Constructing subject-specific lists of multiword combinations for EAP: A case study

Abstract

Abstract This study combines a corpus-based approach and intuition-based judgements to develop a set of multiword combinations for research publications in academic journals. To obtain a representative sample, a corpus of four internal sections of 120 Applied Linguistics research articles indexed in the TCI (Thai Citation Index) database was systematically compiled and investigated. To identify n-grams which occur frequently in the corpus, a corpus-based approach was used. First, a list of 49 content-based strings, likely to be the most useful for pedagogic purposes, was derived. Based on their grammatical and semantic relationships, 3-grams were further investigated. For multiword sequences to occur frequently in the corpus, some pragmatic functionality is required which contributes to pedagogical use. Five EAP instructors were therefore invited to select the useful multiword combinations from the list of identified n-grams. A list of 289 phraseological patterns was finally created successfully. The list can provide additional evidence-based and corpus-informed instructional resources which support English teachers with the planning of lessons as well as materials design and development, particularly for advanced language courses which target scholarly writing.