A Corpus-based Study Of Phrase Frames In Argumentative Essays By Chinese English-Majors

Traditionally,Chinese learners of English only regard lexical items as isolated words which are used to form sentences by observing grammatical rules.In fact in English natural discourse,up to 70%of the language structure is a relatively fixed semantic form of the formulaic language patterns.If EFL learners are able to master a substantial number of phrases or multi-word sequences,the learning efficiency will be raised correspondingly,and the language expression will be more idiomatic.Above all,it is self-evident that the accumulation and application of formulaic language patterns play a pivotal part in promotion of a learner's language competence.Over recent years,a large number of studies have focused on continuous multi-word sequences abroad and at home,and lots of results have been obtained.So far,researchers abroad have been interested in discontinuous sequences of words,i.e.lexical frames,while domestic scholars are still relatively few on the study phrase framesAdopting the methodology of corpus linguistics,the present study,primarily based on interlanguage theory put forward by American scholar Selinker in the 1970s,explores and analyzes the characteristics of 4-p-frames in the essays written by Chinese English-majors by contrasting p-frames in the argumentative essays written by Chinese English-majors(the TEM-4 and the TEM-8)with those employed by native undergraduates(the NC).The findings show that:1)Through counting the normalized frequencies of types and tokens of 4-p-frames occurring in the three corpora,the nornalized frequencies are shown in descending order:the TEM-4>the TEM-8>the NC,and there are significant differences among the three corpora.The reason why Chinese EFL learners tend to use more 4-p-frames than native speakers is the inadequate acquisition,and EFL learners need to rely on a large number of p-frames to organize the texts and enrich their discourse expressions.2)There is the same decreasing trend in terms of the normalized frequencies of the types of 4-p-frames consisting of only function words in the TEM-4,TEM-8 and NC;however,a particular trend is not clear with respect to normalized frequencies of the tokens of 4-p-frares.According to the results of the LL test,there are significant differences only between the TEM-4 and the NC.3)In the top 30%on the lists of the 4-p-frames with only function words in the three corpora,there are twelve 4-p-frames occurring in the three corpora.The difference between the TEM-8 and the native corpora is bigger than that between the TEM-4 and the native corpora for only two 4-p-frames,namely THE*OF THE and THE*AND THE.On the whole,as the proficiency of learners' L2 increases,learners'abilities of using p-frames improve indeed.4)A comprehensive analysis of the characteristics of two 4-p-frames THE*AND THE and THE*OF THE indicates that Chinese learners tend to be colloquial when writing,Presenting vague stylistic awareness;learners have an unclear notion of how to use the definite article the;the negative transfer of the mother tongue leads to the overuse of certain 4-p-frames.The study has some implications for improving learners' use of lexical chunks and their abilities of writing.It inspires EFL teachers to use corpus tools to present learners with authentic materials in the target language,rather than those written by non-native speakers of English.Furthermore,EFL teachers are supposed to teach the most frequently-used frameworks and the most commonly used words in the slots.In this way,the output by learners would be more authentic and fluent,as well as closer to the target language.