商务英语方案中的词块研究

o research this phenomenon not only in first language but also in secondlanguage acquisition. In order to clarify the concept of lexical chunks, many attempts havebeen made. However, it remains a foremost problem that there is still no definition of lexicalchunks being generally agreed. Only the problem of clarifying the definition of lexical chunk issolved, can the study of lexical chunks present convincing arguments. To make the study oflexical chunks more grounded, it is necessary to discuss and clarify what lexical chunks are.However, the fact is that lexical chunks seem to be used in many different forms and it isdifficult to give a comprehensive definition of this special phenomenon. Up to now, this lack ofan overall and complete definition remains one of the foremost problems in the area. Somecommonly-used criteria like fixedness, non-compositionality, and institutionalization aredeveloped in the area of corpus linguistics, which are suggested key characteristics by Moon(1974), of what named mufti-word items. The frequency of occurrence is another criterionoften cited. On the assumption that if a sequence occurs frequently in a corpus, the frequencyof occurrence can indicate that it is conventionalized, at least to some extent, within the speechcommunity. Generally speaking, corpus definitions concern with identifying and describingformulaic sequences by studying their occurrence.

Chapter Three Methodology ………………………………….29-33
    3.1 Research questions………………………………… 29
    3.2 Five types of business English contracts………………………………… 29-30
    3.3 Data collection …………………………………30-31
    3.4 Research method………………………………… 31-33
Chapter Four Analysis and Discussion………………………………… 33-51
    4.1 Characteristics of lexical chunks………………………………… 33-48
        4.1.1 Lexical chunks in sale contracts …………………………………33-35
        4.1.2 Lexical chunks in purchase contracts …………………………………35-38
        4.1.3 Lexical chunks in agency contracts………………………………… 38-40
        4.1.4 Lexical chunks in employment contracts …………………………………40-42
        4.1.5 Lexical chunks in lease contracts …………………………………42-44
        4.1.6 Summary …………………………………44-48
    4.2 Functions of lexical …………………………………48-49
    4.3 Relationship of lexical chunks………………………………… 49-51
Chapter Five Conclusion………………………………… 51-54
    5.1 Major findings …………………………………51-52
    5.2 Pedagogical implications …………………………………52-53
    5.3 Limitations of the research………………………………… 53
5.4 Suggestions for further research …………………………………53-54

Conclusion 结论

This study is only a preliminary and tentative research, in which there are somelimitations. Firstly, this study only includes 50 pieces of business English contracts, which is asmall amount of samples. With more type’s business English contracts and larger number ofbusiness letters of each type, more convincing conclusions would be drawn. Secondly thisstudy gives a suggestion that lexical chunk approach should be applied into bu