A Comparative Study Of Use Of Lexical Collocations In Chinese EFL Learners' Oral And Written Narrative Production

This study aims to examine Chinese EFL learners'use of lexical collocations in their oral and written narrative production. It seeks to explore the differences in use of lexical collocations across learners'oral and written narrative compositions and the differences in use of lexical collocations across the learners of different proficiency levels. It also highlights to examine the correlation between the learners'use of lexical collocations and their narrative performances.The spoken data submitted for analysis were taken from the SWECCL, a Chinese learner corpus, in which 30 cases were selected and divided into two groups: 15 higher-level cases and 15 lower-levels on the basis of the test-takers'oral performances. The written data were 30 pieces of writing collected from grade-two English majors. The written compositions were divided into higher- and lower-groups on the basis of their writing performances. The conceptual framework for analysis was mainly adopted with some minor modifications from Benson, Benson and Ilson's classification of collocations. Lexical collocations in this study were divided into seven types: V. + N., Adj. + N., N. + V., N.1 + of + N.2, Adv. + Adj., V. + Adv., and N. + N.. The data analysis generated the following findings:Firstly, the results of the independent sample T-test reveal that there is no significant difference between oral and written narrative compositions in the total frequency of use of seven types lexical collocations. In terms of each type of lexical collocation, differences are found in the frequency of N. + V., N.1 + of + N.2, and Adv. + Adj., with N. + V. and N.1+ of + N.2 used more frequently in writing than in speaking, and Adv. + Adj. used more frequently in speaking than in writing.A micro-analysis reveals that, in speaking, the learners tended to use the intensifier of very to modify the adjectives, and such a pattern accounts for 75% of all the occurrences of the Adv. + Adj. type. This tendency suggests that the speakers had at their disposal limited resources of adverb variety in their online oral production, and in the meanwhile higher frequency of use of very may be one of the characteristics of the learners'spoken lexical feature in their oral narratives.However, significant differences are found in the variety of lexical collocations between the learners'oral and written compositions. Interestingly, these differences are manifested in all types of lexical collocation between speaking and writing with more varieties in writing except the types of V. + N. and N. + V.. This tendency obviously suggests that the learners were able to gain more time in writing and naturally were more capable of making more choices of varied lexical collocations.Secondly, the cross-level comparisons of lexical collocations in speaking show that obvious differences exist in the use of collocational patterns of Adj. + N., V. + Adv., V. + N., and Adv. + Adj. in the order of frequency, indicating that learners of higher proficiency levels used much more collocations than learners of lower levels.Unlike speaking, there are noticeable differences in writing between learners of higher and lower levels in the use of collocational patterns of Adj. + N. and V. + N., suggesting that higher achievers had a better command of those collocations than lower achievers. Such results may become an important means of assessment for learners'speaking and writing ability.Finally, the results of correlation and multiple regression analyses indicate that the use of lexical collocations is positively correlated with both the learners'oral and their written narrative performances, and that the use of collocational patterns of Adj. + N. and V. + Adv. enjoys a strong predicting power on the learners'oral performances, and, apart from Adj. + N. and V. + Adv., the use of V. + N. may predict to some extent the learners'writing ability.The findings generated from the study may have some pedagogical implications. From the teacher's perspective, learners'use of lexical collocations may help to offer insights into the learners'oral and writing proficiency, and therefore, can be used as an important assessment device. From the learner's perspective, collocational input may enhance the learners'speaking skills and writing skills as well, but it is necessary for them to be aware of register differences in the use of collocations while accomplishing the speaking and writing tasks.