A Study on Chinese Learners' Written and Spoken Register

Based on Dimension one in MDA,the most distinguishable parameter between written and spoken English,the present study first quantitatively and qualitatively analyzes the register features of Chinese learners' conversation and argumentative writing.It then proceeds to compare the use of 23 spoken and 5 written features in their spoken and written language.The results show that(1) in terms of overall register mode,the factor scores of both learners' spoken and witten texts are zero,showing no distinctive register tendency;(2) in terms of the frequencies of spoken features,merely a few were used with register awareness,while most were significantly overused in written language or insignificantly used between spoken and written language;(3) in terms of diversity of those spoken features,learners excessively rely on a few simple high frequency features acquired earlier or directly translated from Chinese;(4) in terms of the use of written features,all of them are used with register awareness.