商务英语写作中语块情况

【Abstract】wWw.shuoshilunwen.com Linguists and scholars from both China and abroad he made great achievement in the studies and researches on lexical chunks over the past three decades. They he found that: language is mainly composed of lexical chunks; language is grammaticalized lexis instead of lexicalized grammar; lexical chunks are productive; the fluency of language depends on how many lexical chunks stored in one’s mind; people may acquire language by means of lexical chunks. Therefore, it is believed that lexical chunks play a crucial part in language learning and lexical chunk approach can be applied to language teaching. Besides, since China entered WTO, international economic and trade exchanges and cooperation he expanded increasingly. As one of the main means of communication in the business world, business English writing plays an indispensable role. Its quality, to a large extent, concerns about the success or failure of a business deal.Due to the important role of lexical chunks in language acquisition and the practical value of business English writing, it is of great importance to identify the characteristics of the use of lexical chunks in business English writings by EFL learners. Previous studies he focused on theoretical exploration. There are some empirical studies targeting Chinese learners as participants, but most of the studies stress on the use of lexical chunks in spoken or written EGP (English for General Purposes). As for the study of lexical chunks in business English writing, it is still a relatively new approach and dimension. Therefore, this thesis, mainly based on the theory of Nattinger and DeCarrico (2000), aims to investigate the general characteristics of the use of lexical chunks in business English writings and the differences in using the same structural category of lexical chunks between high-rated and low-rated writings, and then discuss the relationship between the use of lexical chunks and the improvement of business English writing proficiency, through quantitative and qualitative approaches.This thesis mainly addresses three questions: 1) What are the general characteristics of the use of lexical chunks in Business English writings by EFL learners? 2) What are the differences of the use of the same structural category of lexical chunks between high-rated and low-rated Business English writings? Are they significant? 3) What’s the relationship between learners’use of lexical chunks and the improvement of their Business English writing ability?The participants in this study are students from two natural classes at the Department of English E-commerce, School of Foreign Languages, X University in Changchun city. The materials are 50 pieces of business English writings composed by the students in their final examination of Cambridge Business English Higher. According to the definition and classification of lexical chunks by Nattinger and DeCarrico (2000), the author firstly identified the lexical chunks used in those writings in order to calculate the frequency and diversity of the use of lexical chunks; secondly, classified them in terms of form and then analyzed the differences of the use of the same structural category of lexical chunks between high-rated and low-rated writings by means of T-test; finally, made interviews with some participants from both high-rated and low-rated groups with the purpose to explore the relationship between the use of lexical chunks and the improvement of business English writing proficiency comprehensively.The major findings are as follows: 1) The frequency of the use of lexical chunks in business English writings by EFL learners is relatively high, but more than half of the lexical chunks are used repeatedly. 2) Among four structural categories of lexical chunks, there are significant differences of the use of sentence builders and phrasal constraints between high-rated and low-rated business English writings. As for polywords and institutionalized expressions, there is no significant difference. 3) The use of lexical chunks can help EFL learners speed up their written production and improve their business English writing ability.Based on the research findings and discussion, some pedagogical implications are provided: 1) Teaching business English vocabulary on the basis of lexical chunks. 2) Cultivating the habit of organizing discourse in terms of lexical chunks in the teaching of business English writing. 3) Designing lexical chunk-based exercises to help learners consolidate the memorization of vocabulary and improve their business English writing ability.However, this study is only a tentative experiment on the use of lexical chunks in business English writings of EFL learners. There are inevitably limitations in the analysis, so more efforts are needed to make further research in the future.