英语专业学生商务信函写作中的词块研究

Lexical Chunks in Business Letter Writing of English Majors

本研究以百万词的商务信函语料库(Business Letter Corpus)的三词词汇组合频次分布表为基础,选取107个使用频率最高的三词词块作为目标词块,考察英语专业学生商务信函写作中输出这些词块的情况。研究结果显示,学生在目标词块的使用上与英语本族语者存在显著性差异,近60%的目标词块在学生商务信函写作中的输出率低于BLC中的出现率。存在的具体问题:句子框架词块输出率很低,信函写作中学生对含有第一人称复数的词块过度输出,以及含有情态动词的词块输出不足。

Based on the frequency table of meaningful trigrams of BLC, 171 highest-frequency three- word lexical chunks are identified and are used as referent target chunks. Then these target chunks are also identified in English majors＇ business letter writing. Comparative studies show that the output rates of nearly 60% of the target chunks in the students＇ letter writing are lower than their occurrence rates in BLC. Some problems in students＇ use of those chunks are as follows： low output rates of sentence builder chunks; over output of chunks with “we” ; and inadequate output of chunks with modal verbs.