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

Abstract

Stand-alone literature reviews exist to synthesize the vast amount of data produced by modern academia, but to date, little research exists on this genre of written academic prose. The present study, therefore, investigates the frequency, dispersion, and discourse functions of lexical bundles in stand-alone literature reviews. A 3.4 million word corpus of 417 stand-alone literature reviews in psychology, education, and medicine was compiled, and four-word bundles occurring more than 40 times per million words were extracted. Part of the corpus was then divided into IMRD sections, (i.e., introduction, methods, results, and discussion), and the frequency, dispersion, and function of these lexical bundles were examined within each section. Results revealed that lexical bundles in stand-alone literature reviews were identical to those found in other studies of academic writing, which suggests that a core set of bundles for written academic prose may exist. However, the frequency of each bundle differed by section, and concordance lines presented a range of discourse functions. Bundles established research gaps, clarified results and methods, reported data, undergirded interpretations, and contextualized findings. Further research into lexical bundle frequency and use patterns within sections of stand-alone literature reviews is needed to establish pedagogical guidelines for lexical bundle use.