Using bundle analysis to uncover formulaic language patterns in seminar discussions

Abstract

Seminars serve as a valuable instructional tool in higher education, enabling scholars to engage in discussions, ask questions, and gain a clear account of the topic through interactive sessions. This leads to the significance of deciphering the discursive patterns and linguistic choices made by speakers in these academic discussions, one of these patterns is lexical bundles. This study focused on identifying the most frequently used four-word lexical bundles in 78 seminar discussions sourced from three online repositories. Drawing on Biber et al.’s taxonomy, the identified bundles underwent functional categorisation. This involved examining their contextual meanings through concordance lines to reveal something of the discoursal and communicative practices inherent in this genre, and explore how speakers organise their discourse in a formulaic way. The findings demonstrate the prominent presence of formulaic bundles in seminar discussions. Stance, which relates to the speaker’s degree of knowledge, their attitude and judgments, emerged as the most salient function of bundles, followed by referential and discourse-organising functions. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of discourse decisions in seminars, and offer insights into the formulaic linguistic choices made by speakers as they interact with their audience.