Stance in press releases versus business news: a lexical bundle approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvie De Cock ◽  
Sylviane Granger
Keyword(s):  
Pattern Matching ◽  
Press Releases ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
News Reporting ◽  
Keyword Analysis ◽  
Epistemic Stance ◽  
Business News ◽  
Lexical Bundle

Abstract Press releases represent a hybrid business genre, which combines an informational and a promotional communicative purpose. The objective of the study is to assess the extent to which this duality is reflected in the language used, and more particularly in the expression of stance, by comparing corporate press releases with another business genre that is essentially informational, namely business news reporting. The focus is on lexical bundles, as they have been found to be a major conveyor of attitudinal and epistemic stance. Relying on the pattern-matching approach to language, 3-word lexical bundles are extracted from a 1-million-word corpus of press releases (BeRel) and set against those found in a similar-sized corpus of business news (BeNews). An examination of the key bundles (keyword analysis) in each corpus reveals that the bundles that are distinctive to press releases differ significantly from those found in BeNews, particularly in the expression of modal, evaluative and personal stance.

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.

News production theory and practice

Pragmatics ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Van Hout ◽  
Geert Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Process Analysis ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Press Releases ◽  
News Production ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Business News ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
The Individual ◽  
And Control

This paper considers notions of agency, interaction and power in business news journalism. In the first part, we present a bird’s eye view of news access theory as it is reflected in selected sociological and anthropological literature on the ethnography of news production. Next, we show how these theoretical notions can be applied to the study of press releases and particularly to the linguistic pragmatic analysis of the specific social and textual practices that surround their transformation into news reports. Drawing on selected fieldwork data collected at the business desk of a major Flemish quality newspaper, we present an innovative methodology combining newsroom ethnography and computer-assisted writing process analysis which documents how a reporter discovers a story, introduces it into the newsroom, writes and reflects on it. In doing so, we put the individual journalist’s writing practices center stage, zoom in on the specific ways in which he interacts with sources and conceptualize power in terms of his dependence on press releases. Following Beeman & Peterson (2001), we argue in favor of a view of journalism as ‘interpretive practice’ and of news production as a process of entextualization involving multiple actors who struggle over authority, ownership and control.

Economic-financial journalists as argumentative intermediaries

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Rocci ◽  
Margherita Luciani
Keyword(s):  
Single Case ◽  
Case Analysis ◽  
Newspaper Article ◽  
Press Releases ◽  
News Reporting ◽  
The Press ◽  
Ethnographic Methodology ◽  
Cross Fertilization

The paper offers a single-case analysis of newsmaking discourse, considering the source, the writing process and the news product from the vantage point of argumentation. The case study examines how a journalist of the business-finance desk of a generalist newspaper copes with the argumentative and persuasive nature of the corporate press releases on financial results on which he depends for his reporting. The paper contributes to the understanding of journalistic practices in the economy-finance desk showing that even within the constrained genre of hard news reporting and despite the epistemic and practical limitations of newsmaking practices the journalist does not renounce to a critical stance towards the argumentation in the source. This is done without fully and explicitly assuming the argumentative roles of antagonist and protagonist of alternative standpoints but rather by rhetorically framing the reader in these roles. Methodologically, the paper showcases a two-way cross-fertilization between argumentation theory and the ethnography of newsmaking. The newsmaking process joining the press release and the newspaper article is analyzed in vivo thanks to the ethnographic methodology of Progression Analysis (PA). Progression Analysis provides a new kind of evidence for argumentative reconstruction, while argumentative reconstruction provides an explicit framework for comparing source and product texts and for laying down the reasoning behind the journalist’s decision making as elicited by (PA).

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.

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 News Reporting: Substitution of Functions

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-141
Author(s):  
Lena N. Pavlova ◽  
Nikita A. Argylov
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Online Media ◽  
Press Releases ◽  
News Reporting ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Reports ◽  
The Media ◽  
Number Of Publications ◽  
Modern Mass

The issue of journalistic functions fulfillment by the modern mass media is considered. The authors examined a number of news reports in socio-political online media and found some cases where the classic functions of journalism such as informing and controlling were substituted by PR functions. The content analysis revealed an alarmingly large number of pseudo journalistic reports, which mainly aimed to create and maintain a positive image. The reason why journalism is losing its value is the lack of professionals representing the public interest. The analysis shown a high number of publications, based on (practically unchanged) press releases, that is common to a number of media and clearly illustrates the unprofessionalism of the authors of pseudo news. The regional media have to monetize its activity, so the matter of finance wins over the matter of beliefs. However, the media and, in particular, journalism is quickly losing public credibility. In general, we are witnessing the undermining of classical journalistic creativity and the merging of this concept with other wider categories of public relations.

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document