granger, 1998; Howarth, 1998; Wray, 2002; Xu Fang, 2011). However, studies on polywords in oral practice by native and non-native English speakers are relatively rare.Based on the previous studies, the author sums up the definition and classification of polywords in order to favor her research: Polywords are one word or 2-6 words of chunks of fixed word order and meaning with pragmatic functions and a degree of idiomaticity in language communication, and they can be classified into: verbal chunks, collocations, idioms, catchphrase, colloquialism and pragmatic-function oriented chunks.The two research corpora NSC(Native Speakers’ Corpus) and NNSC(Non-native Speakers’ Corpus) in this study are self-built and principle-guided. The establishments of the two corpora undergo the steps of the selecting of key words, theme, and the sifting and decoding of the texts. The number of total words in NSC is 112,315 and the texts are from the American discussions-oriented TV program PBS News Hour. NNSC contains 112,209 words, and the texts in NNSC are 300 impromptu speeches by Chinese college students in nation-wide English speaking competitions.The present study aims to investigate the similarities and differences between the employment of polywords by native and non-native English speakers in oral English, thus to provide the materials of polywords for English learning and teaching. Through this study, four issues are discussed based on the above corpora: 1)the features of the oral use of polywords by native English speakers; 2) the features of the oral use of polywords by non-native speakers; 3) whether there are some differences between native and non-native English speakers in the oral use of polywords; 4) the typical errors of the oral use of polywords by non-native speakers and possible reasons. The research results can be shown in the following:(1) Native English speakers use six types of polywords in speaking. They are verbal chunks, collocations, idioms, catchphrase, colloquialism and pragmatic-function oriented chunks. The employment of the six types of polywords is different in frequency(from the most frequently used to the least ones among 10,000 words): verbal chunks(103) ﹥collocations(43)﹥colloquialism(34)﹥pragmatic function-oriented chunks(16)﹥idioms(1.4)﹥catchphrase(0.5). Native speakers tend to use more verbal chunks and collocations, but fewer idioms and catchphrases. The use of verbal chunks shows more richness, and the most frequently used polyword is ―look at‖(2/ten thousand words);(2) Non-native speakers use six types of polywords in speaking. They are verbal chunks, collocations, idioms, catchphrase, colloquialism and pragmatic-function oriented chunks. The employment of the six types of polywords is different in frequency(from the most frequent to the least among 10,000 words): verbal chunks(51)﹥pragmatic function-oriented chunks(34)﹥ collocations(21) ﹥ colloquialism(11) ﹥ idioms(0.4) ﹥ catchphrase(0.1). Non-native speakers tend to use more verbal chunks and pragmatic function-oriented chunks, but fewer idioms and catchphrases. The use of pragmatic function-oriented chunks shows more richness, and the most frequently used polyword is ―first‖(3/ten thousand words);(3) Similarity shared by NSC and NNSC is that both native and non-native English speakers prefer to use more verbal chunks but fewer catchphrases. Difference between NSC and NNSC is significant(chi-square=5.160,p=0.000﹤0.05). Specifically, the differences of the use of verbal chunks(p=0.000﹤0.05), collocations(p=0.000﹤0.05), colloquialism(p=0.000﹤0.05) and pragmatic function-oriented chunks(p=0.000﹤0.05) are very significant and the chi-square is respectively 41.9458, 21.5455, 96.3881 and 355.6482. The difference of the use of idioms is significant for the p=0.011 and the chi-square is 6.4106. There is no difference of the use of catchphrase between NSC and NNSC for p=0.132﹤0.05. Native speakers use more verbal chunks and collocations than that of non-native speakers but fewer pragmatic function oriented chunks;(4) Typical errors by non-native speakers are interlingua, intralingua and redundancy. Possible reasons for these errors are language transfer, the negative effect of the Chinese way of thinking, and the inadequate acquisition of the English grammar.This study testifies the significance of lexical chunks, especially polywords in the vocabulary acquisition; it enriches the accomplishments of studies on polywords in the realm of oral practice of English for the purposes of daily communication and impromptu speeches; it may also shed some light on the training of polywords that used in impromptu speeches for college students.