1. 简介
1.1研究内容
随着全球经济的高速发展以及贸易交流和合作的迅速发展，作为商务交流的重要方式之一，商务英语合同起着越来越大的不可替代的作用。商务英语合同的质量好坏在很大程度上甚至会决定商务交易成功与否。
They should not only be able tolisten and speak, but also the ability of reading and writing. Business English contract, which isone of the main ways for business communication, plays an important role in the internationaleconomic cooperation and trade exchanges. Therefore, it is crucial to know how to writeappropriate business English contracts.
However, for many Chinese English learners, their ability of comprehension is muchbetter than application. It is the fact that teaching how to write business English contracts, forEnglish teachers, is still one of the toughest tasks to perform. Even have been spending muchtime and energy to memorize individual vocabulary and grammar, the ability of applyinglanguage for many students is sill far from satisfactory. They used to find the exact Englishequivalents of Chinese expressions from their minds, and then put them together one by one toform a whole sentence. Consequently, the grammar of their compositions is always correct, butthe compositions themselves are still inaccurate and awkward to read. Students can hardlyachieve the proficiency of language if they just simply count on learning grammar and singlevocabulary.During the past four decades, generative linguists represented by Chomsky haveconducted many researches by stressing on the creativity of language.
As a result, linguistsmainly concern about syntax and then put forward the grammar-translation method. By usingthe grammar-based approach, learners are usually competent at how to apply grammatical rules.But they still have problem in use the language properly and fluently. Then, many teachersrealize that it is important to pay attention to the actual use of language, which giving rise tothe communicative language teaching approach. However, just as grammar-based approach,this method is far from enough, for emphasizing too much on language performance which canresult in inaccurate use of language. When it comes to the lexical chunks approach, it meets theneed of both competence and performance, for ignoring neither linguistic nor pragmatic ability.It would be difficult to use language like native speakers, just depending on grammar andsingle words. But idiomaticity can be achieved by lexical chunks stored and retrieved aswholes. According to the previous studies of, lexical chunks are crucial for language generationand comprehension and learners are also often use lexical chunks at the process of theiracquisition of language. As a result, more attention should be given on the research of lexicalchunks.
Linguists in China and abroad have made great achievements on lexical chunks, whilemost of them merely focus on the theoretical explorations. They mainly explore the importanceof lexical chunks used in language and the application of lexical chunks approach inpedagogical practices. In terms of experimental investigations of the use of lexical chunks,there are only few investigations are made, let alone empirical studies on business Englishcontracts. Therefore, it is necessary to study the lexical chunks in business English contracts.With this research, this thesis is expected to provide empirical basis for the lexical chunksapproach applied in business English teaching, especially for the practice of teaching businessEnglish contracts.
Chapter Two Literature Review文献综述
This chapter is devoted to introduce the former studies of lexical chunks both at abroadand home, in which the definition, classifications and functions of lexical chunks are included.Besides, Lewis’ theory on lexical chunks, as the main theoretical basis, will be elaborated indetail as well. This chapter will provide the theoretical basis for further in-depth empiricalstudy of the lexical chunks in business English contracts.
2.1 Definitions of lexical chunks 词块的定义
The existence and importance of lexical chunks achieve much interest among linguistsand scholars t
