Methodological issues in contrastive lexical bundle research

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-229
Author(s):  
Fan Pan ◽  
Randi Reppen ◽  
Douglas Biber
Keyword(s):  
Average Length ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Corpus Design ◽  
Lexical Bundle ◽  
L1 English

Abstract This study explores the influence of corpus design when comparing lexical bundle use across groups, examining how the number of texts and average length of texts can impact conclusions about group differences. The study compares the use of lexical bundles by L1-English versus L2-English writers, based on analysis of two sub-corpora of academic articles that are matched for discipline, writer expertize, time of publication, and audience. However, the two sub-corpora differ with respect to the number of texts and the average length of texts. Three experiments examined the influence of differences in corpus composition. The results show that differences in the number of words and number of texts across sub-corpora can have a strong effect on claimed differences in bundle use across groups. This effect is found even when the texts in the corpora are closely matched for their register and topic.

Exploring lexical bundles in low proficiency level L2 learners’ English writing: an ETS corpus study

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mo Li ◽  
Xiaotian Zhang ◽  
Barry Lee Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Language Competence ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
Language Background ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Lexical Bundle

Abstract The use of formulaic language in written discourse is an important indicator of language competence. Nonetheless, the features of lexical bundles used by lower proficiency English as a Foreign Language learners have received little attention. The present study addressed this gap by employing a corpus-based method to investigate the quantity, function, and quality of four-word lexical bundles produced by low proficiency L2 English writers with 11 different L1 backgrounds in response to a timed English writing assessment. The investigation was specifically anchored on the data extracted from 1,330 essays using Wordsmith 7.0. Results of the investigation showed (1) an over dependence on writing topic related bundles; (2) an Indo-European L1 language background positively influencing lexical bundle production; (3) an overuse of stance expressions and discourse organizers at the expense of referential expression usage; (4) L1 Japanese, Korean, and Telugu writers producing more accurate lexical bundles and L1 German writers producing fewer accurate lexical bundles; and (5) the frequent use of lexical bundles not leading to highly accurate and appropriate use of lexical bundles. The implications of these results were discussed in connection with foreign language education.

I Think We Should…

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-80
Author(s):  
Hengbin Yan
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Writing Proficiency ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Second Language Development ◽  
Native Speech ◽  
Functional Distribution ◽  
Areas Of Interest ◽  
Lexical Bundle

High-frequency recurrent word combinations known as lexical bundles are an essential component in the second language development. However, existing research on second language lexical bundle use has focused on writing proficiency, while oral proficiency has not received adequate attention. This study adopts a corpus-driven approach to the investigation of the speech of second language learners, comparing lexical bundle use across proficiency levels in several areas of interest including frequency, functional distribution and bundle fixedness. Results show that low-proficiency students tend to use significantly more context-dependent bundles than high-proficiency students, but do not differ in overall lexical bundle use. The patterning of lexical bundle use in non-native speech exhibits features that are typical in the register of classroom teaching. Additionally, the frequency and functional distributions of non-native speech share many similarities with those of non-native writing. Implications of the author's findings are discussed in relation to previous studies.

Identifying lexical bundles in Chinese

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 525-548
Author(s):  
Chan-Chia Hsu ◽  
Shu-Kai Hsieh
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Exploratory Data Analysis ◽  
Time Pressure ◽  
Dispersion Measure ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Association Measure ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Communicative Functions ◽  
Exploratory Data

Abstract Recurrent word sequences, referred to as “lexical bundles”, may be structurally incomplete, but they serve important communicative functions. Despite the essential roles of lexical bundles in discourse, many methodological issues have been raised in the process of identifying lexical bundles, which is generally frequency-based. The present study identifies three-word and four-word bundles in Chinese conversation and news, and efforts are made to respond to methodological challenges encountered in previous studies. We employ a more sensitive dispersion measure, DP, and an internal association measure, G, which help filter out high-frequency word sequences with no identifiable function and reduce the workload of further manual interventions. An exploratory data analysis is then conducted to compare the distributional patterns of lexical bundles in Chinese conversation and news. In Chinese, both the type number and the density of lexical bundles are higher in conversation than in news. This appears to be a strong cross-linguistic tendency that reflects the real-time pressure speakers face in spontaneous speech. The exploratory data analysis also shows that the elements in Chinese bundles are closely associated with each other. This suggests that lexical bundles are useful phrasal units in Chinese discourse, and thus invites further investigations of how lexical bundles are used in Chinese.

Effects of Teaching Lexical Bundles on EFL Students’ Abstract Genre Academic Writing Skills Improvement: Corpus-Based Research Design

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 585
Author(s):  
Amare Tesfie Birhan
Keyword(s):  
Computer Science ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Genre Writing ◽  
Lexical Bundle ◽  
Informed Instruction ◽  
Positive Effect

Lexical bundles are two or more string of words that co-occur frequently in a corpus. Hence, this corpus-based research design study examines the effects of lexical bundles on English as a foreign language learner’s abstract genre academic writing skills, and it also investigates students’ perception towards lexical bundles instruction to enhance their academic writing skills. Hence, frequent lexical bundles were selected from 70 computer science articles. These articles were selected from 7 journals that were published in reputable, indexed, and through representative criteria. Accordingly, sixteen frequent lexical bundles were selected through corpus analysis software (Laurence Anthony’s Antconc software) for the purpose of classroom instruction. The bundles are intended to help computer science students to develop their abstract genre academic writing skills. Students have instructed their academic writing through corpus informed instruction for two months, and the data were gathered through pre and post-tests and questionnaire. The findings indicated that lexical bundles have a positive effect on students’ academic writing skills, particularly abstract genre writing. Besides, the students have a positive perception of the lexical bundle and the instruction to enhance their academic writing skills. Finally, this research calls attention to discipline-oriented lexical bundles since they are crucial for academic writing. 

scholarly journals A Comparative Analysis of Lexical Bundles Used by Native and Non-native Scholars

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatih Gungor ◽  
Hacer Hande Uysal
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Lexical Knowledge ◽  
Formulaic Sequences ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Lexical Bundle ◽  
L1 And L2

<p>In the recent years, globalization prepared a ground for English to be the lingua franca of the academia. Thus, most highly prestigious international journals have defined their medium of publications as English. However, even advanced language learners have difficulties in writing their research articles due to the lack of appropriate lexical knowledge and discourse conventions of academia. Considering the fact that the underuse, overuse and misuse of formulaic sequences or lexical bundles are often characterized with non-native writers of English, lexical bundle studies have recently been on the top of the agenda of corpus studies. Although the related literature has represented specific genres or disciplines, no study has scrutinized lexical bundles in the research articles that are written in the educational sciences. Therefore, the current study compared the structural and functional characteristics of the lexical-bundle use in L1 and L2 research articles in English. The results revealed the deviation of the usages of lexical bundles by the non-native speakers of English from the native speaker norms. Furthermore, the results indicated the overuse of clausal or verb-phrase based lexical bundles in the research articles of Turkish scholars while their native counterparts used noun and prepositional phrase-based lexical bundles more than clausal bundles.</p>

scholarly journals Hard or Soft Science? Conceptualizing Educational Technology through a Lexical Bundle Analytical Approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Chih-Wei Kuo
Keyword(s):  
Educational Technology ◽  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Educational Technology Research ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Analysis Tool ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Lexical Bundle

An ongoing discussion on the disciplinary nature of educational technology has been taking place for years. Some view this discipline from the perspective of instructional design and implementation, whereas others conceptualize it from the perspective of media, tool, and system. This study examined educational technology from the perspective of language use by empirically investigating a special sequence of words, referred to as lexical bundles, in educational technology research articles. It aims to capture the distinctive nature of educational technology as soft technology and examine possible associations of educational technology with relevant disciplines. Employing a text analysis tool of AntConc 3.4.3, the researcher compiled a corpus encompassing 323 research articles from six journals with approximately 2.1 million words to identify lexical bundles. All identified bundles were analyzed and further compared with past relevant studies based on the number of different bundles, the content of bundles, and the grammatical structure of bundles. It was found that educational technology as an inter-discipline resembles much more soft science fields in terms of the content and structural categories of bundles. This study not only contributes to a better conceptual understanding of the nature of educational technology but offers a pedagogically beneficial bundle list for informing academic writing instruction in this field.

scholarly journals A Corpus-based Study on the Use of Three-word Lexical Bundles in the Academic Writing by Native English and Turkish Non-native Writers

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serpil Ucar
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Lexical Bundle ◽  
Structure And Functions ◽  
Recurrent Word

The utilization of English recurrent word combinations –lexical bundles- play a fundamental role in academic prose (Karabacak & Qin, 2013). There has been highly limited research about comparing Turkish non-native and native English writers’ use of lexical bundles in academic prose in terms of frequency, structure and functions of lexical bundles (Bal, 2010; Karabacak & Qin, 2013, Öztürk, 2014). Therefore, this current research was conducted in order to investigate the most frequently used lexical bundles in the academically published articles of Turkish non-native and native speakers of English and to investigate whether there was a significant difference between native and non-native scholars with respect to the frequency, structures and functions of English language lexical bundles. The data were collected from two corpora; 15 scientific articles of native speakers and 15 scientific articles of Turkish advanced writers. The investigation included a quantitative analysis of the use of three-word lexical bundles and a qualitative analysis of the functions and structures they serve. To be more conservative, three-word lexical bundles which occur 40 times per million words and appear in 5 different texts were described a lexical bundle in this current research. The findings revealed that Turkish non-native writers showed underuse and less variation in the use of lexical bundles in their academic prose compared to native speakers.

scholarly journals LEXICAL BUNDLES IN L1 AND L2 ENGLISH DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS

2021 ◽  
pp. 475
Author(s):  
Ilyas Yakut ◽  
Fatma Yuvayapan ◽  
Erdogan Bada
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Formulaic Sequences ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Functional Perspective ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Doctoral Dissertations ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
L1 English ◽  
American English Speakers

Based on contrastive interlanguage analysis, this study explores the usage of lexical bundles occurring in doctoral dissertations produced in the English language related studies in the USA by L1 American English speakers and in Turkey by Turkish speakers of English in the last ten years between 2010-2019. In our analysis of the data, we identified a significant number of types of 4-word bundles from both corpora from a structural and functional perspective. The findings regarding the types of lexical bundles and their structural and functional dispersions revealed significant differences between the two corpora. While L1 English writers refrained from heavily utilizing formulaic sequences, the opposite could be observed in the works of L2 English authors. This study has significant implications for academic writers producing work in the English language since corpus-informed lists and concordances might be of great help to L2 speakers of English in identifying appropriate lexical bundles that are specific to their disciplines.

Lexical bundles in Biology

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 492-513
Author(s):  
Purificación Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Language Context ◽  
Lexical Bundle

On the basis of previous lexical bundle studies, this paper examines the forms, structures and functions of 4-word bundles in a corpus of textbooks and a corpus of research articles in Biology. The study includes the main biological disciplines and focuses on three major features: the overall distribution of bundles, their typical structures, and their functions in discourse in Biology. The findings support the idea that lexical bundles are a basic linguistic construct with important functions for the construction of discourse in this area. Concluding discussion highlights the pedagogical implications of using research journals and/or textbooks to teach English to biologists in a second language context. Furthermore, the importance of explicit instruction in these word combinations in courses on English for Biologists is emphasized.

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