A Corpus-driven Study Into The Structures And Functions Of Lexical Bundles In Argumentative Essays By Chinese EFL Students

The present study investigated the structures and functions of 3-word to 6-word lexical bundles in English argumentative writing by Chinese EFL students to identify features of lexical bundles to provide some pedagogical implications of improving writing quality.For the present study,a corpus of 120 timed argumentative essays written by second-year business majors was collected.Given the size of the self-built corpus in the present study and the length of lexical bundles to be analysed,the frequency threshold of 3-word to 6-word lexical bundles was carefully set as six times,six times,four times and four times respectively.Target lexical bundles,extracted through WordSmith 4.0 based on the frequency threshold and by careful manual examination to exclude meaningless bundles,were analysed based on an adapted version of Biber et al.'s structural framework and Hyland's functional framework of classifying lexical bundles respectively.It was found that there was generally a negative correlation,both structurally and functionally,between the frequency and the length of lexical bundles although there were some fluctuations in certain specific categories.Results showed that the participants did not have a good command of employing lexical bundles,affecting the quality of English argumentative writing in various ways.First,they used limited types of lexical bundles but in high frequency.They generally lacked lexical richness in employing lexical bundles with prompts,specific lexical bundles expressing their opinions and text-oriented lexical bundles conveying transitional signals occurring in high frequency.Second,they relied heavily on the anticipatory it structure and did not have the consciousness of using hedges and boosters when expressing their attitude.Third,they virtually did not use lexical bundles involving attributive clauses.Fourth,they are inclined to use colloquial language in writing.Therefore,it is necessary to compile and use writing textbooks which stresses the significance of lexical bundles,contributing to raising teachers' awareness of the importance of lexical bundles in English argumentative writing.Second,explicit instruction needs to be conducted on lexical bundles that are underused,overused and misused.Third,enough input of lexical bundles through extracurricular reading and output of them,guided by teachers,are required to improve English argumentative writing.Fourth,workshops,advanced writing courses,and conferences with a focus on how to teach lexical bundles could be set up for teachers to help improve Chinese EFL students' ability in English argumentative writing through lexical bundles.