2009 7 July 2009

32 4 Journal of Fore ign Languages V o.l32 N o. 4

: 1004- 5139( 2009) 04- 0002- 09 : H030 : A

( , 100089)

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A Study on Changes of R eg ister Features in Learner Eng lish

WEN Q iufang
( Na tiona l Research Cen tre for Fo re ign Language Educa tion, B e ijing Fo re ign S tud ie s Un ive rsity,
Be ijing 100089, China)

Abstrac tB In this study, 14 typ ica l reg ister fea tures w ere selected and c lassified in to the spoken and w ritten g roups
respectively w ith seven ones in each. Based on these tw o sets o f fea tures, the chang es in spoken and w ritten Eng lish
by Y ear O ne and Y ea r F our Eng lish M a jo rs w ere ana lyzed in an attempt to see whether such changes cou ld br ing
Eng lish learne rs close r to the differences in the na tive spoken and w ritten Eng lish. T he resu lts show that com pa red
w ith the na tive Eng lish, the features that cou ld diffe rentia te the lea rner. s spoken from the w ritten Eng lish w ere fewer,
and the ir d ifferences, no t the sam e; through four years. study, the number of d ifferentiating features did no t increase
wh ile the d ifferences between the spoken and w ritten Eng lish changed resu lting in be ing c lo ser to the nativ e use.
M o reover, there was still a huge discrepancy between the learner and the native Eng lish regard ing the use o f reg ister
features. T he resu lts also ind icate that a long w ith language profic iency im prov ing, five w r itten features becam e m ore
frequent and three spoken features, less frequent in learne r spoken Eng lish wh ile two spoken features becam e less
frequent and three w r itten features, m ore frequent in the lea rner w ritten Eng lish. T h is suggests that the w ritten style in
the learner spoken Eng lish w as much strong er than the spoken sty le in the learner w r itten Eng lish.
K ey word sB reg ister features; w r itten Eng lish; spoken Eng lish; learner Eng lish

1. 1999 B iber [ 2 ]
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1988 Grammar of Spoken and W ritten Eng lish )
B ib er [ 1 ] 5 6 ( Variation
across Speech and W riting ) 2001 Leech [ 7 ] 5

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Spoken Eng lish ), 2. 1
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