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Chapter One   Introduction  

In  this  chapter,  the  author  provides  the  background  of  this  study  and  discusses the significance of the topic - A Corpus-based Comparative Study of Lexical Richness in  English  Writings  by  Junior  High  School  Students.  International research literature (for detail refer to next chapter) shows that lexical richness is a predicator of language learners’  overall  language  proficiency,  and  it  can  also  indicate  the  quality  of  ESL learners’  writings  and  communication.  Domestic  studies  on  lexical  richness  mainly focus  on  ESL  learners  in  college  neglecting  the  fact  that  junior  high  school  is  a  key elementary  stage  for  English  learning.  Therefore,  there  is  an  urgent  need  to  raise awareness  of  directing  more  scholarly  attention  to  this  topic.  What  follows  the background  of  the  study  is  a  discussion  of  the  significance  of  the  study.  Finally, research questions, research hypothesis and the structure of the whole paper are also presented in this chapter.  

1.1   Background of the Study  
The  famous  British  linguist  D.  A.  Wilkins  ever  said,  “If  there  is  no  grammar, people  can’t  express  many  things;  while  if  there  is  no  vocabulary,  people  will  be unable to express anything.” (Lewis，1993:16) Vocabulary is the beginning of learning a second language for many second language learners, and it runs through the whole process  of  second  language  acquisition.  No  language  ability  can  be  gained  or improved without vocabulary. It is treated not only as the central problem of language acquisition  and  language  use  but  also  as  a  closely  related  factor  to  other  aspects  of language learning. (Coady & Huckin, 1997) Writing, as one of the four basic skills, is an  important  aspect  of  second  language  learning.  In  China,  writing  is  considered  as the  most  effective  aspect  to  indicate  second  language  learners’  language  proficiency. And  it  is  also  treated  as  the  most  difficult  part  to  improve.  It  needs  the  support  of grammar, vocabulary and the culture knowledge of the target language, especially the vocabulary.  (Luan  Lan,  2013)  Thus  the  second  language  vocabulary  plays  an important  role  in  second  language  writing.  Ever  since  the  1980s,  studies  on vocabulary  in  second  language &n本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。