A Comparative Study On The Use Of Noun Phrases By Chinese English Learners And Native Speakers

Noun contains information, and phrase is an important component of a language. Thus, noun phrases are the ones which carry vital meanings in a language. They are the significant parts to comprise the natural language and their structure and types are very complicated. Whether Chinese English learners can have a good knowledge of noun phrases, especially complex noun phrases, will affect their study and understanding of English and even have an effect on their acquisition and application of English.Generally, language has two varieties, written and spoken languages. Therefore, this thesis makes use of SWECCL and BNC to analyze the distribution of noun phrases in spoken and written English. Stanford Parser, Perl and SPSS are used to extract, collect and process data. Qualitative and quantitative methods are helpful to collect and analyze data. In accordance with the complicated structure and patterns of noun phrases, the distribution of noun phrases in SWECCL and BNC is helpful to find the comparison between them and to help Chinese English learners learn and master English better.This thesis finds that noun phrases used by Chinese English learners and native speakers are similar in spoken and written English. However, the distribution is quite different when it comes to specific patterns of noun phrases. Chinese English learners use simple noun phrases more frequently than native speakers do. But they use complex noun phrases less frequently than native speakers do.