Structural analysis of lexical bundles in EFL English majors’ theses of an ordinary normal university in China

Abstract

A quantitative analysis has been made of 330 Chinese EFL learners’ theses the distribution of the three- to eight-word lexical bundles in them and a comparison has been made of the percentages of the four-word lexical bundles of different structural categories in Chinese EFL learners’ theses and the native English speakers’ spoken or written academic language. It is found that the three-to eight-word lexical bundles in Chinese EFL learners’ theses are on the decrease with the increase of the number of their component words. Chinese students’ English language data share with native English speakers’ spoken academic language data the ‘personal pronoun + lexical verb phrase (+complement clause)’ lexical bundles and the ‘(auxiliary +) active verb (+)’ bundles, and also share with native English speakers’ academic spoken language data the ‘adverbial clause fragment’ bundles, the ‘noun phrase with other post-modifier fragment’ bundles, the ‘anticipatory it + VP/adjective P (+ complement clause)’ bundles, the ‘passive verb + PP fragment’ bundles and the ‘copula be + NP/adjective P’ bundles. A further analysis shows that the EFL learners’ English language in their theses is of more characteristics of written language and fewer characteristics of spoken language.