The purpose of this study is to explore the differences in using adjectives between native speakers and Chinese EFL learners at beginner and intermediate levels, with the research data taken from three sub-written corpora of ICNALE, the written corpus of native speakers and the written corpus of Chinese EFL learners at A2 and B1 levels. The research data is coded by the UAM Corpus tool, version 3.2. The result is presented in two aspects, namely, the overall frequencies of the three sub-written corpora and the specific overused and underused wordings. The study reveals that compared with the native speakers, the Chinese EFL writers tend to employ adjectives that are vaguer and general in meaning. More importantly, the Chinese EFL learners’ lexical accuracy needs to be improved, as the result of the specific wordings shows that some adjectives are used inappropriately in the writing excerpts. However, in terms of lexical richness, the native speakers don’t show a significant variation in using adjectives, which differs from the findings of previous studies. The comparison between the beginner and intermediate Chinese EFL learners shows that the intermediate writers employ a wider range of higher leveled vocabulary, which is a major marker in many standard English writing tests. The study finally proposes two pedagogical implications for language teachers to improve EFL writers’ vocabulary variety as well as lexical accuracy, and the key point is to teach most essential academic adjectives under the syntactical and grammatical context.
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