The Literature Review of lexical Chunks Based on corpus

金宁

【Abstract】Lexical chunk is an special structure of language. The ten years study about lexical chunks laid a foundation for future study. With the development of corpus， more and more researchers applied it in studying lexical chunks. This thesis will make a review of lexical chunk in spoken English， writing and teaching. The author finds that many achievements have made， problems still existed. In order to solve the problems， researchers still have many works to do.

【Key words】Lexical Chunks； Corpus； Spoken English； Teaching； Writing

1. Introduction

Language is the most important tool for our communication. In order to communicate， people have to maximize the efficiency of language to make their production be fluent. In recent year， lexical chunks as a new concept have aroused more and more linguists interests. They found that lexical chunks are good for foreign language learning and teaching. With the development of corpus， the combination between lexical chunks and corpus becomes the focus of current research. Many researchers applied corpus in studying lexical chunks.

2. Literature Review

The study of lexical chunks is popular currently. The development of corpus prompts researchers to pay attention to the combination of lexical chunks and corpus.

2.1 The Review of Lexical Chunks Use in Spoken Language

The author searched 17 theses （6 masters theses， 11 journal papers） from the CNKI. After analysis.

Ding and Qi （2005） through the analysis of oral English and time limited writing， the author finds that the ability of using lexical chunks is positive correlation with lexical chunks knowledge and the level of writing and speaking.

Fan （2015） explores the usage of stance marker in oral composition of English major students and compares the results with native English speakers. Gao （2015） in order to find out the main types of lexical chunks error in English majors spoken English and discover the causes for these errors. This study applies corpus research method by selecting one hundred pieces of transcripted texts from TEM-8 oral text in 2007 in SWECCL2.0. The result turn out that among the four categories of lexical chunks， phrasal constraints have the largest number of errors which are far more than polywords and sentence builders. Few errors occur in institutionalized expression.

Lu & Chen （2016） they conduct a qualitative and quantitative research on the chunk frequency and richness from the length and the structure of lexical chunks two aspects.

2.2 The Review of Lexical Chunks Use in Writing

Writing is an important way of production. It can reflect the English learners competence. The author searches twenty one theses（8 journal paper， 13 masters theses） in CNKI. Based on these thesis， this part will present previous study about lexical chunks in writing.

Wang Lifei （2006） studies the feature of using lexical chunks in college argumentative writing. The results turn out：in Chinese English writing， a few lexical chunks are used repeatedly. Three words chunks is frequently used. Chinese is prone to use lexical chunks in oral English， is quite different from native speakers.

Pang Ping （2009） investigated a special type of frequent word combinations， lexical bundles which are defined as a sequence of three or more words that co-occur frequently in a particular register. The results turn out：Chinese use lexical chunks 4 times as many as native speakers. Chinese learners use more verb phase plus active verbs and noun plus verb pattern， while native speakers use more noun plus preposition phrases.

Many researchers paid attention to argumentative writing. On the contrary， there are many scholars focus on narrative writing.

Zhang Shuang （2013） aims to investigate the different categories and pragmatic functions of lexical chunks used by first year and fourth year English majors in their narrative writing based on corpus linguistics. He finds different grades have great difference in using formulaic sequence. The frequent use of referential bundle is one of features of narrative.

From above， the author finds that scholars study range from English majors to non-English major；from argumentative writing to narrative；from characteristics study to the use of lexical chunks.

2.3 The Review of Lexical Chunks Use in Teaching

With the development of pedagogical reforms， people have begun to question teaching approach focused on grammar or communication. Many researchers turned their attention to lexical chunks teaching. They hope lexical chunks teaching can be a new way for language teaching. This part will present the studies about lexical chunks teaching. The author searched 11 theses（2 masters theses， 9 journal papers ）in CNKI.

Ji Zhaoxiong tries to apply lexical chunks teaching in improving writing ability. This thesis is employed to observe the effects on writing ability made by lexical chunks teaching approach for a semester. Through comparison of two groups， the author suggests that teachers should try to apply lexical chunks teaching method in teaching.

Lexical chunks teaching is not only applicable in teaching and words learning but also applied in English translation.

Shen Jiayi （2012） studies the main question is teaching in CET and its influence on translation comprehension and expression， whether lexical chunks is helpful to understand translation from English to Chinese， and make translation from Chinese to English be fluent. The author finds that lexical chunk teaching is helpful to improving translation competence. From the experiment， it is indicated that reading material in the course book are different for different majors.

3. Conclusion

In the whole， the study about lexical chunks experienced four stages. First， studies focus on its definition， classification and characteristics. Second， it concentrated on introducing the awareness of chunks in students. Third， it focus on analysis of observing the use of lexical chunks， Like lexical chunks use in spoken English， writing and teaching. Finally， researchers begin to search how to improve writing and translation competence through lexical chunks teaching approach. The study of lexical chunks have made many achievements. However， there are still some limits on it. Scholars still are supposed to do further studies.

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