An Investigation On The Use Of Lexical Chunks In English Writing Of Senior High School Students

Writing constitutes the four basic requirements in English learning and teaching. Given the fact that good writing involves idiomatic usages of words, lexical chunks have been given due attention recently. However, much research has focused on theoretical exploration. And investigations on senior high school students are not enough.This study, based on the classification of four categories of lexical chunks by Nattinger and DeCarrico(polywords; institutionalized expressions; phrasal constraints; sentence builders), takes 110 students in Liaoyang No.2 Senior High School as research participants, attempting to investigate the use of lexical chunks in their English writing. This study aims at answering the following questions:1. What is the distribution of four categories of lexical chunks in students’ English writings(in two aspects: quantity and frequency)?2. What is students’ awareness about lexical chunks?3. Is there any significant difference of each type of lexical chunks between higher-score and lower-score compositions?100 valid compositions were gathered. The topic is a letter in National College Entrance Examination. Lexical chunks in students’ compositions were classified into four categories proposed by Nattinger and DeCarrico. Meanwhile, the quantity and frequency of each category of lexical chunks were calculated manually. To address the third research question, 30 compositions from the top grade and 30 compositions from the bottom were collected as samples for specific analysis. By means of SPSS, independent samples T-test was used to examine whether there exist the significant differences in the use of each of type of lexical chunks in two groups. Finally, questionnaires as well as interviews were carried out to investigate participants’ awareness about lexical chunks.The major findings are concluded in the following:1. It is found that sentence builders take the first place in student’s writing among the four types of lexical chunks. The second is the phrasal constraints, and the following is polywords and institutionalized expressions. Students use one lexical chunk out of 12.2 words.2. Most of the students are neutral about English writing and realize the importance of lexical chunks in their writing. But they do not keep an “lexical chunk mind” all the time during both their learning and writing. The participants do not usually review and summarize lexical chunks they have learned actively. And most of the students’ chunk awareness and strategies are above medium level.3. The results of independent samples T-test of lexical chunks between higher-score compositions and lower-score compositions show that there are significant differences in the use of polywords, phrasal constraints and sentence builders between higher-score and lower-score compositions. And there is no significant difference in the use of institutionalized expressions in the two groupsThe above findings show that teachers should pay more attention to lexical chunks and improve teaching methods to cultivate students’ chunk awareness. Students should make a point of reviewing and applying lexical chunks during routine writing to promote writing proficiency.