摘 要

词块学习对于大学英语写作的能力提升具有重要的意义，对于中国的二语学习者来说，动词词块的积累更是对作文的水平起着至关重要的作用。本文通过对60名本科非英语专业学生的课堂写作的动词词块使用进行研究，发现学生的动词词块的使用在本科生的议论文中较为普遍，但是存在一些明显的问题。动词词块的使用频率不够；一些词块出现搭配错误；有些简单词组或者与作文题目要求有关的词块被重复使用，导致动词词块缺乏多样性。研究表明，动词词块相比其他类型的词块使用频率还是比较高的， 但是频率、准确性和多样性有待提高。研究强调了动词词块在写作中的重要性， 二语学习者还需要进一步加强词块学习，老师可以进行相应的词块教学并重视词块的积累。

关键词：英语写作；二语学习者；动词词块；搭配错误；准确性；重复率

Abstract

The learning of lexical chunks plays an important role in the improvement of College English writing ability. For the L2 learners in China, the accumulation of verbal phrases helps a lot to promote the level of students’ writing ability. After studying the use of verb phrases in 60 pieces of writing in class of the non-English undergraduate students, the results suggest that the use of verbal clusters in college students’ argumentative writings are quite common, but some obvious problems can be found. The frequency of occurrence of verbal chunks in learners’ writing are insufficient; some incorrect collocations of word combinations are usually found; certain simple phrases or verbal chunks related to the required topics are overused, which lead to the lack of diversity of verb phrases . The study reveals that compared to other types of phrases, the frequency of occurrence of verb phrases are relatively high. However, the frequency, accuracy and diversity of these verb chunks need to be improved. The study emphasizes the importance of verb phrases in writing, so L2 learners are supposed to enhance the study of lexical phrases and teachers can carry out lexical-related teaching to pay attention to the accumulation of lexical bundles.

Key Words: English writing; L2 Learners; verbal chunks; incorrect collocations of word combinations; accuracy; repetition

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Background 1

1.2 Purpose of the study 2

2 Literature Review 3

2.1 Definitions 3

2.2 Classifications 3

2. 3 The importance of lexical phrases 4

2.4 Previous studies 5

3 Research Methodology 5

3.1 Research Questions 5

3.2 Participants 5

3.3 Instruments 6

3.4 Procedures 6

4 Results 7

4.1 Overview of the frequency, diversity and accuracy of the verb phrases 7

4.2 Difference between high-score students and low-score students on the amount and diversity of verb phrases 9

4.3 Errors in verb phrases 10

5 Discussion 11

5.1 The frequency of the verb phrases of in English writing 11

5.2 Relationship among amount , diversity and accuracy of verb phrases and writing achievements of English learners 12

5.3 Incorrect use of verb phrases 13

6 Conclusion 14

Appendix 18

A Study on Verb Phrases in English Writing of

Chinese Learners

1 Introduction

1.1 Background

Language learning is generally composed of several parts, which includes listening, speaking, reading and writing. For many language learners, the major purpose of mastering a second language is to enhance the communicative skills when they are in need of interacting with foreigners who can not easily understand others’ mother tongue. From the perspective of passing the exams, acquiring the fundamental knowledge of every section that will be checked in the tests becomes the major objective. In fact, the vocabulary is the basic knowledge to be acquired and the verbs are the critical sections in a sentence. If students can learn verb phrases well, their expressions of verb combinations will be more fluent and precise and their language usage will be more authentic.

Compared to other aspects of the learning process, the writing part, which is considered as a form of language output, seems to be more challenging and demanding for most students . When the students are requested to express themselves through writing, the learners require being equipped with ample vocabularies, and are also supposed to acquire the ability to organize the structure of the entire article and have an advantage over their expressiveness. Moreover, the use of authentic expressions is fairly significant to cultivate students English pattern of thought in teaching of writing(Xie， 2012）. Thus, the teachers should impart them the efficient way to learn and use verb phrases so that they are able to attach more importance to the word combinations and the common collocations of verbs.