COMPARISON OF LEXICAL BUNDLES IN DISSERTATIONS CATEGORIZED BASED ON ACADEMIC DISCIPLINES

The utilization of English recurrent word combinations –lexical bundles- play a fundamental role in academic prose (Karabacak & Qin, 2013). There has been highly limited research about comparing Turkish non-native and native English writers’ use of lexical bundles in academic prose in terms of frequency, structure and functions of lexical bundles (Bal, 2010; Karabacak & Qin, 2013, Öztürk, 2014). Therefore, this current research was conducted in order to investigate the most frequently used lexical bundles in the academically published articles of Turkish non-native and native speakers of English and to investigate whether there was a significant difference between native and non-native scholars with respect to the frequency, structures and functions of English language lexical bundles. The data were collected from two corpora; 15 scientific articles of native speakers and 15 scientific articles of Turkish advanced writers. The investigation included a quantitative analysis of the use of three-word lexical bundles and a qualitative analysis of the functions and structures they serve. To be more conservative, three-word lexical bundles which occur 40 times per million words and appear in 5 different texts were described a lexical bundle in this current research. The findings revealed that Turkish non-native writers showed underuse and less variation in the use of lexical bundles in their academic prose compared to native speakers.

Lexical bundles in ELT articles are considered as the bases of coherent contexts. In line with some previous studies, the present article aimed to compare native and nonnative ELT articles in terms of four-word lexical bundles. In so doing, a corpus including 200 ELT articles were chosen from 12 academic journals. First, all lexical bundles were identified and classified structurally and functionally based on Biber et al. (1999) taxonomy and Hyland (2008a, 2008b) functional category of lexical bundles in academic text respectively. To analyze the corpora, Antconc software (version 3.3.2), proposed by Anthony (2012), was used. The results revealed that authors of both corpora made use of various types of four-word lexical bundles; however, there were significant differences between native and nonnative articles in terms of their use of four-word lexical bundles; Iranian authors used theses lexical bundles almost twice more than native authors. In terms of functions, it was found that text-oriented bundles were the most frequent lexical combinations used by native and nonnative authors. Considering the results and previous studies, it is inferred that employing different lexical bundles to show the significant parts of academic research articles can help to effective information delivery in academic writing.

It has been observed that vocabulary constitute an essential factor in foreign language learning. Learners of English language need to have command of a wide range of complex lexical units which are prefabricated as chunks of arranged patterns of phrases and words. Biber, et al.(1999:991-992) define lexical bundles as '' recurrent expressions or sequences of three or more word forms that commonly go together in natural discourse''. They(ibid) add that ''lexical bundles can be regarded as building blocks that tend to be used frequently by different speakers in different situations''.They are retrieved and reprocessed as whole units which may not only enhance the accuracy and fluency of language, but also speed up language processing significantly. The present study deals with the investigation of the role of teaching lexical bundles in the development of Iraqi EFL proficiency in the Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Kufa. The most important purpose of lexical bundles is creating discourse coherence which helps students tocommunicate and practice language with effective and successful facilities. The study attempts to answer the following questions: 1) Is the use of lexical bundles necessary and effective in enhancing and developing of Iraqi EFL? 2) What is the difference between students who are unaware and unfamiliar with the use of lexical bundles and those who are familiar and able to identify them? The sample of the test consists of two types of questions (fill in the blanks 'production' and multiple choices 'recognition' ) and 40 students are selected randomly at the mentioned department. The participants are divided into two groups , each group with 20 students. The first group who are not aware how to use lexical bundles constructed the pre-test exam and the second group with 20 students done the post-test exam who are well constructed with the experience and knowledge of learning lexical bundles. The findings of the analysis have shown that students(pre-test) at the level of production score high and low rates concerning noun phrase based bundles. Whereas at the level of recognition students face difficulty in the recognition of clauses. Here, phrases are recognized more than clause are. The post-test which is concerned with those students who have attended lexical bundles classes shows high rates of correct answers in the use of noun phrase, verb phrase, preposition phrase and it cleft clause at the level of production and recognition. Therefore, learning such multi word expressions can contribute to gaining effective proficiency in language communication and competence

It has been observed that vocabulary constitute an essential factor in foreign language learning. Learners of English language need to have command of a wide range of complex lexical units which are prefabricated as chunks of arranged patterns of phrases and words. Biber, et al.(1999:991-992) define lexical bundles as '' recurrent expressions or sequences of three or more word forms that commonly go together in natural discourse''. They(ibid) add that ''lexical bundles can be regarded as building blocks that tend to be used frequently by different speakers in different situations''.They are retrieved and reprocessed as whole units which may not only enhance the accuracy and fluency of language, but also speed up language processing significantly. The present study deals with the investigation of the role of teaching lexical bundles in the development of Iraqi EFL proficiency in the Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Kufa. The most important purpose of lexical bundles is creating discourse coherence which helps students tocommunicate and practice language with effective and successful facilities. The study attempts to answer the following questions: 1) Is the use of lexical bundles necessary and effective in enhancing and developing of Iraqi EFL? 2) What is the difference between students who are unaware and unfamiliar with the use of lexical bundles and those who are familiar and able to identify them? The sample of the test consists of two types of questions (fill in the blanks 'production' and multiple choices 'recognition' ) and 40 students are selected randomly at the mentioned department. The participants are divided into two groups , each group with 20 students. The first group who are not aware how to use lexical bundles constructed the pre-test exam and the second group with 20 students done the post-test exam who are well constructed with the experience and knowledge of learning lexical bundles. The findings of the analysis have shown that students(pre-test) at the level of production score high and low rates concerning noun phrase based bundles. Whereas at the level of recognition students face difficulty in the recognition of clauses. Here, phrases are recognized more than clause are. The post-test which is concerned with those students who have attended lexical bundles classes shows high rates of correct answers in the use of noun phrase, verb phrase, preposition phrase and it cleft clause at the level of production and recognition. Therefore, learning such multi word expressions can contribute to gaining effective proficiency in language communication and competence

Academic writing skills contribute greatly in academic performance. One of the key elements of good academic writing is to know the proper use of the strings of the words usually occur together. These words are termed as lexical bundles in corpus linguistics. Some research has been conducted on the use and functions of lexical bundles in spoken and written discourses (Chen & Chen, 2020). However, there is scarce research on the functions of lexical bundles and their use in Pakistani research writing. While drawing on the corpus of 90201 corpora of the 12 Pakistani research articles, we investigated the functions and use of lexical bundles in research papers of Pakistani authors. The list of the lexical bundles by Simpson-Vlach and Ellis (2010) was used as a source to interpret the lexical bundles. We found the referential expressions were the highest lexical bundles in research articles of Pakistani authors followed by the expressions of ability and possibility and hedges in the list. Based on these findings, we argue that Pakistani authors are aware about the various types of the lexical bundles and their functions in academic writing. It is suggested that the high-frequency bundles can help the learners to improve the use of modal words used as hedges in academic writing. As per the findings of this study, it is recommended that a large corpus may be built for better results in the future.

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

Lexical bundles are considered as one of the main rhetorical features in academic genres. The appropriate use of these features adds to the coherence and naturalness of the texts. Recently, genre analysis studies tend to investigate the similarities and differences across different academic disciplines and the effects of the first language of writers on the employment of these linguistic features. There are limited studies, however, in the field with a mere focus on the use of lexical bundles in PhD dissertations and the similarities and differences on the employment of these features among native and non-native English writers. In this regard, the current study, following a comparative corpus-based approach, investigated the use of lexical bundles in English PhD dissertations written by native English-speaking and nonnative Kurdish-speaking writers across the two disciplines of biology and linguistics. All the compiled dissertations were selected from the ones published between 2010 to 2020 in British universities to keep the compiled corpora comparable. In the next phase, the distribution, linguistic structures, and functions of bundles used in introduction and literature review sections of the compiled dissertations were analyzed using WordSmith 6th edition concordancing software. The analysis provides a list of the most frequently used lexical bundles in each scientific field and among the two groups of writers. The structural analysis showed that noun phrases and prepositional phrases were the most frequently used bundles between both groups of writers and of disciplines. It was also found that passive structures were commonly used in biology dissertations. The functional analysis revealed that non-native Kurdish writers tended to use more research-oriented and text-oriented bundles in comparison with their native counterparts. It was suggested that the rhetorical differences and similarities between the two groups of writers and the disciplines could be attributed to the experience or proficiency levels of writers and the conventions, knowledge construction principles and research approaches of each academic discourse community. Pedagogically speaking, it is discussed that teaching discursive features and including language teaching tasks drawn from authentic texts such as text analysis tasks, focused tasks, extended writing tasks enable EAP learners to learn how to employ these linguistic features effectively to improve the flow of information, coherence and fluency in their academic texts.

This study focuses on the use of lexical bundles (LBs), their structural forms, and their functional classifications in journal articles of four academic disciplines: Health sciences, Life sciences, Physical sciences, and Social sciences. The corpus comprises 2,937,431 words derived from 400 journal articles which were equally distributed in the four disciplines. The results show that Physical sciences feature the most number of lexical bundles, while Health sciences comprise the least. When we pair-up the disciplines, we found that Physical sciences and Social sciences shared the most number of LBs. We also found that there were no LBs shared between Health sciences and Physical sciences, and neither between Health sciences and Social sciences. For the distribution of the structural forms, we found that the prepositional-based and the verb-based bundles were the most frequent forms (each of them accounts for 37.1% of the LBs, making a total of 74.2%). Within the verb-based bundles, the passive form can be found in 12 out of 23 LB types. Finally, for the functional classifications, the number of referential expressions (40 LBs) is a lot higher than those of discourse organizers (12 LBs) and stance expressions (10 LBs). The high frequency of LBs in the referential expressions can be related to the needs to refer to theories, concepts, data and findings of the study.

Learner corpora—repositories of authentic texts produced by foreign/second language learners (Granger, 2009)—have widely been used in second language (L2) research due to authenticity and practical insight. This study involves a learner corpus of placement test essays to examine L2 students’ use of lexical bundles and explore their linguistic needs so that the learner corpus can be used as potential linguistic resources for L2 students with their perceived needs. 367 placement test essays from Chinese L2 students in a midwestern university were analyzed in the study. The results show the most frequent use of prepositional phrasal lexical bundles, less frequent use of discourse-organizing bundles, and frequent use of ‘I’ in stance bundles. This study revealed L2 students need to be aware of the use of discourse-organizing bundles for cohesion/logic in academic writing and implied the value of L2 students’ lexico-grammatical use as a resource and investment with pedagogical significance.

Disciplinary differences in lexical bundles use: A cautionary tale from methodological variations

The present study examines the use of lexical bundles in first year core engineering textbooks, identifies vocabulary-based discourse units (VBDUs) in the textbooks, and explores the connections between lexical bundles and the VBDUs. A first year core engineering textbook corpus (FCETC) consisting of 995,672 running words was compiled with materials drawn from seven textbooks required in a first-year engineering undergraduate program. A total of 95 lexical bundles were identified in the FCETC. Lexical bundles in the corpus are more often phrasal than clausal. These bundles mainly serve as referential bundles, discourse organizers, and stance bundles. These bundles allow authors to take on the role of experts who deliver foundational knowledge in a professional way and enable the authors to act as facilitators who make the content accessible and involve readers in their learning processes. The comparison of the use of lexical bundles in first year core engineering textbooks, electrical engineering introductory textbooks, university teaching, and university textbooks indicates that disciplinary specificity and genres impact the use of lexical bundles in the four registers. A total of 665 VBDUs were identified in 14 chapters randomly selected from the FCETC. These VBDUs fall into five main categories, which include explaining VBDUs, presenting VBDUs, solving VBDUs, introducing VBDUs, and bridging VBDUs. Single or multiple VBDUs construct four types of macro-processes for knowledge construction, which suggest that the authors focus on the procedures and steps and guide learners to appropriately approach the theories and understand problem-solving operations. This study also shows that the communicative purposes of VBDUs determine the distribution of lexical bundles in these discourse units. The use of lexical bundles differs in the categories and subcategories of VBDUs and helps achieve various communicative purposes of the VBDUs. Furthermore, this study identifies textual colligations of lexical bundles in the engineering textbooks: the authors avoid using stance bundles in introducing VBDUs and rarely use discourse organizers in introducing VBDUs and bridging VBDUs. Findings of this study can provide pedagogical resources to improve learners' reading and writing competencies in the field of engineering.

The use of formulaic language in written discourse is an important indicator of language competence. Nonetheless, the features of lexical bundles used by lower proficiency English as a Foreign Language learners have received little attention. The present study addressed this gap by employing a corpus-based method to investigate the quantity, function, and quality of four-word lexical bundles produced by low proficiency L2 English writers with 11 different L1 backgrounds in response to a timed English writing assessment. The investigation was specifically anchored on the data extracted from 1,330 essays using Wordsmith 7.0. Results of the investigation showed (1) an over dependence on writing topic related bundles; (2) an Indo-European L1 language background positively influencing lexical bundle production; (3) an overuse of stance expressions and discourse organizers at the expense of referential expression usage; (4) L1 Japanese, Korean, and Telugu writers producing more accurate lexical bundles and L1 German writers producing fewer accurate lexical bundles; and (5) the frequent use of lexical bundles not leading to highly accurate and appropriate use of lexical bundles. The implications of these results were discussed in connection with foreign language education.

Research on lexical bundles in the last few decades has focused mostly on written registers, especially academic writing. In this study, I investigate the use of lexical bundles in a different genre – dictionaries. As a lexical bundle is formulaic language specific to a particular register, I hypothesize that particular lexical bundles are used in dictionaries. The research focus of this study is the extent to which lexical bundles are used in the online version of the Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (KBBI Daring; Comprehensive dictionary of Indonesian online), especially in the lemma, definition, and example sections. In addition, the study examines the characteristics of lexical bundles in dictionaries. The approach used is corpus based. As reference bundles, a total of 517 lexical bundles were extracted from the IndonesianWeb Corpus (available from SketchEngine). The bundles were then analyzed for their use in KBBI Daring in terms of their frequency, structure, and function. The results showed that the use of lexical bundles in KBBI Daring was mostly found in the definition section. The bundles found were generally in the form of phrases rather than clauses. In terms of structure, the lexical bundles were dominated by incomplete structures. The bundles, either in the definition or example sections, were mostly in the form of yang-clause fragments, such as yang digunakan untuk “that is used for,” yang terdiri atas “that consists of,” yang terbuat dari “that is made of/from,” yang berasal dari “that comes from,” and yang berhubungan dengan “that relates to.” In terms of function, presenting content is the dominant function in the KBBI, while organizing text is the least prevalent function. In a nutshell, each section in the dictionary, especially in the KBBI, has its own character.

Lexical bundles in stand-alone literature reviews: Sections, frequencies, and functions

Lexical bundles are essential components of academic discourse, contributing to linguistic fluency in written and spoken communication. Their role is particularly crucial in publishing research articles in high-impact international journals. While previous studies have explored lexical bundle usage across various sections of research articles, little research has compared their use in accepted versus rejected introductions. This study aims to address this gap by examining the similarities and differences in lexical bundle usage within the introductions of accepted and rejected hard science research articles written by Indonesian scholars. This study employs a mixed-methods comparative research design. It analyzes 30 research article introductions from a hard science Scopus-indexed journal based on Biber’s structural (noun/prepositional phrase-based) and Hyland’s functional (research-oriented, text-oriented, participant-oriented) frameworks. The findings indicate that accepted introductions contain a higher frequency of four-word lexical bundles. Structurally, both datasets are dominated by noun/prepositional phrase bundles and research-oriented bundles, but accepted introductions feature more structurally complete units. Functionally, research-oriented bundles are the most prevalent in both groups, emphasizing research processes and results in hard science writing. However, distinct differences in structural and functional subcategories suggest that proficiency in formulaic expressions may influence manuscript acceptance. This study contributes to understanding lexical bundle use in academic writing and provides practical implications for writing pedagogy, particularly for non-native scholars seeking publication in international journals.