Study On Functions Lexical Chunks Played In Sentence Processing

The theory of "Lexical Chunks" holds that the basic unit of natural languages is not isolated words but Lexical Chunks. Lexical Chunks are those fixed expressions in a language, and master of substantial Lexical Chunks not only can improve the accuracy and fluency of the language learners' expression but also can improve their capability of grammar analysis.Framed Phrases is one kind of Chinese Lexical Chunks, and it is a format which needs to be embedded with other elements so as to form a word or phrase with meaning. It has its unique structural,semantic and pragmatic features.Relations between three variables and the results of two Framed Phrases-understanding tests are investigated through two tests. The three variables are if there is context,gender of the subjects and the background of the subjects(if they are come from a country that in the Chinese Character Culture Zone).The results show that the general condition of intermediate Chinese level oversea students' understanding of Framed Phrases is not so satisfying with many errors appeared. Most errors are made because of the misunderstanding of the structure meaning of the Framed Phrases. Generally speaking, context helps to understand the Framed Phrases, Female subjects did better than Male subjects, and subjects not from Chinese Character Culture Zone did better than the opposite group.The results of the Chinese sentences repeating experiment showed that the native-speakers tend to understand,remember and use Framed Phrases as a whole. The sentences contain Framed Phrases or not and where the positions of the Framed Phrases are have no influence in native-speakers' repeating performance; Chinese Learners (as a second language) subjects are more easily to make mistakes when they repeat sentences contain Framed Phrases and especially those sentences that Framed Phrases appear in the former part. For both groups, the longer the sentences are, the worse they performed. Both groups were trying to first remember the meaning and then the detailed information of the sentences. What is different is that when there was a task they should fulfill (repeating after listening the sentences, for example), but they could not understand the meaning, the Chinese Learners (as a second language) subjects tend to remember the superficial details of the sentences by methods like imitation and compulsive remembering. In the last part, some suggestions to Chinese teaching are made according to the analysis of the relevant discussion.