The Use Of Lexical Chunks In Normal College Students’ English Writing

English learning is mainly about four basic skills which are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Writing can reflect how good students? comprehensive language ability is. However, it is long neglected in China. It is necessary for students to improve their writing proficiency. To improve students? writing proficiency is a common target for both English researchers and teachers.In recent years, the study of lexical chunks is arousing an increasingly strong interest among second language acquisition researchers and language teachers. Their functions and status in language acquisition and application have become a subject in language learning. In traditional teaching method, learners master lots of grammar and lexical phrases, but they still cannot use language properly. Lexical chunks, as the minimum unit of language input, memory, storage and output, possess both lexical and grammatical character. They melt grammar, meaning and context in a whole unit. The application of lexical chunks to second language writing can effectively ease learners? pressure in writing, help them overcome negative transfer from their first language, increase language processing efficiency and finally raise learners? ability to write more fluent, accurate and native-like compositions.Recently, the study about lexical chunks in application is becoming more and more popular. But the subjects of previous studies are mostly college students, researchers and teachers have not paid much attention to normal college students. The participants in this study are seventy two non-English major sophomores in normal college. They are divided into high-score group and low-score group according to their writing scores. An independent-samples t test shows that there is a significant difference in their writing proficiency.Three research questions in this study are addressed as follows:1. What are the differences of the lexical chunks used by students in H-group and those in L-group in terms of frequency and type?2. What are the differences of the erroneous lexical chunks between two groups in terms of frequency and type?3. What are the differences in the generation pattern of erroneous lexical chunks between two groups?Writing tasks and an interview are employed as research instruments. And based on qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, this article has attained the following research findings:First, for both H-group and L-group, fixed phrases are used most frequently, followed by phrasal verbs, sentence builders and institutionalized expressions.Second, for erroneous lexical chunks, the error rate of LCs in H-group is lower than that of L-group in overall lexical chunks, fixed phrases, phrasal verbs, and institutionalized expressions. But it is higher than that of L-group in sentence builders. There are significant differences in the overall error rate of LCs and error rate of fixed phrases.Third, for generation of lexical chunks in English writing, both memory-based and rule-based patterns are adopted by H-group and L-group students. Compared with L-group, H-group tends to adopt memory-based pattern more frequently than L-group.At the end of the thesis, some important implications are drawn as follows: According to English teaching requirements and the English basis of normal college, students can explore a new method of raising learners? ability of English writing through the bridge of “lexical chunks”. As for lexical chunks with different functions, teachers can help improve students? realization for lexical chunks and accumulate lexical chunks on their own. Meanwhile, teachers should renew their teaching philosophy to stimulate students? interest by using lexical chunks. Lastly, the teaching and acquisition of lexical chunks should be conducted within certain context.