Argument-related recurrent sequences: A corpus-based study targeting L2 learners of English

Abstract

Legal sentencing involves a multilayered series of arguments leading to a final verdict, just as argumentative essays, a frequent task genre in language classes, should include multilayered argumentation leading to the writer’s conclusions. This similarity suggests that authentic legal sentencing discourse could potentially be useful for language pedagogy. Yet this specific written genre has not attracted much attention in EFL contexts. This study examines three corpora of legal sentencing data (i.e., verdicts of guilty, innocent, and partially innocent when the charges involve more than one crime), amounting to 650,000 words. The study identifies lexical bundles in each corpus and their semantic preferences (i.e., co-occurring words of the sequences in context) in concordance lines. The findings illuminate features of the sentencing genre and suggest its potential as a pedagogical tool for teaching argumentative prose to L2 English learners at the secondary and tertiary levels.