1.2 Significance of the Study

　　This thesis makes a relatively complete study of business English correspondence from theperspective of lexical grammar theory and syntactic theory. It takes up business Englishcorrespondence as its research topic and aims to propose some feasible strategies in businessEnglish correspondence writing and teaching. The study expected to achieve both theoretical andpractical significance as follows:

　　First of all, this study will introduce a new research method. Corpus provides a brand newway for the study of language. It breaks through the traditional method of intuitive experiencemethod and turns to the original analysis of natural language in order to provide a firm foundationand data support for language research in various fields. Traditional intuitive experience methodfocuses on personal experience and intuition, manual methods or introspective method whichcould acquire linguistic knowledge only from limited data of language materials. This method ofacquiring linguistic knowledge is not only inefficiency but also more subjective which inevitablyleads a effect on the accuracy of final result. However, corpus-based approach is totally different.Corpus can find the target data quickly by using computer software for scientific analysis, andovercome the limitation of traditional research on the subjectivity and one-sidedness. Thismacroscopic method can carry on a multi-level and all-rounded research on the basis of a largenumber of real data, and effectively promote the new theoretical model and research paradigm. Italso relies on computer science to achieve its powerful function in language searching, andprovides a new method in linguistic research for the majority of language researchers.

　　Secondly, a clear understanding of lexical grammar theory could be achieved. Language is atool for human communication which inevitably cannot do without meaning expression andunderstanding. Sinclair broke the previous rules of describing vocabulary and grammar in aseparate way. Therefore, a new point of view has been proposed. That is language should bedescribed by using the way combining vocabulary and grammar which opened up a new path forlanguage description based on a corpus. Then he proposed lexical grammar, and believed thatvocabulary and grammar are equally important, in which vocabulary is the starting point forbuilding the language model. The key aspects about the origin of lexical grammar and thewholeness of lexis and grammar will be discussed in detail in next chapter and this study is basedon the theory of lexical grammar to explore the features of business English correspondence fromlexical and syntactic levels.

　　Thirdly, after a relatively complete study on the business English correspondence, typicallexical and syntactic features could be worked out.

　　Fourthly, feasible strategies could be proposed to business English correspondence writingand teaching.

　　1.3 Layout of the Thesis

　　In this thesis, the study will do some research on business English correspondence andmanage to summarize some common syntactic features of business English correspondence basedon lexical-grammar theory and syntactic theory. This thesis is divided into the following six parts:

　　Chapter 1, the introduction part is an introduction concerning the theme of the thesis,including a general introduction of the background and significance of the study and theorganization of the whole thesis.

　　Chapter 2, a literature review is provided in this chapter, which gives out an overview of thecorpus linguistics and business English correspondence. It first introduces business Englishcorrespondence and corpus linguistics briefly, and then gives a comprehensive introduction tothem which are also discussed here for better understanding to the field that the theory will beapplied to. Relevant studies both on Corpus linguistics and business English correspondence arealso presented at the end of each part.

　　Chapter 3 introduces the theoretical framework which contains four main parts: principles ofbusiness English correspondence, the application in corpus linguistics, lexical grammar andsyntactic theory. Then Sinclair's lexical grammar theory and syntactic theory will be discussed indetail. In the end of this chapter, the writer will talk about the paper's feasibility.

　　Chapter 4 addresses the research methodology of the study which includes the corpus-basedquantitative and qualitative method, the corpus and instruments used in the study, the proceduresof the study both in relation to data collection and data processing and concordance.

　　Chapter 5 is the main part of the thesis of which lexical and syntactic features will bediscussed and analyzed in this part. Word length, sentence length, wordlist and some other wordfrequency will be listed and analyzed in detail.