Lexical Richness In Timed Compositions By Non-english Major Freshmen Of Different Writing Levels

In recent decades,studies have shown that lexical richness is a significant indicator of language learners’ vocabulary output capacity.Like syntax,fluency,accuracy,etc.,lexical richness is another important factor affecting writing quality.However,there is no consensus on the relationship between lexical richness and writing quality(Linnarud 1986;Qin Xiaoqing & Wen Qiufang 2007;Lemmouh 2008).The main reason is that no consensus has been made on which indices should be employed to measure lexical richness and what the formulas of these indices are.Furthermore,in terms of research on lexical richness,Chinese non-English major freshmen have always been neglected,and few scholars have conducted comparative studies with native speakers in this respect.Based on the frameworks of lexical richness proposed by Laufer(1991),Engber(1995),and Read(2000),in this paper,lexical richness consists of three parameters: lexical variation,lexical sophistication and lexical density.Vermeer’s(2000)method was adopted to calculate lexical variation so as to eliminate the influence of text length;Liu Donghong’s(2003)to calculate lexical sophistication to remove the impact of lexical errors on calculation of sophisticated words;Engber’s(1995)to calculate lexical density but lexical words are more clearly defined.Targeting 205 Chinese non-English major freshmen from a national key university in southwest part of China as the subjects,and with the use of Claws7,Antconc,Range32 and SPSS,this comparative study investigated the features of lexical richness in randomly selected 90 timed essays and the discrepancies between L2 and L1 essays in lexical richness.Finally,this paper explored the relationship between lexical richness and writing quality as well.The research results are summarized as follows:(1)The mean values of lexical variation,lexical sophistication,and lexical density in L2 writings all increase with writing quality;(2)Lexical variation and lexical density can significantly distinguish between high-level group and low-level group but cannot distinguish between the adjacent groups well.Lexical sophistication is significantly different among three L2 groups;(3)There were significant differences between each level group and the reference group in the three dimensions of lexical richness except for lexical variation between high-level group and its reference group;(4)The three indices of lexical richness are significantly and positively correlated with writing quality,and in a descending order,their influence on writing quality are lexical sophistication(Beta=.454,p=.000)> lexical variation(Beta=.268,p=.004)> lexical density(Beta=.175,p=.054).The predicative power of lexical richness for writing quality is only 31.2%.The above research results illustrate the features of lexical richness in timed compositions by Chinese non-English major freshmen and the relationship of lexical richness to writing quality,as well as reveal large discrepancies within L2 learners and between L2 learners and L1 students.Given this,some tentative suggestions for English teaching are proposed to improve lexical richness in L2 writings.It is suggested that teachers incorporate vocabulary teaching into writing instruction to guide learners to employ synonym replacement,more topic-related advanced words,and content words conveying information in writing,so as to improve lexical richness.Besides the factors of content,syntax,grammar,and accuracy,etc.,teachers are also advised to reward the writings with more diverse and advanced words while evaluating writings so as to develop learners’ awareness of the relationship between lexical richness and writing quality.Teachers are suggested to encourage learners to write long essays and apply the “length approach” method(Wang Chuming et al.2000)to turn their receptive vocabulary into productive vocabulary,so as to narrow the discrepancies between Chinese L2 learners and native speakers in lexical richness in writings.