Lexico-grammatical Features Research Articles

Quantitative Reconsideration of an L1 Effect on Asian Learners’ L2 English Writing: A Study Based on the ICNALE

A writer’s L1 is generally believed to influence their L2 English writing significantly. However, the extent to which L1 backgrounds influence Asian learners’ L2 English writing has not been wholly elucidated due to the lack of data covering various learners in Asia. Therefore, this study analysed more than one-million-word essays written by 2,318 Asian students with 18 regional backgrounds and more than 14 L1 backgrounds, which were taken from the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English (ICNALE) Written Essays and the ICNALE Written Essays Plus, currently under construction. The analytical focus was whether learners with the same or similar L1 backgrounds were agglomerated in a single subcluster despite the difference in the other parameters, such as essay topics. Hierarchical agglomerative cluster analyses that focused on the surface layer (words), the deeper layer (lexicogrammatical features), and the latent layer (textual factor scores) of student writing revealed that the degree of L1-based output similarities may be much lower than generally believed, which requires us to reconsider the traditional view that a writer’s L1 is an absolute factor in determining the aspects of their L2 use and establish a new analytical framework for discussion of Asian learners’ L2 English.

Genre awareness of English language education students: An Indonesian context

Genre refers to the type of literary work characterized by a particular style, form, or content. Language students are expected to have good genre awareness, or the understanding and recognition of text types, to be able to understand texts. This study aims to measure the genre awareness of the students in an English Language Education study program at a state university in Indonesia and identify the genres as well as the aspects they perceived as difficult. This research employed a descriptive design. The data were gathered by using a reading test measuring knowledge of 13 genres and a questionnaire. There were 96 students involved in the research. Data analysis was done descriptively. From the results of data analysis, the following conclusions were obtained: first, the genre awareness of the students was categorized into average for five text types (narrative, recount, spoof, explanatory, and procedure) and was categorized as poor and failed for the other text types; second, students perceived the genres which were the most difficult to identify are hortatory exposition and analytical exposition, and the aspects of the text are significant lexico-grammatical features and the generic structure. Lecturers are thus recommended to teach genres and address the factors perceived to hinder the students' understanding of texts.

A Lexico-Grammatical Analysis of Patriotism, Nationalism, and the Palestinian Cause in Moroccan Football Ultras Discourse

This study aims to critically examine the discursive construction of themes such as patriotism, nationalism, and the Palestinian cause within the discourse of Moroccan football ultras. Utilizing Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional approach, the research conducts a lexico-grammatical analysis of 3 selected chants and 20 slogans by Moroccan ultras. The analysis specifically focuses on the two meta-functions proposed by Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), which Fairclough incorporates into the initial stage of his three-dimensional model. Adopting a qualitative methodology, this study emphasizes the experiential, relational, and expressive values of the lexico-grammatical features in the ultras’ discourse on patriotism, nationalism, and the Palestinian cause. This paper endeavors to address two key questions: Firstly, how are these themes discursively constructed through lexico-grammatical features? Secondly, how do lexico-grammatical features reveal ultras strategies when discussing these issues? The findings of this study revealed that Moroccan football ultras use diverse ideologically charged lexicon and linguistic techniques such as rewording, over-wording, synonymy, hyponymy, and antonymy to express patriotism and support for the Palestinian cause. They enhance emotional engagement through dysphemism and varying formalities, frequently employing SVO and SVC structures with material and mental processes while avoiding negative sentences. Also, nominalization is used to reinforce their commitment, and active voice highlights the agency of entities. Deictic pronouns and different grammatical modes -declarative, imperative, and interrogative- are employed to establish power relations within the discourse. The findings contribute to broader discussions on the role of sports culture in socio-political activism and lay the groundwork for future studies examining the interplay between sports discourse and socio-political dynamics in different cultural contexts.

Linguistic discourse analysis of lexico-grammatical features of moves in the research abstracts of medical students in a Ghanaian university

Writing a quality research abstract is crucial for a scholarly report. An abstract should be information and lexically dense, formal, and have a professional tone. This requires precision, objectivity, logicality, technicality, and comprehensiveness. However, writing a good-quality research abstract is a hurdle for novice and inexperienced undergraduate students who study English as a Second Language (ESL), that is English language learners worldwide. This article interrogates the research abstracts written by undergraduate medical students who also studied English Language at the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) in Ho, Ghana. A qualitative-quantitative approach, guided by Hyland’s (2000, 2004) five-move model, was used to analyze the lexico-grammatical features in the rhetorical moves of the research abstracts written by these students. A corpus of 23 extracts representing a quota of sample tenses, hedges, boosters, and nominalization were analyzed. The data were coded manually and presented as frequency counts and percentages in tables and graphically. The results revealed that rhetorical moves in the research abstracts written by undergraduate medical students of UHAS in Ho, Ghana were replete with simple past, simple present, and perfect tenses, and lexico-grammatical devices such as hedges, boosters, and nominalization to a greater or lesser extent. The study concludes that the research abstracts written by undergraduate medical students of UHAS follow Hyland’s (2002, 2004) five rhetorical move model, and are constituted by specific lexico-grammatical features. The pedagogical implications are discussed, and suggestions for future research are provided.

How is L2 pair interaction related to fluency and language use? A quantitative approach

Previous research examined L2 interaction by describing salient features exhibited in different patterns of peer interaction. These studies mostly used qualitative methods and focused on the collaborative aspect of such construct (Galaczi, 2008). The present study adopts a quantitative approach to explore and describe L2 interaction, utilizing the data of the Corpus of Collaborative Oral Tasks (CCOT). Specifically, it measures pairs’ interaction by creating a composite score of interactivity to understand the relationship between the dyads' degree of interactivity and their use of lexico-grammatical features as well as their L2 fluency. Pearson's correlation tests showed weak to moderate positive relationships between interactivity and discourse particles, response forms, wh-questions, and second person pronouns. Additionally, the tests revealed weak negative relationships between interactivity and both nominal forms and hesitations. Furthermore, revealing moderate relationships, Pearson's correlation tests showed that interactivity was associated with more fluent L2 speech, where learners of higher interactivity levels tended to produce fewer silent pauses and faster speech rates. The study provides insights for scholars interested in L2 interaction. It suggests that some linguistic features were not only associated with collaborative behaviors (as reported in the literature) but also with interactivity as broad aspect. Furthermore, it provides a description of how the act of turn taking might potentially serve the fluency of higher interactivity students, warranting further investigation of turn frequency among L2 test takers as test raters might potentially be influenced by the test candidates’ fluency. Finally, it reports that L2 interactivity exhibited a relationship pattern with linguistic features that resembles patterns reported in the literature of studies on native speakers of English.

CAN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PREFERENCES BE AN ALTERNATIVE TO HUMAN LINGUISTIC CHOICES? A MULTIDIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS OF RESEARCH ABSTRACTS OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

Background and Purpose: With the rapid advancements in generative AI, understanding its ability to emulate human language conventions is crucial. This work aims to analyze the possibility of applying AI technology in language production by comparing the lexico-grammatical features of abstracts created with the help of ChatGPT and written by British and American researchers. Methodology: Twenty papers written by researchers affiliated with UK universities and twenty by researchers affiliated with American universities were selected from the journals listed under the first quartile of the Web of Science and Scopus. Using the titles that were from the selected works, 40 abstracts were generated from ChatGPT for comparison. Each article was introduced with its title, and ChatGPT was asked to create an abstract based on the title. Subsequently, the subjects were examined with the help of Biber’s (1991) multivariate model considering five dimensions, which include the Informational vs Involved discourse, the Narrative vs Non-narrative, the Explicit vs. Situation- dependent discourse, Overt expression of argumentation/persuasion and the Impersonal/Abstract style as opposed to the Non-impersonal/Non-abstract style. Findings: The five factors analysed in the texts give evidence that ChatGPT generates more information-centric, non-narrative, argumentative, and less abstractive discourse than human researchers. Contributions: The results of the study show the possibilities for the further development of AI that helps to create language closer to human language. Keywords: Abstracts, ChatGPT, lexico-grammatical patterns, multidimensional analysis, research articles. Cite as: Ali, M., & Ali, S. (2024). Can artificial intelligence preferences be an alternative to human linguistic choices? A multidimensional analysis of research abstracts of English linguistics. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 9(2), 514-536. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol9iss2pp514-536

Do They Write Differently? Exploring Gendered Linguistic Differences in Academic Writings of Saudi Writers

This study examines linguistic differences between male and female academic writing in Saudi Arabia, focusing on published research papers. Using Biber's multidimensional analysis as a model, the study examines both male and female authors' inherent lexical and grammatical preferences. A dataset of 20 research papers from each gender was tagged to analyze the linguistic features. ANOVA analyses were then conducted to identify patterns and variations. The research study provides interesting perspectives on the complex relationship between language and gender in academic settings. Though there are some similarities in the use of lexico-grammatical features between male and female research papers, noticeable differences suggest that gendered perspectives have an impact on scholarly writing. Both male and female research papers fall on the same polarity of the continuum across all five dimensions but with varying degrees. The findings suggest that male research writers tend to use more informational, explicit, and non-argumentative language while using less non-narrative and abstract discourse than their female counterparts. This study emphasizes how gender impacts the linguistic choices.

Lexico-grammatical Features of Online Essay Writings Among Chinese EFL Learners

This linguistic study investigates the lexico-grammatical features of Chinese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ argumentative essays. The study utilizes corpus linguistic methods and natural language processing tools to analyze 1460 writing samples from an online learner corpus. Variations in linguistic complexity and sophistication of clause, phrase, and syntactic sophistication across different proficiency levels were examined using AntConc, Multidimensional Analysis Tagger, and TAASSC. The results indicate significant variances in lexico-grammatical complexity and sophistication features between low and high proficiency levels. The study revealed that proficiency levels of EFL learners had varying effects on clausal complexity, phrasal complexity, and syntactic sophistication. The study also identifies limitations in the natural language processing tool used for extracting target indices in argumentative essays. Overall, these findings have implications for EFL teaching, learning, and assessment, and for improving NLP tools.

Rhetorical structural patterns of postgraduate theses abstracts of related disciplines: A genre study

The study of research abstracts has gained significant scholarly attention as part of genre studies due to the communicative importance of abstracts in constructing academic knowledge. This study contributes to the discussion by examining the structural organization and lexico-grammatical features of ninety (90) postgraduate theses abstracts in the disciplines of English Language studies, Literature studies, and Linguistics studies (Ghanaian Languages). The abstracts were purposively sampled from the graduate theses of departments of the School of Languages, the University of Ghana. The data was analyzed using Hyland’s (2000) genre model of research abstracts. The findings reveal that abstracts of English Language studies and Linguistics studies (Ghanaian Languages) are often informative while Literature studies abstracts are more indicative and possess distinct structuring of the moves. The Purpose move (M2) remains obligatory and the Conclusion move (M5) is optional across the disciplines. Also, some lexico-grammatical features in the linguistic choices of scholars in the three disciplines point to evidential differences that mark informative abstracts as varying from indicative abstracts. The study concludes that identifying the discipline-specific function of the abstracts may be the best means to account for variations in abstracts of varying disciplines and calls for the deliberate enculturation of academics into discipline-oriented research writing skills to improve the presentation of research ideas in abstracts.

Power and Personal Experience in Online Anonymous Communities: A Corpus-Driven Exploration

The paper presents an innovative corpus study on Personal Experience as a pragmatic-discursive resource to express power in anonymous online interactions. Specifically, we explore a corpus-driven methodology to extract lexico grammatical features typical of Personal Experience in representative samples (around 160,000 words) of 3 online fora. The method is rooted in Part of Speech and semantic domain keyness (Rayson in Int J Corpus Linguist 13(4):519–549, 2008), which we combine in Corpus Language Queries to extract statistically relevant patterns in the data. Results show that the 3 datasets share a “core” set of key lexico-grammatical features. Furthermore, our findings align with the scientific literature exploring personal experiences and narratives in many different genres. This strongly supports the idea that our inductive protocol can be reliably used to break down the discursive textual function of Personal Experience into lower-level, scalable features. In other words, we suggest that our method can be used to extract “form” (i.e. lexical, grammatical, and syntactical units) from “function” (i.e. pragmatic and discursive annotations). Findings are discussed in the context of language and power in online interactions and in the context of building automatic feature detectors for the analysis of larger cross-genre corpora.

“I have known….” A Corpus-driven Study of Personal Pronouns in Letters of Recommendation in an L2 Context

In recent times, there has been an upsurge of scholarly attention on hitherto occluded genres such as the Letter of Recommendation (LoR). Although several studies have been conducted on the LoR, studies on lexico-grammatical features are rare. This study, therefore, adopts a corpus-driven approach to examine the use of personal pronouns (PPs) in LoRs written by Ghanaian academics. A specialized corpus of LoR, totalling approximately twenty thousand (20, 000) running words was created for this study. The concordance tool in AntConc (v. 3.2.4.) was employed to search for all instances of PPs in the corpus. The concordance lines were manually examined to determine the referents of the PPs. The study revealed the diversity of PP resources in LoRs. It was also found that the PPs were mainly recommender-oriented, recommendee-oriented, or requester-oriented, culminating in a proposed model of discourse-internal and external participants in LoRs. Again, the study revealed that LoR is typified by singular PPs, reflecting the fact that it is mainly authored by an individual for an individual. The findings have implications for the pragmatics of PPs and the scholarship on LoR. It is thus recommended that an intercultural study of LoR be undertaken to establish variations in the use of personal pronouns. Keywords: Corpus Linguistics, L2 Context, Letter of recommendation, English for Specific Purposes

Analysis of verb argument constructions (VACs) in L2 learners across proficiency levels: A corpus-based study in L1 Indonesian

This study investigated the constructional knowledge development of L1 Indonesian by examining nineteen Verb-Argument Constructions (VACs). The VACs examined in the present study are a verb pattern, followed by a preposition and a noun phrase, for example, “V about N” as in “He talkedaboutthe progress”. This study used the Indonesian subset of the Education First Cambridge Open Language Database (EFCAMDAT) corpus from beginner to advanced levels (CEFR A1 to C1; Council of Europe, 2001). This dataset comprises 2943 writing texts (224,763 words) from 623 learners. Frequency analysis of types and tokens was conducted to examine the distribution of the 19 VACs in learner writings across levels. Growth analyses were conducted to investigate the verbs that learners most frequently associated with the most productive VACs. Correlational analyses were conducted to explore how closely related the verb-VAC associations between proficiency levels and the verb occupants in the associations. The results indicate that learners’ constructional knowledge development was implied by: (1) the frequency increase in types and tokens of VACs from lower to higher proficiency levels, (2) the variety of verbs associated with VACs, and (3) the construction schematicity increase indicated by the use of general to more specific verb productions distinct to proficiency levels. The results suggest that English language learners need more exposure to lexicogrammatical features to facilitate VACs acquisition and usage.

CROSS-CULTURE BRIDGES IN TOURISM: A STUDY ON TRANSLATION STRATEGIES IN INDONESIAN PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS

Tourism promotion is a type of operative text. The text is structured to influence the reader to visit the tourism destination on offer. The same should also appear in the translated version. The language form of promotional texts is dialogic and persuasive. This study generally aims to explain in depth the translation strategies used in the translation of tourism promotional texts and the translation strategies suitable for the translation of appellative genre texts. This research used qualitative method with deductive and comparative content analysis techniques. The research begins with data collection of tourism promotional texts by looking at their lexicogrammatical features. The data sources came from tourism promotional materials in the form of brochures from the tourism offices of Jepara, and Kudus regencies. The data were analyzed with a functional approach. The findings of this study revealed that the dominant translation technique used to translate tourism brochure texts from both Jepara and Kudus is the literal technique at 75%, and the semantic method at 72%. Thus, the dominant translation strategy or ideology applied by the translators is foreignization ideology, 98%. Furthermore, the results of this study also showed that the functional approach is more suitable for translating tourism promotional materials, because the function of promotional texts is to promote tourism.

Attitudes, communicative functions, and lexicogrammatical features of anti-vaccine discourse on Telegram

This paper reports the process of collecting a corpus with examples of anti-vaccine discourse and the results of its linguistic analysis. The overall aim of the project is to help public health authorities to improve their communication campaigns by better understanding the conditions for misinformation spreading via social media. More specifically, this paper analyses linguistic properties of a corpus of prominent misinformation channels in Telegram as compared against a more general COVID corpus as well as against a general purpose English corpus. For this paper, the quantitative analysis relies on corpus querying to identify the most recurrent discourse patterns related to COVID vaccines. We use the appraisal framework to analyse the patterns with respect to the attitudes conveyed in the messages. We have also applied an automatic AI classifier to predict communicative functions of these texts. This allows us to examine them more closely through the use of simple lexicogrammatical features following Biber, as well as their ideational processes following Halliday. The findings show that common collocations in the Telegram corpus containing misinformation draw on three attitudes: fear, insecurity, and mistrust in COVID vaccines which are discursively constructed to promote vaccine hesitancy among social media users. Furthermore, the misinformation messages tend to occur more often in such communicative functions as promotional texts, news reporting, and text expressed as presenting reference information.

Revisiting the rhetorical construction of political consent

Abstract How political leaders construct consent is a constant theme of studies in political rhetoric and theories of persuasion. We explore how populist linguistic strategies combine with traditional consensus-building to align populations with the speakers’ messages. We observe similarities and differences in discourse strategies across two contrasting polities, the UK, a foundational modern representative democracy and Russia, which is considered more autocratic. The data comes from speeches given by Boris Johnson and Vladimir Putin during the Covid-19 crisis. They were analysed using Corpus Linguistics, compared in qualitative analysis that identities key lexico-grammatical features. The findings show a convergence in some of the strategies and linguistic styles, but also key differences which, we suggest, depend on cultural factors specific to the two nations. The results contribute to our understanding of the operation of these resources in modern political discourse, highlighting the way cultural factors influence rhetorical styles in very different political structures.

»Vi ser att [eleven] har behov av särskilt stöd» Om kunskapsbildning och informationshantering i skolans elevutredningar

This study engages with the discursive construction of knowledge in school documents concerning pupils in need of special pedagogical support. In these texts, information from various voices is represented and recontextualized, meaning that images of pupils are negotiated and outlined, and ultimately knowledge about pupils and their learning is constructed discursively. The aim of the study is to investigate practices of knowledge construction in these texts. The data consist of 27 documents written by teachers who teach in lower secondary school (7th–9th grades). Drawing on linguistic discourse analysis, lexico-grammatical features are analyzed from both a qualitative and a quantitative perspective. The study shows how information originating from various voices is managed and framed by linguistic means in qualitatively different ways, and how the framing of information contributes to construction of several kinds of knowledge. In the analysis, five forms of framing are identified, along with six different types of voices. By quantifying the forms of framing as related to various voices, the study maps out the legitimization and delegitimization of various voices via the construction of different kinds of knowledge. Even though information from several voices is represented in the texts, it is primarily information from either the writer him/herself or written sources, such as previous documentation about pupils, that is legitimized by the writer.

Listener perception of appropriateness of L1 and L2 refusals in English

English has become an international language (EIL) as speakers around the world use it as a universal means of communication. Accordingly, scholars have investigated different aspects of EIL affecting communicative success. Speech scholars have been interested in speech constructs like accentedness, comprehensibility, and acceptability (e.g., Kang et al., 2023). On the other hand, pragmatic researchers have examined lexico-grammatical features of EIL that contribute to first language (L1) English listeners’ perceptions of appropriateness in speech acts (e.g., Taguchi, 2006). However, little is known about: a) how appropriateness is perceived by users of EIL of diverse L1s and b) how those appropriateness perceptions are related to lexico-grammatical and phonological features. Therefore, the present study had 184 listeners (L1 = English, Spanish, Chinese, and Indian languages) evaluate 40 speech acts performed by 20 speakers (L1 English and Chinese, 50% each) in terms of appropriateness on a 9-point numerical scale. Results from linear mixed-effects regressions suggested that: a) listener L1 did not contribute to listener ratings and b) speakers’ rhythm and lexico-grammatical features (i.e., use of different pragmatic strategies) significantly contributed to listener appropriateness ratings. The findings provide empirical evidence to support the phonology-pragmatics link in appropriateness perceptions and offer implications regarding the operationalization of English interactional appropriateness.

A genre-oriented analysis of TikTok instructional discourse

Abstract This study intends to contribute to the analysis of digital instructional discourse in order to gain an insight into how the EFL classroom has in some sense shifted online in the hands of amateur experts (Tolson 2010; Bhatia 2018), who create an informal learning environment by drawing on their discursive competence, disciplinary knowledge and professional practice. By incorporating quantitative, qualitative, and case study data, this article considers the value of genre analysis in educational social media research. It focuses, particularly, on the rhetorical and lexico-grammatical features of a selection of TikTok video mini-lessons targeting Italian speakers of English as a foreign language. Analysis of the data reveals that digital language teaching discourse on TikTok is a structured event with recurrent rhetorical patterns and linguistic features for achieving both pedagogical and promotional communicative purposes. The research bears considerable relevance given the need for the analysis of transformation processes in instructional discourse amid the widespread use of information and communication technologies and the advance of online learning.

A Multidimensional Analysis of the Discourse Features of the English Translation of Heavy Wings

Ideology and translation go hand in hand. Translation is a rewriting of the source text, reflecting the ideology and poetics of a particular society. This paper establishes a Chinese-English parallel corpus based on two English translations of Heavy Wings, which takes ideology as the object of study, using multidimensional analysis to examine register differences and to compare the represented features in ideological markers between the two translations in the four dimensions, namely nominalization, transitivity, modality and coherence. Based on system functional linguistics, this paper examines the relationship between ideological markers and the process of the event, the participants and the environment. It was found that: (1) There is a great significance in register of two translations, with 31 out of 67 lexico-grammatical features. Gladys Yang’s translation shows a higher degree of abstract information and explicit; (2) Gladys Yang’s translation mainly focus on the reform process and participants, deliberately distancing the two parties from each other, while Goldblatt’s translation tends to attribute the factional conflicts in the reform to various environmental components, opening up more evaluation space for the textual content; (3) The differences in the use of linguistic and ideological markers are affected by both intra-linguistic and extra-linguistic factors, namely source text factors, social context, ideology, translator subjectivity, etc.

Functionalism Paradigm in Second Language Writing

This paper uses a corpus-based analysis systematic literature review to track the influence of functionalism paradigm in second language writing (SLW) over the last five years. The data were analyzed by using keywords and collocation analysis to map the closest association of functional paradigm to second language writing. It was then reviewed manually and thematized based on the research questions as the framework. Based on a corpus of 46 Scopus indexed journals ranges from 2017-2022 this study reveals that the influence of functionalism paradigm does not directly affect to SLW. Functional paradigm spawned the concept of context which then be interpreted and manifested into functional linguistic approach. Thus, studies on SLW revolves around the application of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to either teaching or assessing SLW. The elements of functionalism paradigm that affects to SLW are the basic assumption and the values of functional paradigm that perceived each variable in a text has a purpose. As an implication, second language writing composition using SFL focuses on text purpose and lexicogrammatical features. Functional linguists perceive language diversity in second language writing as functional, ensuring mutual intelligibility if communicative functions work effectively.