Corpus analysis and phraseology

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the production of multi-word units present in English argumentative texts written by non-native speakers of the language. The aim of this study is to examine the potential influence of the mother tongue on learners’ production of both correct and incorrect multi-word units that are typically used in English for creating textual cohesion: lexical bundles, in particular, linking adverbials. Several corpora will be used: non-native students from the ICLE Corpus, and the CEUNF, an original corpus of Spanish non-native students of English who study English as a subject outside their curriculum. These will be contrasted with two native corpora: the American university students corpus (LOCNESS) and the corpus of the professional editorialists writing in English (SPE). The taxonomy used has been taken from Biber (2004), Biber, Conrad and Cortes (2004) and Biber et al. (1999) for the linking lexical bundles. Results suggest that transfer of L1 multi-word units occurs very often in the learners’ production and that it plays an important role for both correct and incorrect textual cohesion. Teaching effect will also be considered as an important factor correlating with transfer.