A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF LEXICAL BUNDLES USED BY NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE NOVEL WRITERS

Abstract

The current study intends to explore the lexical bundles in English novels written by native and non-native writers. The study focuses on lexical bundle types and frequencies in the novels of native and non-native English writers. In this modern era of advancement, English has become a dominant language in every field and every country has accepted the preeminence of the English language as the “Tyrannosaurus rex of the linguistic grazing ground” (Swales, 1997). The novel is a genre of fiction and the language of novels is characterized by the use of various expressions, the use of lexical bundles is one of them. In non-native context knowledge about the English language can be improved by reading novels written by native writers. The present study provides insight into the native speakers’ use of lexical bundles in novel writing. Two novels namely Me Before You and Kartography serve as the corpus for study. The research paradigm is quantitative and Biber and Conrad’s (1999) structural taxonomy has been used as the framework for the study. The results revealed that native writers used far more lexical bundles than the non-native writer. Both novel writers used distinct and unique types of lexical bundles, only some types were common in both novels. The category “others” of lexical bundles held the highest place in both native and non-native novels. A variation regarding types can be seen in the second highest category of lexical bundles as in the native novel Me Before You the structure of other noun phrases held the second highest place while in the non-native novel Kartography the structure of other prepositional phrases held the second highest place. Keywords: Lexical bundles, Preeminence, Fiction, Expressions, Expertise