Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
The structures were accorded priority, vocabulary being seen assecondary in importance, merely serving to illustrate the meaning and scope of thegrammar (Sinclair, 1988).However, in recent times, researchers(Fillmore 1976; Pawley and Syder1983;Lewis 1993; Skehan 1999; Nattinger and DeCarrico 2017; Wray 2017;Willis2017; Peters 2017) have made abounding studies on lexical chunk, a kind of pre-madechunk consisting of a string of words stored in memory and retrieved as a holistic unitin use, and its role in L1 and L2 acquisition have been made by many scholars andlanguage teachers. The finding was that a large part of written and spoken expressionsin native speakers' language is composed of lexical chunks that help them achieve"native-like fluency" and "native-like selection" (Pawley and Syder 1983). They alsopoint out that learners usually deduce grammatical rules from lexical chunks(Fillmore 1976; Peters 2017). The reason why lexical chunks have been givenprominent regard is that traditionally accepted grammar-based and communicativeapproaches both show deficiency in pedagogical practice. Under the grammar-basedapproach, learners who are competent at employing grammatical rules into accurateuse of language sometimes commit mistakes in register or are unable to speak fluently.Thus, teachers realize that it is necessary for them to focus on appropriate use oflanguage. This gives rise to the communicative approach to language teaching.However, this approach, focusing too much on language performance, leads toinaccurate use of language. Whereas the situation, lexical chunks, referred as"form/function composites" (Nattinger and DeCarrico 2017: 1) supply the need forboth competence and performance in that it ignores neither linguistic nor pragmaticability. Native-like use of language is difficult to achieve by depending too much ongrammar and single words, yet lexical chunks stored and retrieved as wholes canlexis, not lexicalized grammar."; 2) Nattinger (1980, 1992, 2017) and DeCarrico(1992, 2017) define lexical chunks from the perspective of function and classify themin accordance with the extent to which their forms are fixed; 3) Hakuta (1967),Krashen and Scarcella (1978) classify lexical chunks into four categories on the basisof form. Researches in China have shown the emphasis on learners' output ability.Influential scholars are Yang Yuchen (1999), Wu Qianlong (2017), Zhang Jianqin(2017), Wang Lifei (2017) and Li Taizhi (2017). Especially, Li Taizhi points out thatlexical chunk approach has advantages on the teaching of writing in business English.Nevertheless, in recent years, most researches (Pawley and Syder 1983;Lewis1993;Wray 2017; Nattinger and DeCarrico 2017; Peters 2017) still focus ontheoretical exploration. Those scholars mainly describe the important role of lexicalchunks in language use and the application of lexical chunk approach to pedagogicalpractice. In terms of the experiments of lexical chunks in written compositions, someresearches (Granger 1998; Howarth 1998) are made to compare the writings of nativespeakers with that of non-native speakers. As for the experimental investigation of theuse of lexical chunks establishing Chinese EFL learners as targets is of countablenumber. The empirical research on business English correspondences is much fewer.Therefore, this thesis aims to study the ，英语论文网站，英语论文 |
