A Survey Of Lexical Richness In Chinese Writing Of International Students At Intermediate And Advanced Levels

The framework of lexical richness measurement proposed by Read(2000)is regarded as an effective tool to measure lexical richness.This dissertation takes lexical diversity,lexical complexity,lexical errors and lexical density under the framework as measurement dimensions,and selects 50 argumentative papers written by two classes of sophomores from Shanghai International Studies University as research materials,and divides them into low-level group and high-level group according to the scores,four native speakers were selected as reference group.From quantitative and qualitative aspects,the relationship between the four measurement dimensions of lexical richness and writing performance was investigated.And according to the conclusion of the study,some suggestions are put forward for the teaching of Chinese writing as a foreign language.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)There are significant differences in lexical diversity and complexity in the compositions of different Chinese learners.Generally speaking,the higher the writing level is,the better the lexical diversity and complexity is;however,there are no significant differences in lexical errors and lexical density.(2)Within the low-level group and high-level group,there are significant differences between lexical diversity and lexical complexity.Generally,for compositions with high lexical diversity,the lexical complexity is also good.(3)Lexical diversity and lexical complexity are significantly different from writing scores.The results of multiple linear regression show that the total number of words and the number of first-class words can effectively predict writing scores.