A Corpus-based Study On Chinese EFL Learners' Use Of Lexical Bundles

Lexical bundles are frequently-used multi-word sequences,which contribute to idiomatic and fluent linguistic production.Due to their importance and commonness,lexical bundles have aroused extensive concerns in the academia.But the existing research on lexical bundles mainly focuses on the dimensions like lexical and grammatical features,cognition and communicative functions and so on,with general English discourse as the main subject of these studies.It needs to be pointed out that the studies on lexical bundles in academic discourse are much fewer,and the studies on different educational levels are even rare.Within the framework of Biber et al.'s(1999)definition and Hyland's(2008)functional classification,this paper is designed to study the use of lexical bundles in academic writing by Chinese EFL learners of different educational levels.The data sources of the study are the two corpora on academic writing which were built by The Institute of Pragmatics at Jiangsu University.This paper aims to answer the following questions:(1)How do Chinese EFL learners of different educational levels use lexical bundles in academic writing? How do they differ from native English writers?(2)How do Chinese EFL learners of different educational levels use research-oriented bundles in academic writing? How do they differ from native English writers?(3)How do Chinese EFL learners of different educational levels use text-oriented bundles in academic writing? How do they differ from native English writers?(4)How do Chinese EFL learners of different educational levels use participant-oriented bundles in academic writing? How do they differ from native English writers? It is found that:(1)Compared with native English writers' research articles,Chinese EFL learners make use of more lexical bundles in total number.Text-oriented bundles are too heavily employed in Chinese EFL learners' theses,while the participant-and research-oriented bundles are insufficiently used.(2)Compared with native experts' research articles,Chinese EFL learners significantly underuse research-oriented bundles,but the number increases in general along with the advance of educational levels.The five sub-categories do not have the unified developmental patterns;however,the use of such bundles is leveling off and getting closer to native English writers.(3)Compared with native expert's research articles,Chinese EFL learners use much more text-oriented bundles.This category goes through a process of rise and fall,and gradually tends to be stable,which makes theses more similar to the native experts' writing.This developmental pattern goes for that of the four sub-categories.(4)Chinese EFL learners significantly underuse participant-oriented bundles.With the advance of the educational levels,participant-oriented bundles take on a tendency to continuously go up,which is the same with the two sub-categories.The study has some theoretical value and practical significance.In theory,this study proves lexical bundles to be important constituents of fluent linguistic production and finds high correlations between educational levels and the use of lexical bundles.In practice,proper use of lexical bundles could be the core index of good academic writing.The results of the study also have a referential value for Chinese EFL learners' academic writing,teaching,and material compilation.