A phrase-frame (p-frame) is a multi-word sequence with a one-word variable within the sequence (e.g., it is * to). P-frames are important components of language production and can demonstrate phraseological patterning. This study examined p-frames retrieved from one learner business emails corpus (1,413 texts based on the Education First-Cambridge Open Language Database) and one working professional email corpus (1,145 texts from the Enron email dataset). P-frames were investigated both quantitatively and qualitatively in terms of their structural characteristics, functional characteristics, and variability. Our results showed that the working professionals and the learners of business English used p-frames differently. The working professionals used p-frames in ways that aligned with written conventions, whereas the learners of business English used p-frames in ways that did not accord well with written conventions. This difference was detected by comparing tendencies in function-word frames and frames for referential function. In addition, p-frames used by the working professionals displayed a higher degree of variability than those by the learners of business English. This study facilitates an understanding of learners’ p-frame use in English for business purposes and suggests that p-frames be incorporated into the teaching and learning of L2 business writing.

中文翻译：

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商务电子邮件中的短语框架：商务英语学习者与工作专业人士之间的对比

短语帧（p 帧）是一个多词序列，序列中有一个词变量（例如，这是*到). P-frames 是语言产生的重要组成部分，可以展示短语模式。这项研究检查了从一个学习者商务电子邮件语料库（基于 Education First-Cambridge 开放语言数据库的 1,413 篇文本）和一个工作专业电子邮件语料库（来自 Enron 电子邮件数据集的 1,145 篇文本）中检索到的 p-frames。P 框架在其结构特征、功能特征和可变性方面进行了定量和定性研究。我们的结果表明，商务英语专业人士和学习者使用 p-frames 的方式不同。工作专业人士以符合书面惯例的方式使用 p 框架，而商务英语学习者以不符合书面惯例的方式使用 p 框架。这种差异是通过比较功能词框架和参考功能框架中的趋势来检测的。此外，工作专业人员使用的 p-frames 显示出比商务英语学习者更高程度的可变性。本研究有助于了解学习者在商务英语中使用 p-frame 的情况，并建议将 p-frame 纳入二语商务写作的教学和学习中。