Four-word Lexical Bundles Research Articles

Using bundle analysis to uncover formulaic language patterns in seminar discussions

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.

Structures and functions of lexical bundles in FinTech discourse

Lexical bundles perform a wide range of functions, and present disciplinary variation in written academic prose. However, little is known about the characteristics of lexical bundles used in interdisciplinary domains. Therefore, this study investigates the use of lexical bundles in the field of FinTech, an amalgam of finance and technology, by building a 127 472-word corpus of 114 published research articles related to FinTech. A total of 180 four-word lexical bundles are identified and thereafter analysed in accordance with the taxonomy of structures and functions devised by Biber et al. (1999). The results reveal that (1) the proportion of bundle ending with nouns is twice that of bundles ending with verbs, (2) these identified lexical bundles are dominated by VP-based expressions, and (3) referential bundles account for almost 50% of the 180 instances. The existence of disciplinary variation is once again confirmed in this study, and the discipline specific multi-word combinations may deserve attention in the instruction of EAP writing as they can help students to be more articulate in their academic discourse communities.

Multiword constructions in European Parliament conference English: a corpus-driven pedagogical list

ABSTRACT The market demand for retour interpreting, especially into English as a B language, has driven training needs for B language enhancement. Interpreter trainers suggest memorising (semi-)fixed expressions in one’s B language to enhance accuracy, fluency, and idiomaticity. These prefabricated multiword units ease processing effort in both language production and comprehension while signalling one’s identity in a professional community. This study aims to create a pedagogical list of multiword constructions (MWCs) for conference interpreting purposes. A corpus-driven approach was adopted to identify four-word lexical bundles from a 664,732-word corpus comprising transcribed speeches interpreted into or delivered in English during European Parliament (EP) plenary sessions. The bundles were combined into MWCs more complete in structure and meaning. The MWCs were categorised based on their degree of specificity, meaning, and possible operations and functions in simultaneous interpreting (SI). Two major categories of MWCs were distinguished: Specific and Less Specific. Specific MWCs refer to EU-oriented or non-EU-oriented concrete concepts. Less Specific MWCs, being less substantial in meaning, may act as open grammar devices, padding, and sometimes tone-softener in SI. As part of a three-step pedagogical task, a complete annotated interpreted speech illustrates how an EP interpreter uses MWCs to frame ideas and develop discourse.

Lexical Bundles in the Discussions of Medical Sciences Articles: Frequencies, Syntactic Structures, and Discourse Functions

Lexical bundles (LBs) are frequent groups of words that appear repeatedly in different academic texts. A plethora of research has explored their distribution and usage in general, particularly in academic texts. However, to our knowledge, the extent of research investigating LBs in the discussion sections of Medical Research Articles (MRAs) is scant. The present study examined the diversity and density of four-word LBs in the discussions of 1400 MRAs. Four-word bundles totaling 413, including general and subject-bound LBs, were extracted using the freeware concordance software program AntConc and categorized based on their syntactic structures and discourse functions. The findings revealed that discussions structurally rely heavily on phrasal LBs (i.e., prepositional phrases and noun phrases) in general and subject-bound LBs compared to clausal bundles, which include VP-based and Clause-based LBs. Regarding functional categories, the general referential bundles with their subcategories were found to have the most considerable proportion in the medical RA genre. Given the importance of LBs in disciplinary writing and academic discourse, the findings could be instrumental in crafting suitable pedagogical materials and activities on general and subject-specific LBs for academic writing in English for Medical Purposes.

Connecting lexical bundles and moves in medical research articles’ Methods section

This study employs a corpus-driven approach to identify the four-word lexical bundles in the Methods section of 1 000 medical research articles (MRAs) from ten leading medical journals representing ten medical sub-fields. The bundles are first structurally and functionally analysed and further connected to rhetorical moves to fill the form-function gap of lexical bundle studies. Results showed that, structurally, the Methods section is dominated by clausal bundles (types and tokens). Functionally, the Methods section is dominated by research-oriented bundles (types and tokens). Our analysis of the bundle-move connection in the Methods section showed that all move-specific bundles (i.e. bundles occurring in only one move) are strongly associated with the rhetorical function of the moves they occurred in, while most cross-move bundles (i.e. bundles occurring in multiple moves) seem to display no clear associations with moves. In addition, the structural and functional analysis of move-specific bundles and cross-move bundles showed apparent structural and functional similarities. Our study may have valuable pedagogical implications for medical academic writing.

Formulaic Language Use by Learners of English in Interlanguage Communication

This study investigated the use of formulaic language, in the form of four-word lexical bundles, by Thai learners of English as a second language (ESL) at various levels of English proficiency during interlanguage communication. The investigation focused on two aspects: the frequencies and pragmatic functions of the four-word lexical bundles. A total of 120 Thai ESL learners participated in the study, ranging from basic to intermediate and advanced English proficiency levels. In terms of frequency, a list of the most frequently used four-word lexical bundles by Thai ESL learners at each level was examined. Results showed that learners at higher English levels used less formulaic language in interactions than those at lower levels. Two similar four-word lexical bundles, centered on "I don't know" and "I think," were used by Thai ESL learners at all three English levels. The functional analysis demonstrated that Thai ESL learners at all three English levels used formulaic language to assert group identity as a device for social interaction and as a device for memory limitations to buy more time and process shortcuts. The function of asserting a separate identity was not used by intermediate-level Thai ESL learners. Furthermore, the function of processing shortcuts was used less at the advanced level than at the basic level. The findings of this study indicate that Thai ESL learners use formulaic language differently at different English proficiency levels. Therefore, formulaic language used by ESL learners in spoken English discourse should be further investigated.

Beyond words in evaluation: Formulaic language in critical reviews of research articles across disciplines

Formulaic language, characterized by phraseological patterns such as lexical bundles, has been observed to significantly influence the discourse of speakers and writers. These patterns tend to differ across genres and disciplines. However, the examination of formulaic language in evaluative genres, particularly across different disciplines, has been relatively limited. This study aims to explore the use of formulaic language in review feedback on manuscripts submitted by Iranian junior researchers to international journals across three disciplines. Using a discourse analytical approach, the study analyzes the frequency, structure, and function of the most prevalent four-word lexical bundles in 120 authentic peer reviews (recommending either major or minor revisions) in applied linguistics (AL), engineering, and business (40 from each discipline). The study explores how reviewers employ formulas to convey their comments to writers. The results reveal disciplinary differences in the usage, structure, and function of lexical bundles among reviewers. However, commonalities exist due to the inherent conventions of the evaluative genre. These disciplinary tendencies are also reflected in the organization of reviewers' reports and their commenting styles. The study contributes to enhancing the understanding of evaluative practices within specific disciplines by offering valuable insights into the phraseological patterns used in peer reviews and highlighting the discipline-specific formulaic expressions employed by reviewers to provide constructive feedback to authors.

An Analysis of Structural Bundles Clustered within Rhetorical Moves of Qualitative and Quantitative Discussion Section of Research Articles

One of the most significant activities that writers can engage in to share their knowledge and establish a voice within the disciplinary community is writing academic research articles. To have a greater understanding of this commonly practiced genre, exploring the linguistic realisations which are used to classify the rhetorical structures of academic research articles is beneficial. This study’s main objective was to analyse structural bundles clustered in rhetorical moves in the Discussion parts of the specialised corpora of qualitative and quantitative datasets of Applied Linguistics Research articles (RAs), wherein each corpus contains Discussion sections of 50 RAs, as well as structural elements of those lexical bundles. For rhetorical move identification, the data were analysed based on Ruiying and Allison’s (2003) model. For lexical bundle analysis, the corpus-driven approach was used to extract four-word lexical bundles. Hence, the data were analysed using Biber et al.'s (1999) structural taxonomy. The analysis of Discussion sections identified some discrepancies in terms of lexical bundle frequency, which has also shown that some moves incorporated more bundles as compared to others. In terms of similarity of usage, the two groups of RA writers significantly used phrasal more than clausal. RA writers used more NP-based bundles at the expense of other phrasal sub-categories. The results of the current study provides insightful knowledge of genre convention as well as cluster of lexical bundles in Qualitative and Quantitative research articles. This knowledge enables authors, especially novice ones, to dive into their academic writing approach.

Frequency and structures of lexical bundles in the German Goethe-Institut website

Corpus linguistics allows researchers to discover the nature of language use through lexical bundles throughout genres, registers, and language varieties. With the fast-changing development of the internet, the language of websites has become one fascinating variety to investigate. In the contexts of German language studies, Goethe-Institut is a worldwide German cultural institution dedicated to teaching German and propagating German culture, with its website becoming a well-known source for German-related studies. Under these considerations, this research is interested in analyzing the German language patterns in Goethe-Institut website by examining their frequency and structure of lexical bundles. Using a mixed-method approach, the corpus was found to be dominated by lexical bundles within the ranges of three- and four-bundles, with the least quantity of lexical bundles in the range of five. The majority of the four-word lexical bundles on this site fell into the categories of noun, preposition, or verb groups. Meanwhile, the adverb, conjunction, and adjective groups were the fewest to appear in the four-word lexical bundles. The language in the Goethe-Institut was shown to contain semi-formal expressions according to the frequency of use of the prepositions, nouns, verbs, and the active sentence expressions. The utilization of standardized German language and basic vocabulary indicates that this website is designed to be accessible for everyone, including German language learners. The language usage also demonstrates that the Goethe-Institut is especially a user-oriented website with expressions that evoke a ‘sense of belonging’.

Proficiency at the lexis–grammar interface: Comparing oral versus written French exam tasks

This study investigates whether re-thinking the separation of lexis and grammar in language testing could lead to more valid inferences about proficiency across modes. As argued by Römer, typical scoring rubrics ignore important information about proficiency encoded at the lexis–grammar interface, in particular how the co-selection of lexical and grammatical features is mediated by communicative function. This is especially evident when assessing oral versus written exam tasks, where the modality of a task may intersect with register-induced variation in linguistic output. This article presents the results of an empirical study in which we measured the diversity and sophistication of four-word lexical bundles extracted from a corpus of French proficiency exams. Analysis revealed that the diversity of noun-based bundles was a significant predictor of written proficiency scores and the sophistication of verb-based bundles was a significant predictor of proficiency scores across both modes, suggesting that communicative function as well as the constraints of online planning mediated the effect of lexicogrammatical phenomena on proficiency scores. Importantly, lexicogrammatical measures were better predictors of proficiency than solely lexical-based measures, which speaks to the potential utility of considering lexicogrammatical competence on scoring rubrics.

LBiaP

AbstractOverlapping bundles, that is, shorter lexical bundles that are totally or partially embedded in longer expressions, may prove problematic in the structural and functional classification of bundles. For example, many studies in the literature focus only on four-word lexical bundles and conduct extensive structural and functional analysis of those bundles. However, most scholars have not considered the fact that some 4-word expressions may be embedded in longer expressions. These longer expressions may not only have a different structure but may also carry out a different functional role. The present study introduces theLexical Bundle Identification and Analysis Program(LBiaP), a software tool designed to facilitate lexical bundle research with independent observations of each lexical bundle identified. First, we describe complete overlapping, complete subsumption, and interlocking bundles in detail. We then explain howLBiaPdeals with these types of bundles when detected.

Lexical Bundles in a Saudi General-Audience Podcast in English: A Corpus Analysis

Research finds that lexical bundles are vital to fluent language processing as they reduce cognitive load when memorized as chunked sequences of language, especially for second-language (L2) learners. Although lexical bundles in academic and political discourse have been studied, their use in podcasts is a less-researched domain in corpus linguistics even though podcasts are an increasingly popular medium that offers authentic public discourse for diverse audiences, including L2 learners and instructors. To address this gap, this study investigates the most frequently occurring and widely dispersed lexical bundles in an English-language, general-audience Saudi podcast. A specific corpus consisting of 10 podcast episodes (almost one hour each) was submitted to AntConc for the identification of lexical bundles based on three predefined parameters: length, frequency, and distribution. A lexical bundle was extracted if it consisted of a four-word sequence that occurred at least five times in at least five texts. From a podcast corpus of 111,174 words, 56 four-word lexical bundles were identified and ranked according to frequency, and their grammatical structures were analyzed. Results show that lexical bundles such as thank you so much, a lot of people, be honest with you, and and I was like are high on the list. Structurally, they consist of nominal, verb-based, and prepositional phrases among others, although verb-based bundles are the most common. The study concludes by providing a list of lexical bundles that may be used for podcast-based learning practice in a L2 listening class or for independent learning.

A CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS OF PREFABRICATED STRUCTURES IN PAKISTANI RESEARCH ABSTRACTS

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.

Four-word lexical bundles in Chinese-English consecutive interpreting-A comparative study between professionals and trainees.

As comparative studies on lexical bundles between professional interpreters and trainees are pedagogically significant but rare, this experimental study initiates a comparison on the product and process of four-word lexical bundles in Chinese-English consecutive interpreting between these two groups. Frameworks regarding the structure and strategy of lexical bundles are established to analyze the product of lexical bundles produced by these two groups, and data including interpreters’ interpreting products, notes as well as retrospection and interviews are collected to analyze their process of producing lexical bundles. The results show that the types (Type) and frequencies (Token), except diversity (TTR), of lexical bundles with the “noun and/or prepositional phrase fragments” structure and/or the “equivalence” strategy from professionals are significantly higher than those from trainees. Reasons for inter-group similarities and differences in structural and strategical distributions (product) and strategy adoption (process) are also analyzed. Based on the established interpreting-tailored lexical bundle frameworks, this comparative study presents and explains similarities and differences between professionals and trainees and implies suggestions for the training and learning of interpreting.

Move–Bundle Connection in Conclusion Sections of Research Articles Across Disciplines

Abstract 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.

THE STRUCTURES AND FUNCTIONS OF LEXICAL BUNDLES IN PAKISTANI BIOLOGY TEXTBOOKS

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 in Native English Speakers' and Thai Writers' Dissertations

The purposes of this corpus-driven study were to compare the use of four-word lexical bundles between native English and Thai dissertation writings. Two language corpora, roughly 1,000,000 words apiece, were gathered from dissertations in the field of English Language Teaching written by both groups of writers. Each corpus was subdivided into three sub-corpora, namely, the Introduction, the Methodology, and the Results and Discussions sub-corpora. Two frameworks employed for the structural and functional analysis of the four-word lexical bundles were Salazar's (2011) adaptations of Biber et al.’s (1999) and Hyland’s (2008a). The analysis of lexical bundles was performed using concordance software AntConc . The results showed that Thai writers overused lexical bundles in comparison with that of English speaking writers in each part of the dissertations, especially in the Results and Discussion section, which could result from institutional factors such as expectation and practice of Thai universities that expect Thai Ph.D. students to be more critical of the findings and to offer more implication. The structural analysis revealed the overuse of verb-structured lexical bundles throughout the three sub-corpora of Thai writers, which was likely to stem from the non-native speaker's failure to employ noun- and preposition-structured lexical bundles effectively. The proportion of functions of lexical bundles in each section of dissertations written by both groups of writers shared a relatively similar trend, indicating that English speakers and Thai writers conformed to the same convention of dissertation writing.

Comparing Lexical Bundles in Medical Research Article Abstracts of Iranian and Foreign Journals

The art of persuasive speaking or writing in English academic settings depends on using multi-word expressions, also known as clusters, collocations, or lexical bundles, to a large extent. They are discipline-specific prefabricated word combinations that statistically tend to appear together. However, many novice foreign writers of English have difficulty using appropriate discipline-bound lexical bundles, which has made numerous applied linguists in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) study the genre of research articles from this perspective. Thus, the present study sought to compare the similarities and differences of four-word lexical bundles in a 409210-word corpus of Medical Research Article (MRA) abstracts from Iranian and foreign journals. To accomplish this, in a frequency-based approach, bundles were extracted utilizing the AntConc3.5.7 concordance program, and their structures and functions were analyzed by Biber et al.'s (1999) structural and Hyland's (2008a) functional taxonomies. The results showed similarities in the distribution of the bundles’ main structural and functional patterns. However, besides the differences in the distribution of sub-structures and sub-functions, it was revealed that highly frequently shared lexical types in MRA abstracts of Iranian journals were less frequent in MRA abstracts of foreign journals and vice versa. This study helps novice medical researchers write unified abstracts which have a crucial role in getting research articles accepted or rejected. Furthermore, producing well-organized abstracts in internal Iranian journals can significantly enhance the rank of Iranian medical journals worldwide.

Native English and non-native authors’ utilisation of lexical bundles: A corpus-based study of scholarly public health papers

: This study examined the use of lexical bundles in the results and discussion sections of public health research articles (RAs) by comparing the native English writers with Iranian non-native English writers. To this end, four-, five-, and six-word lexical bundles were contrastively investigated in two different sub-corpora i.e. a native English corpus (NEC) and a non-native English corpus (NNEC). The corpus contained 496 985 words, and each sub-corpora included 100 RAs. The RAs were then examined structurally and functionally. The data were analysed both quantitatively, using frequency count and chi-square analyses, and qualitatively through content analysis. Based on the results, from among the lexical bundles, 29 four-word, 17 five-word, and one six-word bundles were identified in the NEC, while 52 four-word, 27 five-word, and five six-word bundles were found in the NNEC. The findings highlight that Iranian non-native English authors employed more four-word, five-word and six-word lexical bundles than native English authors. The descriptive and overall findings also suggested some differences in the two groups’ functional and structural patterns of lexical bundles, whereas statistically insignificant differences were identified in the structural patterns of bundles in the groups. These findings lay considerable emphasis on the central part that lexical bundles play in English for academic purposes (EAP) and English for specific purposes (ESP) courses.

“Please let me know”

Abstract Lexical bundles are frequently recurring word sequences (e.g. as can be seen) that function as building blocks of discourse. This corpus-based study examined the use of four-word lexical bundles in business emails written by three groups of writers: intermediate business English learners, advanced business English learners, and working professionals. The prominent structural and functional characteristics of lexical bundles expressed in business emails were identified and compared across the three groups. The results showed that lexical bundles were related to the extent to which formality and politeness were expressed in written business communications. The advanced business English learners and working professionals used more structural and functional characteristics of lexical bundles that are characteristic of written conventions than did intermediate business English learners. Both intermediate and advanced learner groups used functionally different lexical bundles from those produced by the working professionals.