Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background
With the deepening of globalization and international cooperation，marinetransportation gradually occupies a predominate position in China's foreign trade. Insuch circumstances, a great number of qualified seafarers are demanded to work onboard. English is the lingua franca in multinational seafarers' vessels. Shipping industrycan be the most internationalized one. In such circumstances, the competency andproficiency of English count a lot. Maritime English (hereinafter referred to as ME) isthe compulsory course in students' undergraduate learning. Maritime English is ageneral term for the typical English language, including terminologies, jargons andvarieties used internationally as means of communication within the maritimecommunity, which is almost indispensable for the navigation and operation of seabornebusiness (Luo, 2009). The acquisition of ME can be divided into two phases: the firstphase is college English learning and the second phase is specialized English study.Shipping industy has undergone tremendous development over the years.Meanwhile the implementation of STCW Manila Amendments put forward higherrequirements concerning the proficiency of seafarers' English competence. Therefore,ME teaching reform should follow suit and adapt to the brand-new circumstances.However，teaching materials occupy a predominant position in the reform of MEteaching compared with teaching syllabus and methodologies. The users of old versionME textbooks complain that the content of the textbook is exam-oriented，old-fashionedand lack of authentic contexts，which is far from satisfying the practical needs ofseafarers working onboard (Liu, 2012). Hence, better and more suitable textbooks areurgent needed to alter the awkward situation of ME teaching in China.
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1.2 Research Objective and Significance
Since MCERW textbooks are the latest version of College English in the domainof Maritime, there is little research concerning its conformity and insistency with CECRreference wordlists and phrases. Deng (2004) and some other educators have advocatedto teach College English vocabulary by means of word family list，but such lists are noteasily available because of the complexity and difficulty involved in extracting them. Thanks to the software Familizer Proto and RANGE，family members of a word and itsbase form can be easily obtained. For example, amaze, amazes, amazed, amazing,amazingly, amazement all belong to one word family and the base form is amaze. Bymaking use of Familizer, the CECR three wordlists are converted to their word familiesThis paper intends to investigate MCERW vocabulary from the perspective of tokens,types，lemmas and word families and with an aim to provide a new way to make awordlist for textbooks, to reduce the learners' vocabulary burden, to strengthen theirawareness of lexical grammar, and also to increase the efficiency of College Englishvocabulary teaching. In addition, the repetition rate of the core vocabulary in a set ofCollege English books has also aroused interests of many researchers, yet the repetitionrates of CECR three wordlists in MCERW corpus is seldom researched. Moreover,investigation into the CERE phrases occurrence rates in MCERW corpus is conduciveto both ELT and EFL.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 ESP and EGP
English is commonly divided into two categories in terms of purposes: English forspecific purposes (hereinafter referred to as ESP) and English for general pmposes(hereinafter referred to as EGP). The definitions of ESP first came into existence in the1960s as a notional term. Afterwards, many researchers have been dedicated toimproving its definitions. Hutchinson and Waters (1987) define ESP as an “approach，，rather than a product. Strevens (1988) defines ESP by making a distinction between itsabsolute and its variable characteristics. He claimed that ESP aims to satisfy specificneeds of the learners，whose content is relevant to particular disciplines, professions andactivities. He also declares that ESP is in contrast with EGP. Based on two criteria，Robinson (1991) gives a definition of ESP. He claims that ESP should be normally"goal-directed" and ESP courses develop from the need analysis of its learners'. In brief,ESP is mainly concerned about a specialized domain and the formulation of syllabus isbased on the need analysis of learners'.As for the relationship between EGP and ESP, Anthony (1997) notes that it is notclear where ESP courses end and general English courses begin. Hon and Li (2007) alsoclaim the ESP and EGP connect with each other. They are two interrelated aspects andmutual affect each other in the process of achieving teaching goals stipulated in thesyllabus.
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2.2 Core Vocabulary
“Vocabulary is one of the most obvious components of language and one of thefirst things applied linguists turned their attention to(Richards, 2001). Of course, themost ambitious goal is to acquire all the vocabulary of a language. However, this is outof the question even for a native speaker of that language. Therefore, leaching corevocabulary receives most consent from linguists. Nevertheless, no consensus has beenreached regarding the definition of core vocabulary. Carter (1998) defines corevocabulary as the most basic or simple words in a language. Quirk (1982) asserts corevocabulary bears no marks of culture, or as he puts it，"... as culture-free as calculus,with no literary, aesthetic or emotional aspirations. Core words are also said to beneutral with respect to field and tenor of discourse (Carter, 1998).A majority of previous studies into core vocabulary are based on frequency andrange which list out the most frequently and extensively used words of a language. Thebest known finding about frequency has been that the most frequent 2,000 headwordsaccount for at least 85% of the words on any page of any book no matter what thesubject matter (Nation & Newton, 1997). It indicates that a good command of thehigh-frequency words will guarantee the readability of almost any variety of English,However "frequency and range were not sufficient as the basis for developingwordlists, because words with high frequency and wide range in written texts are notnecessarily the most teachable words in an introductory language course” (Richards,2001). Other criteria should be taken into account such as teachability, similarity,availability, coverage, defining power, collocability etc..Quirk and Greenbaum have claimed that “our approach is to keep our sight firmlyon the core vocabulary which constitutes the major part of any variety of English,however specialized, and without which fluency in any variety at a higher than parrotlevel is impossible” (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1973).
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Chapter 3 Research Methodology ......... 17
3.1 Corpus Compilation .........17
3.2 The Adoption of Wordlist and Phrase list......... 17
3.3 Data Processing .........18
3.4 Data Analysis Approaches......... 23
Chapter 4 Result Analysis and Discussion......... 25
4.1 Lexical Description of the MCERW Corpus .........25
4.2 Lexical Coverage of MCERW Corpus over CECR Three Wordlists......... 26
4.3 Lexical Coverage of CECR Three Wordlists over MCERW Corpus......... 37
4.4 Lexical Repetition of the CECR Three Wordlists Words .........40
4.5 Occurrence Rates of CECR Phrases in MCERW Corpus......... 48
Chapter 5 Conclusion .........56
5.1 Major Findings of the Research......... 56
5.2 Implications .........57
5.3 Limitations of the Research......... 58
Chapter 4 Result Analysis and Discussion
Since this research touches upon the quantitative analysis of vocabulary inMCERW textbooks, it is a preliminary step to give a general description about thelexical distribution of the MCERW textbooks. First，the vocabulary size of the MCERWfrom the perspective of token，type, lemma and word family is illustrated in this part.Furthermore, the lexical coverage of MCERW over CECR three wordlists in terms ofword family and word type is discussed. Here the lexical coverage rate of the CECRthree wordlists over MCERW refers to the proportion of CECR reference vocabularyappearing in MCERW to the vocabulary recommended by CECR. The lexical coveragerate of MCERW corpus over core vocabulary is calculated based on the three wordlists，that is，basic requirements wordlist, intermediate requirements wordlist and higherrequirements wordlist. Meanwhile, lexical coverage of core vocabulary over MCERWcorpus in terms of word family and word type is also calculated. Based on the researchresults，vocabulary failure to occur in MCERW are regarded as three supplementarywordlists. The lexical repetition of CECR three wordlists in MCERW corpus and theoccurrence rates of CECR phrases will also be discussed.
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Conclusion
This thesis primarily focuses on the quantitative analysis of vocabulary inMCERW corpus. And CECR reference vocabulary is selected as the core vocabulary.Through the investigations into the vocabulary size of MCERW from the perspective oftoken, type, lemma and word family，the lexical coverage of MCERW corpus overCECR three wordlists, the lexical coverage of CECR three wordlists over MCERWcorpus，the lexical repetition of CECR three wordlists words in MCERW corpus and theoccurrence rates of CECR phrases in MCERW corpus, the following conclusions can bedrawn.Firstly, the overall vocabulary size of MCERW corpus differs a lot when differentcounting units is employed. After lemmatization, the vocabulary size of MCERWcorpus declines greatly and there are altogether 6724 lemmas. The vocabulary size iseven less when the counting unit is word family about 4523. Learner's vocabularyburden will be greatly reduced, if a wordlist of MCERW is compiled from theperspective of word family.#p#分页标题#e#
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