Corpus-Based Study of Lexical Bundles in the Abstracts of High-Impact Research ‎Articles across Disciplines

The present study aims to compare PhD dissertations, written by Turkish postgraduate students learning English as a foreign language, categorized based on the academic disciplines, in terms of the use of 4-word lexical bundles. To retrieve recurrent lexical bundles and to make their structural and functional analysis, various disciplines are grouped under two separate groups based on the academic fields such as hard and soft sciences. Also, English-major and non-English-major disciplines are compared to each other to see the variation in use of lexical bundles across disciplines. The findings reveal that ELT dissertations, representative of English-major disciplines, have three and four times as many lexical bundles as the dissertations written in the academic fields of soft and hard sciences, respectively. However, the academic fields produce almost the same number of lexical bundle types, suggesting that soft and hard sciences do not show variation in use of 4-word lexical bundles. With regard to the structural analysis of lexical bundles, it is found that lexical bundles most frequently appear in the syntactic categories of noun phrases and prepositional phrases. As for the functional distribution of lexical bundles, the findings indicate that the vast number of lexical bundles in each group function to be referential expressions

This study explores how lexical bundles link smaller functional units (steps) in research article (RA) conclusions in hard and soft science knowledge fields by using corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches. RA conclusion corpora from the hard and soft sciences were compiled and four-word lexical bundles were extracted from each corpus. Conclusions containing lexical bundles were then imported into the UAMCorpus tool for manual tagging of functions, structures, moves, and steps associated with lexical bundles. It has been found that the four-word bundles play an important role in realizing the communicative purpose of the functional units in RA conclusions in both the hard and soft sciences. The results demonstrate that the resultative lexical bundle (e.g. the findings of the) is a strong indicator of the conclusions in both soft and hard sciences. Specific bundle structures and functions are identified as signalling different steps of the conclusions. The findings of this study add to the growing body of knowledge regarding the bundle–move connections and contribute to the construction of the RA conclusions in different disciplinary cultures.

Prefabricated structures referred to as poly-word strings or lexical bundles are recognized as the fundamental building blocks in academic discourse. They build fluency in academic discourse, helping to shape coherence and meaning in a speech or text. For decades, lexical bundles have captivated a considerable amount of attention in corpus-based research in English for Academic Purposes. However, in the Pakistani context, less research has been carried out to explore lexical bundles in academic discourse. Therefore, the present study aimed to examine prefabricated structures employed in the scientific research abstracts of theses and articles from social and physical sciences. A specialized corpus was built from the 1200 research abstracts from social and physical sciences. AntConc software was utilized for the extraction of lexical bundles. Biber structural model of lexical bundles was employed as a theoretical framework. The study found 42 four-word lexical bundle types and 659 tokens in soft sciences. On the other side, the study found 55 four-word lexical bundle types and 950 tokens in physical sciences. Besides, this corpus-based study found 11 common core four-word lexical bundles in social and physical sciences. Moreover, the present study also contributed some new structures to the respective structural model of lexical bundles. If Pakistani science scholars are introduced with these lists of lexical bundles obtained from this study, their rhetorical practice of writing research abstracts can be significantly improved. The results yielded from this study can be substantially used for ESP and EAP further to enhance the academic discourse of the research scholars. Keywords: Corpus-based study, lexical bundles; physical sciences; research abstracts; social sciences.

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.

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.

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.

The aim of this study was to explore lexical bundle use in four moves within abstracts of medical research articles (RAs) and to investigate the relation between bundles and moves. Lexical bundles were identified, and bundle structures and functions in each move were compared and analysed. Four-word bundles in medical RA abstracts were characterised by considerable overlap. The majority of lexical bundles were specific to only one move. There was no significant difference in bundle structures in types across moves, but there was a significant difference in tokens. There was a significant difference in bundle functions in both types and tokens. These differences may be attributable to the rhetorical functions of each move, which reflects a relation between lexical bundles and moves. These findings suggest caution in considering the bundle features of medical RA abstracts as a whole, since bundle variation across moves needs to be taken into consideration.

Please fill up the following information accurately. (Please use Times New Roman, 12 pt. Lexical bundles in published research articles: A corpus-based study This corpus-based study investigates to what extent L1 Turkish speakers of English produce lexical bundles in their academic writing. To this end, a corpus of published research articles in six academic disciplines was collected. The corpus included one-million words in total. The four and five-word lexical bundles in the corpus were identified with the help of a corpus software and analyzed for their frequency, structural and functional features. The analysis yielded a total of 99 four-word and 22 five-word lexical bundles in the corpus. The results showed that the lexical bundles frequently used by Turkish authors in research articles had structural correlates and performed strong functions to construct the discourse of academic writing. Also, the study revealed a new group of bundles called research referential bundles. This finding might indicate that genre plays a significant role in the use of lexical bundles. The discussions given in this article could provide insights for further multi-word studies. Information about Author(s)* Author 1 Author (Last name, First name) Bal-Gezegin, Betül Affiliated institution (University) Amasya University Country Turkey Email address betul.bal@amasya.edu.tr Department & Rank Corresponding author (Yes/No) Write only one corresponding author. Yes Author 2 Author (Last name, First name) Affiliated institution (University) Country Email address Department & Rank Corresponding author (Yes/No) Author 3 Author (Last name, First name) Affiliated institution (University) Country Email address Department & Rank Corresponding author (Yes/No) Author 4 Author (Last name, First name) Affiliated institution (University) Country Email address Department & Rank Corresponding author (Yes/No)

Lexical bundles are two or more string of words that co-occur frequently in a corpus. Hence, this corpus-based research design study examines the effects of lexical bundles on English as a foreign language learner’s abstract genre academic writing skills, and it also investigates students’ perception towards lexical bundles instruction to enhance their academic writing skills. Hence, frequent lexical bundles were selected from 70 computer science articles. These articles were selected from 7 journals that were published in reputable, indexed, and through representative criteria. Accordingly, sixteen frequent lexical bundles were selected through corpus analysis software (Laurence Anthony’s Antconc software) for the purpose of classroom instruction. The bundles are intended to help computer science students to develop their abstract genre academic writing skills. Students have instructed their academic writing through corpus informed instruction for two months, and the data were gathered through pre and post-tests and questionnaire. The findings indicated that lexical bundles have a positive effect on students’ academic writing skills, particularly abstract genre writing. Besides, the students have a positive perception of the lexical bundle and the instruction to enhance their academic writing skills. Finally, this research calls attention to discipline-oriented lexical bundles since they are crucial for academic writing.Â

Multiword structures that appear in a text more than expected frequency are called lexical bundles. These prefabricated structures vary in length but the most common lexical bundles are four-word lexical bundles which have been explored by many scholars worldwide. The current study aimed to explore five-word lexical bundles, which have lesser been researched. For this purpose a corpus of about 4.7 million words was compiled which consists of PhD dissertations written in Pakistani context. Moreover, the dissertations were selected from three different disciplines to make the study cross disciplinary. The corpus was analyzed according to the taxonomy of lexical bundles given by Biber et al. (1999). The analysis shows that lexical bundles are predominant feature of PhD dissertations in Pakistani context. Moreover, frequency of lexical bundles varies from discipline to discipline, and the structural variation of lexical bundles is also found across disciplines. Dominant structures across disciplines are not fixed as Prepositional Phrase Fragments is the dominant category in the corpus of English Studies and corpus of Social Sciences, whereas, Verb Phrase Fragments is the dominant category in the corpus of Bio Sciences.

This study investigated and explored the structures and functions of 100 common lexical bundles of four-word, considering the structural and functional classification of lexical bundles, defined by (Biber, 2004 , p. 381 - 384), which was used as the theoretical framework also. This study is a corpus-based study of the four-word lexical bundles taken from biology textbooks which are being taught at the Pakistani Higher Secondary School Certificate level (HSSC) in KPK. The specified corpus of these textbooks was run in the AntConc software to perceive and detached LBs in the corpus. The bundles were then analyzed and classified according to (Biber et al., 2004) structural and functional taxonomy of lexical bundles. Structural analysis showed that lexical bundles incorporating dependent clause fragments, verb phrase with passive verb and preposition phrase were the most corporate type of bundles produced by biology textbooks. In terms of the functions, the majority of the bundles served as discourse organizers and referential expressions. These discoveries have educational endeavors and can be utilized in English for academic and special purposes. Keywords: Lexical bundles, Corpus-based study, Pakistani academic textbooks, English language teaching, English for academic purpose.

Lexical bundles are fundamental to fostering language fluency and facilitating proficient academic writing, particularly within English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. However, their prevalence and pedagogical utility in Indonesian EFL textbooks at the secondary level remain underexplored. This study examines the deployment of three-word lexical bundles in Indonesian senior high school EFL textbooks (grades 10–12) aligned with the Kurikulum Merdeka. Adopting a corpus-based methodology, the research employs AntConc software to analyze the frequency, structural composition, and functional distribution of identified bundles. The corpus consists of texts drawn from officially sanctioned textbooks corresponding to the new curriculum. Analysis revealed 53 distinct lexical bundles across the three grade levels. Structurally, noun phrase (NP)-based bundles predominated, followed by verb phrase (VP)-based and prepositional phrase (PP)-based bundles. These findings indicate a deliberate, graded progression in the linguistic complexity of the textbooks, which appears designed to scaffold the development of students’ academic language proficiency. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of lexical bundle integration in EFL instructional materials, underscores their pedagogical significance, and provides insights for future curriculum development and language teaching methodologies.

Lexical bundles, frequent word combinations that commonly occur in different registers, have attracted researchers in corpus linguistics in the last decade. While most previous studies of bundles have been mainly concerned with variations in the use of these word sequences across different registers, very few studies have focused on their use across disciplines. To address possible disciplinary variations in the use of these word combinations in academic register, this quantitative and qualitative study chose to investigate, compare, and contrast range, frequency, and function of anticipatory it bundles as a sub-set of these word clusters with important metadiscursive functions in published writing. For this purpose, the study zoomed in research articles of applied linguistics and analytical chemistry as a soft and hard science, respectively. The results indicated that generally anticipatory it bundles could be regarded as a distinctive characteristic of academic writing in both disciplines. At the same time, each discipline was found to draw almost on a particular set of it bundles in the development of its discourse. However, analytical chemistry seemed to rely more on these bundles in the development of its discourse. Functional analysis also showed that it bundles served a wide variety of functions in both disciplinary areas. Therefore, this study called for a more robust pedagogical focus on different multi-word sequences like anticipatory it lexical bundles. The findings also highlighted the importance of a more genre-focused EAP (English for academic purposes).

An ongoing discussion on the disciplinary nature of educational technology has been taking place for years. Some view this discipline from the perspective of instructional design and implementation, whereas others conceptualize it from the perspective of media, tool, and system. This study examined educational technology from the perspective of language use by empirically investigating a special sequence of words, referred to as lexical bundles, in educational technology research articles. It aims to capture the distinctive nature of educational technology as soft technology and examine possible associations of educational technology with relevant disciplines. Employing a text analysis tool of AntConc 3.4.3, the researcher compiled a corpus encompassing 323 research articles from six journals with approximately 2.1 million words to identify lexical bundles. All identified bundles were analyzed and further compared with past relevant studies based on the number of different bundles, the content of bundles, and the grammatical structure of bundles. It was found that educational technology as an inter-discipline resembles much more soft science fields in terms of the content and structural categories of bundles. This study not only contributes to a better conceptual understanding of the nature of educational technology but offers a pedagogically beneficial bundle list for informing academic writing instruction in this field.

The present study analyses the lexical bundles (LBs) used by scholars of PhD linguistics in Pakistani universities. For this purpose, a small corpus of the abstracts of 73 PhD linguistics theses ranging from 2017 to 2022 was built. Antconc software was used to get the frequencies of the LBs. The objectives of the study were to examine the structural and functional taxonomies of those LBs. Biber’s (1999) classification was used for the structural analysis, while Hyland’s (2008) classification was used for the functional analysis. The study found there is a less tendency toward the use of 4-word LBs. It was disappointing to observe a low frequency of structural analysis for 4-word LBs. On the other hand, the functional classification of the LBs was relatively satisfactory due to the discovery of a higher number of 4-word LBs.The study stresses the importance of teaching the structure and functions of LBs from the intermediate level so that when these students reach the postgraduate level, they should be able to adhere to the rules of cohesion and coherence.