A Corpus-Based Study on Linguistic Variables of CET Writings

Chao Kun

【Abstract】This paper aims to investigate students writing proficiency between the learners of different band levels from the language linguistic variables perspective. Wordsmith software is used to retrieve CET4 and CET6 corpus to explore these differences. Statistical results show that the language proficiency of CET6 expositions is slightly higher than that of CET4s in terms of type/token ratio， sentence length and average word length.

【Key words】linguistic variables; CLEC （Chinese Learners English Corpus）; CET writings

【作者简介】Chao Kun， Canvard college， Beijing Technology and Business University.

1. Introduction

It is acknowledged that writing has always been a hard nut for Chinese students to crack. They spent many years learning English， however， if test scores any indication， their language proficiency is yet to be improved. Therefore， in this article， the writer tries to find whether the limitation of their language proficiency is due to their use of physical linguistic variables， since learners use of physical linguistic variables is an important index of their English language proficiency.

2. Data Collection

The writings to be analyzed in this study are attained from CLEC （Chinese Learners English Corpus）. According to Dixon （1992）， one basic rule about sampling size is that about thirty individuals are required in order to provide a pool large enough for even simple kinds of analysis. Hence， thirty scripts that received passing scores when writing on the topic “Health Gains in Developing Countries are randomly selected respectively from CET4 and CET6 writings.”

3. Physical Linguistic Variables

Figure 1 is the statistical study of the data through the Wordsmith program.

Figure 1 revealed that in comparing with CET6， the file size of CET4 is bigger. It is reasonable because that the running words in CET4 writings are more than CET6 writings. The type-token ratio （or TTR） is used to compare two corpora in terms of lexical complexity. As can be seen from the table， TTR in CET6 is slightly higher than TTR in CET4. This suggests that the lexical used in CET6 writings can be more complex than in CET4 writings.

It is demonstrated in figure 1 that the indexes of average word length， sentence length and standard sentence length of CET6 corpus are all slightly higher than in corpus of CET4. High average word length indicates a “highly” exact presentation of informational content in a text; Longer sentences show more extensiveness. Thus， writings of CET6 shows better language proficiency than that of CET4.

4. Conclusion

Observing the analysis， it can be concluded the writings of CET6 shows better language proficiency than writings of CET4.

References：

[1]Dixon， B. R. A Handbook of Social Science Research： a comprehensive and practical guide for students[M]. New York： Oxford University Press，1992.

[2]Douglas， B. Spoken and Written textual dimensions in English： Resolving the Contradictory Findings[J]. Language，1986：384-413.

[3]Katie， P. Understanding Metaphor through Corpora： A Case Study of Metaphors in Nineteenth Century Writing[J]. Taylor Francis Inc，2018.

[4]晁琨.對四、六级英语作文的功能分析[D].新疆大学，2006，06，30.