Lexical bundles in academic articles from arts disciplines

This article presents results from partial research which in its broader scope focuses on objective language needs analysis of students in Ph.D. study programmes of photography and product/industrial design. It is the problematics of formulaic language use in vocational published articles which usually serve in classes of English for Academic Purposes as referential models for the students in the target group and form a referential corpus in the objective needs analysis in the field of academic writing in English. This comparative corpus study pointed to the use of formal and functional types of 4-gram lexical bundles in published articles of expert authors in the two visual art disciplines of photography and product/industrial design. The analysis of lexical bundles has been done with the use of Biber’s (Biber et al., 1999) formal taxonomy, the functional taxonomy was adapted from Hyland (2008a, 2008b). The findings obtained will be used to identify the objective needs in communicative competence in academic writing for Ph.D. students of the target group.

The first and most crucial step towards developing a sustainable curriculum for instructors teaching English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) is a needs analysis. Therefore, the main aim of conducting this study was to investigate the in-service needs of language instructors and content specialists teaching ESAP and to spot the differences between the needs of these two groups in order to provide them with systematic treatments in ESAP teacher training programs. This mixed method study was designed on a qualitative-quantitative survey basis using a questionnaire, a semi-structured interview, and an observation checklist. The analysis of the data collected from 50 content specialists and 50 language instructors completing the questionnaires reveals that there is a significant difference between the in-service needs of these two groups, that is, language instructors desire more to be trained in an in-service ESAP teaching training program in terms of professional, procedural and personal needs. Furthermore, the results of the data obtained from the semi-structured interview and the observation of 20 of the above-mentioned instructors (i.e., 10 content specialists and 10 language instructors) indicate that language instructors have more difficulty selecting suitable materials, suffer more from low income, attitudinal difficulties and backwash effect compared to their counterparts teaching ESAP courses. It can be inferred that the results of the present study can sufficiently help the researchers to embark on an in-service teacher training program both for ESAP content specialists and language instructors based on their specific needs in the ESAP context.

Formulaicity is one of the characteristic features of legal discourse, which manifests itself not only at the level of wording, “but also in the content, structure and layout” of legal texts (Ruusila & Londroos 2016, 123). Formulaic language, which includes phrasal and prepositional verbs, idioms, collocations, lexico-grammatical associations, lexical bundles, etc., are building blocks of legal discourse shaping legal text meanings. However, up to now, far too little attention has been paid to the nature of frequently occurring “sequences of three or more words that show a statistical tendency to co-occur” (Biber & Conrad 1999, 183), i.e. lexical bundles, in different genres of legal texts. Most studies in the field of lexical bundles in legal texts have only been based on one language (e.g. Jablonkai 2009; Goźdź-Roszkowski 2011; Breeze 2013), whereas translation-oriented contrastive studies on lexical bundles are lacking. In respect of the aforementioned gaps, the aim of this pilot study is to analyse structural types of lexical bundles in court judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union in English and to examine the way these structures are rendered into Lithuanian. To gain insights into the frequency and structure of lexical bundles, the present study uses the methodological guidelines of corpus linguistics. The classification of lexical bundles into structural types is based on the framework suggested by Biber et al. (1999, 2004). For the purpose of this study, a parallel corpus of court judgments was compiled comprising approximately 1 million words of original court judgments in the English language and about 8 hundred thousand words of court judgments translated into Lithuanian. Lexical bundles in this research were identified using the corpus analysis toolkit AntConc 3.4.4 (Anthony 2015). A concordance program AntPConc 1.2.0 (Anthony 2017) was employed to find Lithuanian equivalents of the most frequent lexical bundles identified in the English court judgments. The evidence from this study suggests that different structural types of lexical bundles have more or less regular equivalents in Lithuanian; however, in most cases, these equivalents tend to be shorter.

Revamping an English for specific academic purposes course for problem-based learning: Reflections from course developers

This article vividly exhibits and distinguishes the distinctions between teaching ESAP and EGAP. It defines the two approaches and shows which teaching approach is the realistic option according to the author's point of view. The author hence proceeds with elucidations on why EGAP is the realistic option and elaborates on the five roles of an ESP teacher. In addition, the author mentions a study that was conducted in Vietnam. The study was based on a systematic literature review of current research on English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) and English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) teaching approaches, and 15 relevant studies were synthesized. Some of this research showed positive results, while others showed negative results of the approaches. The final results of this study show that ESAP learning was hard in practice. It shows how EGAP is considered a course to equip and prepare students for ESAP courses. It prompts EGAP through group work and suggests it will make students feel less intimidated. The weaker students will learn from the stronger students in an EGAP group working class. It shows one of the relevant study's responses and teachers who think EGAP is significant in teaching before students can enter ESAP courses. Scaffolding is considered a significant role teachers need to ensure learners have reached their needs in both approaches. In the latter part of the article, the author mentions her experience teaching ESAP at Kuwait University, specifically at the College of Engineering. The authors show what difficulties they have gone through and how they managed to teach at this college.

Considering its important role in applied English Linguistics, several authors have studied lexical bundles (LBs). The previous studies mainly compared the LBs between genres and among native and non-native speakers. There has yet to be any study that combines the LBs from each section of the same academic writing and the LBs of two related disciplines. This study investigates the types and structures of LBs in three rhetorical sections—Introduction, Materials and Methods, and Results and Discussion—of academic articles in the fields of Communications and Linguistics. A corpus of 3,753 journal articles (1,563 in Communications and 2,190 in Linguistics) was compiled from PLOS ONE using AntCorGen, and analyzed using AntConc Sowftware. Extended lexical bundles (four- to six-word sequences) were extracted based on frequency and dispersion thresholds. TThis study found that the variation of LBs is not only different by disciplines but also by the sections. The cooccurrence of LBs in Communication Introduction and Method is less compared to Linguistics. LBs in Communication suggest a more straightforward and clear method of conveying information. Meanwhile, Linguistics shows complexity competence and greater engagement with abstract concepts and specialized vocabulary. The trends of dominant LB structure in every section are preposition and noun-based LBs, which have higher writing quality and complexity. The study expected to highlight the importance of LBs in academic writing.

Lexical bundles are multi-word expressions that usually hang together. They are considered as a main factor in building fluency in academic discourse; helping to shape meanings and coherence in a text. The objectives of the study are to analyse non-native and native English teachers’ talk in order to explain (1) the use of structural and functional types of lexical bundles in non-native and native English teachers’ talk, (2) the similarities and differences of lexical bundles used in the talk, (3) the relation between structural and functional types of lexical bundles used in the talk. This study is a qualitative study and designed as a classroom discourse analysis. The data are non-native and native English teachers’ talk. The results reveal that non-native and native English teachers used all types of lexical bundles structurally and functionally. Similarly, both teachers performed lexical bundles in form of verb phrase and they mostly functioned as stance expressions. However, they performed them differently in terms of the sub-types. Non-native English teachers used more 1st/2nd person pronoun+VP fragments while native English teachers employed more WH-questions fragments. Functionally, non-native English teachers used lexical bundles more in showing ability while native English teachers performed them more in showing intention/prediction. Both teachers frequently employed lexical bundles with verb phrase structures that functioned as stance expressions. The use of lexical bundles is important for teachers to perform native-like fluency and improve their oral proficiency. 

The issue of specificity in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) settings has always challenged linguists and instructors in the field to take a stance on how language should be perceived, that is whether language forms and features are transferable across different academic disciplines or are specific to particular disciplines. This study intends to take this debate a step further by employing a corpus-driven method in identifying a type of phraseological sequence, namely lexical bundles in a corpus of journal articles in the field of International Business Management (IBM). The lexical bundles were compared with those compiled by Simpson-Vlach and Ellis (2010) in their study of Academic Formulas List (AFL) to determine the specificity of the lexical bundles identified in this study. Following frequency-based approach, the corpus tool, Collocate 1.0 was used to extract three- to five-word sequences. These word sequences were manually filtered to exclude irrelevant and meaningless combinations. The qualified lexical bundles were compiled and compared with lexical bundles in AFL (Simpson-Vlach and Ellis 2010) using log-likelihood test. The findings show that three-word lexical bundles are the most common types of lexical bundles in IBM corpus. The comparison reveals that lexical bundles in IBM corpus are relatively specific as compared with lexical bundles in AFL. A discipline-specific approach to the teaching and learning of lexical bundles in EAP settings is therefore advocated to enhance EAP syllabuses and instruction. Keywords: EAP; phraseological sequences; lexical bundles; frequency-based; discipline-specific

This introductory review article for this special issue sets out a range of issues in play as far as English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing is concerned, but with a special emphasis on English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) (as opposed to English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP)). Following the introduction, the article begins by outlining the different types of EAP and presenting the pros and cons of ESAP and EGAP for writing. It then goes on to review work in a range of areas of relevance to ESAP writing. These areas are register and discourse analysis; genre analysis; corpus analysis; ethnography; contrastive rhetoric; classroom methodology; critical approaches; and assessment. The article concludes by arguing that whichever model of writing is chosen (EGAP or ESAP), or if a hybrid model is the choice, if at all possible, students need to be exposed to the understandings, language and communicative activities of their target disciplines, with students themselves also contributing to this enterprise.

The study compares a distinct between English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) and English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) to explore the real needs of students and help students and teachers choose proper learning and teaching strategies to improve the effectiveness of English learning and teaching. Literature review is used as a research method and offers an overview of the definitions, pros and cons, case study of EGAP and ESAP. It is concluded that both EGAP and ESAP contribute to the academic English learning, while EGAP focus on academic language study for specific English proficiency tests like IELTS/TOFEL and ESAP focus on academic language study for postgraduate and professional work.

An investigation into the learning transfer of English for specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) writing skills of students in Singapore

Running English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) courses at tertiary institutions is becoming more challenging due to a number of factors and it leaves impact on lecturers’ emotions. Emotional dimension is among the aspects that significantly influences the way lecturers view assessments and their choice of assessment practices. This paper specifically looks at empathy as one emotional aspects present within lecturers as they undertake tasks of developing assessment materials and mitigate the challenges that they encounter. Six senior ESAP lecturers teaching engineering students at two engineering related universities reflected on this scenario via interviews and self-reflections. Their empathy in planning and developing assessment materials were elicited and scrutinised via qualitative approaches. All the lecturers exuded empathy based on professional grounds and directed towards essential learner factors and the intended ESAP course outcomes attainment. Empathy was found to be consistently demonstrated towards language learner factors and their language learning context that comprise aspects like background of students, language proficiency level, familiarity with language materials, current knowledge and skills required for test-taking. Such empathy for the best interest of the learners have induced careful and selective practices among the lecturers when preparing assessment materials. The presence of empathy in assessment practices appeared to be second nature to the lecturers and it helps to complement assessment best practices and upholds quality delivery of the ESAP courses. Empathy at a positive level has enabled the lecturers to embrace the spirit of assessment for learning where more time and efforts were devoted towards planning suitable assessments that promote understanding and mastery of the language, before going for the assessment of learning or summative assessments.

The purpose of the study is to explore the potential of integrating Instagram in university-level English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) courses, focusing on Business English for Advanced Students. Using a mixed-methods approach, it combines qualitative data from observing the completion of Instagram-based assignments and subsequent semi-structured group interviews with quantitative data from a five-point Likert scale questionnaire distributed to the students who participated in the study. The research sample consisted of twenty-six undergraduate students from the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia, who completed four Instagram-based tasks related to communication, international marketing, promoting Slovakia, and success, which were linked to topics covered in the course during the winter semester of the academic year 2020/2021. The findings show that Instagram can be used effectively in ESAP courses mainly due to its popularity, visual appeal of posts, and, most importantly, as a platform that serves as a powerful marketing tool. The results indicate that the implementation of Instagram activities was positively perceived by most students, with high levels of agreement regarding the relevance, engagement, and creativity of the tasks. The study highlights the potential benefits of using Instagram in ESAP, providing insights into effective language learning through authentic, business-related tasks. Ultimately, integrating Instagram into ESAP can enable students to develop the language skills and competencies needed in real business contexts.

This book explores the affordances of disciplinary corpora for the teaching and learning of the language of dentistry, within the field of English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP). We extract disciplinary register features and vocabulary from three key genres of the dentistry discipline (published experimental research articles, case reports, and novice/professional research reports within the Dental Public Health domain), before integrating these features into ESAP pedagogy in the form of corpus-based ESAP materials that promote student-led direct engagement with disciplinary corpora – an approach known as 'data-driven learning'. This book is a timely and relevant addition to the field of corpus linguistics and ESAP, and is especially targeted at ESAP professionals who are required to teach disciplinary discourses but who may struggle to know what to teach as non-experts of the target discipline.

English for specific academic purposes (ESAP) has grown rapidly in line with the learners’ needs of language especially in communication skills academically. ESAP appears to rebut conventional teaching with merely emphasizing on the language structures instead of the content. In fact, what the learners learn in the classroom should meet their needs in the future professional job. Researching ESAP, the developer attempts to develop instructional materials for Islamic education students intended to troubleshoot the communication problem for undergraduate students in State Islamic Institute of Kediri or IAIN Kediri.This study is aimed to develop ESAP instructional materials with the principles of Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) for students of Islamic education of IAIN Kediri.This research and development is carried out in a population of 394 students being in the second semester at IAIN Kediri. A cluster random sampling is chosen as sample. There are 40 students involved in the research out of the 6 classes in the phase of obtaining information, need analysis and try out. The result of need analysis becomes the basis of how the developer composes the instructional materials with CTL principles. All the contents of the materials refer to Islamic education package into 10 units for one semester. The developer needs to ask for judgment of the materials to attain the validity of the materials involving three experts in ESAP course design, Islamic Education teacher training and expert of designing the lay out. After the tryout, the necessary revisions is made, the materials are then validated. It can be said that through the entire steps of research and development, the materials are trustworthy and appropriate to apply at Tarbiyah Faculty at IAIN Kediri.