| An increasing number of researches have shown that language is made up of a large proportion of formulaic sequences that are of special importance to second or foreign language learners who want to achieve native-like fluency and accuracy. Corpus linguistics has made one special type of formulaic sequence a research hotspot, i.e. lexical bundles, which refer to uninterrupted sequences of three-or more words that commonly go together in natural discourse. However, most domestic empirical studies on lexical bundles focus on undergraduates, and those on postgraduates are rare.Using the structural and functional taxonomies designed by Biber et al.(1999,2007), the present study aims to investigate the use of high-frequency four-word lexical bundles in the MA theses by Chinese learners and native speakers of English, all of whom are postgraduates in the discipline of literature. The study was divided into three sections. Firstly, we investigated how the target bundles (i.e. high-frequency four-word lexical bundles in the L1corpus) were exploited in the L2corpus. Secondly, we examined all the high-frequency four-word bundles in the L2corpus to see whether Chinese masters use other high-frequency bundles different from the target bundles. Finally, a contrastive study was carried out to see if the high-frequency four-word bundles in the L1and L2corpora share the same structural and functional distributions.The results are summarized as follows:1) Among the146target bundles,44(nearly1/3) also occur with a high frequency in the L2corpus, High L2input, simple vocabulary components as well as "strong" functions (time/place/text markers, and discourse organizers) of these lexical bundles are the main factors leading to their high output rates. However,76(over1/2) have a lower output rate than the given frequency cut-off, and26do not occur at all. Chinese masters are particularly incompetent in using lexical bundles which end with a definite article, initiated by prepositions, post-modified by clauses and have it as formal subject/object. Relatively lower L2input and learners’limited linguistic competence are the common reasons leading to the absence of the target bundles.2) Besides the44target bundles, Chinese masters also use other174high-frequency four-word lexical bundles, among which over half can also be traced in the L1corpus, indicating that they match up with native speakers’ language intuition. Chinese masters’ over-reliance on limited repertoire of simple bundles, and inadequate L2input may together cause them to occur with high frequency in the L2corpus. However,74lexical bundles are not exploited in the L1corpus at all. Some of them are the frequent bundles in native speakers’ spoken register, and some are even grammatically erroneous. Such errors may be attributable to Chinese masters’ limited linguistic competence as well as the interference of mother language.3) There exist significant differences between L1and L2MA theses in terms of the structural and functional distributions of high-frequency four-word bundles. Structurally, Chinese masters’ use of lexical bundles display oral style features:they underuse some structural subcategories typical of Written English, but overuse those typical of spoken English. Functionally, Chinese masters use similar proportion of referential bundles, but a relatively higher proportion of discourse organizing bundles and a relatively lower proportion of stance bundles than native speakers.The study concludes that Chinese English major masters, although considered as advance English learners, deviate significantly from native speakers in the use of lexical bundles in their MA theses. Their competence of lexical bundles is still far from satisfactory. Therefore, explicit instruction on lexical bundles should be carried out adequately in classrooms. |
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