Lexical and Collocational Sophistication in Chinese High School Writing

In corpus linguistics, the discussion of how language users employ word combinations in their writing has attracted researchers’ attention for many years. This thesis explores how Chinese senior high school students make use of their lexical and collocational knowledge in their academic writing. This thesis applies two corpora to compare passages written by Chinese senior high school students and mainstream Year 11 secondary students in the United Kingdom. In study 1, I explore how two groups of students use collocations and discuss the relationship between collocation strength measures and Chinese students’ writing scores. As for low frequency word combinations, I explore how Chinese and UK students use low-frequency word combinations and discuss the relationship between low-frequency word sequences and Chinese students' writing scores. In study 2, first, I explore how Chinese students and UK Year 11 students apply their vocabulary knowledge in terms of lexical sophistication in academic writing. In this section, many lexical sophistication indices are employed in seven aspects. In addition, I examine the relationship between lexical sophistication indices and Chinese students’ writing scores. Second, I explore how Year 11 students and Chinese senior high school students make use of vocabulary knowledge in terms of lexical diversity. Moreover, I investigate the relationship between lexical diversity indices and the writing scores of Chinese students. The data reveal significant differences between Chinese students and United Kingdom students in the strength of association measures and the use of low-frequency word combinations. In addition, the association strength measures correlate positively with Chinese students’ writing scores. Higher composition overall scores are associated with fewer low-frequency word combinations. In terms of lexical sophistication and lexical diversity, there are significant differences between the two groups of students. Several indices of lexical sophistication and lexical diversity could influence Chinese students’ overall writing scores. Generally, Chinese students’ writing is influenced by their English vocabulary, their first language, and guidance from the national English teaching curriculum. Language features revealed in the writing of Chinese senior high school students point to important pedagogical implications for teachers and offer suggestions for future researchers.<p></p>

Author dc:creator

• Kexin Yan (21039320)

• written corpus, writing proficiency, collocation, bigram, lexical sophistication, lexical diversity

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved
• Open Access after 2027-09-09

Identifier

10779/exe.31578529.v1

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:figshare.com:article/31578529