Structural Use of Lexical Bundles in the Rhetorical Moves of L1 and L2 Academic Writing

The production of content-appropriate discourse in academic English has proved a difficult task for learners in different disciplines in Colombian universities. There is plenty of blame to go around: among other problems, educators frequently point to the belief that language courses (isolated from university subjects) automatically promote linguistic skills transferable to a specific subject-language, the informal approach to subjects demanding high-skill communicative proficiency, the abuse of L1 informal register in both L1 and L2 academic writing and speaking; the idiosyncratic academic culture dominated by a blinkered return-of-investment thinking, and the lack of academic rigour leading to distinct increments in existing knowledge. In such a scenario, it becomes apparent that a practical, unambiguous approach is to be taken in order to facilitate the implementation of a more seamless integration of language and content in Colombian EAP classrooms.

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Lexical Bundles Ending in that in Academic Writing by Czech Learners and Native Speakers of English

Anglica An International Journal of English Studies ◽

10.7311/0860-5734.30.2.03 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 33-69

Author(s):

Gabriela Brůhová ◽

Kateřina Vašků

Keyword(s):

Academic Writing ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Academic Journals ◽

Lexical Bundles ◽

Academic Texts ◽

Native Speakers Of English ◽

Novice Writers ◽

L1 And L2 ◽

Professional Writers ◽

Shell Nouns

The aim of this paper is to explore how Czech learners of English use lexical bundles ending in that in their academic texts in comparison with novice and professional L1 authors. The analysis is based on three corpora (VESPA-CZ, BAWE and our own cor- pus of papers published in academic journals). The results suggest that Czech learners of English do not use a more limited repertoire of lexical bundles ending in that than pro- fessional writers. However, there are differences between the groups studied, especially in the range of various shell nouns used in nominal bundles. Novice writers, both L1 and L2, use bundles ending in that to express stance more frequently than professional writers.

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Lexical Bundles of L1 and L2 English Professional Scholars: A Contrastive Corpus-Driven Study on Applied Linguistics Research Articles

Journal of language and Education ◽

10.17323/jle.2020.10719 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (4) ◽

pp. 76-89

Author(s):

Muchamad Sholakhuddin Al Fajri ◽

Angkita Wasito Kirana ◽

Celya Intan Kharisma Putri

Keyword(s):

Academic Writing ◽

Academic Discipline ◽

Applied Linguistics ◽

Lexical Bundles ◽

English Writing ◽

Functional Types ◽

Frequent Use ◽

L1 And L2 ◽

Professional Writers ◽

L1 English

The current study examined the structural and functional types of four-word lexical bundles in two different corpora of applied linguistics scientific articles written by L1 English and L1 Indonesian professional writers. The findings show that L2 writers employed a higher number of bundles than L1 writers, but L2 writers underused some of the most typical lexical bundles in L1 English writing. Structurally, unlike previous studies, this study reports the frequent use of prepositional phrase (PP) - based bundles in the articles of L2 writers. However, besides the high frequency of PP-based bundles, L2 authors also used a high number of verbal phrase-based bundles, suggesting that these L2 writers were still acquiring more native-like bundles. In terms of functional types, L2 writers employed fewer quantification bundles than their counterparts. This study has potential implications for teaching English for academic writing. Teachers need to raise their students’ awareness of the most frequently used lexical bundles in a specific academic discipline and pay attention to the discourse conventions of academic writing, helping L2 students transition from clausal to phrasal styles.

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Bridging boundaries across genre traditions

Functions of Language ◽

10.1075/fol.15017.mwi ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 24 (3) ◽

pp. 259-293

Author(s):

Isaac Nuokyaa-Ire Mwinlaaru

Keyword(s):

Identity Construction ◽

Frequency Distribution ◽

Academic Writing ◽

Systemic Functional Linguistics ◽

Applied Linguistics ◽

Research Articles ◽

Lexical Bundles ◽

Functional Linguistics ◽

Research Article

Abstract This study explores the benefits of a synergy between ESP research on genre and theoretical dimensions of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). It models genre on SFL dimensions and employs this model to analyse 200 biodata written by Applied Linguistics scholars, 100 each from research articles and seminar posters. Data were analysed from contextual, logico-semantic and lexicogrammatical perspectives. The findings reveal five generic stages in biodata. The frequency distribution of these stages and the phases that realise them shows variation between research article bios and seminar bios. The most frequent logico-semantic (or rhetorical) relations identified among stages and phases are of the expansion type, namely addition and elaboration, Further, collocational frameworks are used in organising some generic phases into waves of meaning and in construing different identities. Finally, evaluative resources, in the form of lexical bundles, modification and circumstantial elements in the clause, are employed by writers to boost their professional achievements and promote themselves. These findings contribute to theoretical discussions on genre and the scholarship on the interface between identity construction and academic writing, and also motivate further research.

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Register variation in L1 and L2 student writing

Register Studies ◽

10.1075/rs.20012.gou ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Larissa Goulart

Keyword(s):

Academic Writing ◽

Linguistic Variation ◽

Student Writing ◽

First Year ◽

Five Dimensions ◽

Register Variation ◽

Linguistic Resources ◽

Brazilian Students ◽

The Uk ◽

L1 And L2

Abstract While there have been many studies describing L2 academic writing, most of these studies have used corpora of first year or assessment writing (Crosthwaite 2016; Weigle & Friginal 2014). The present study seeks to describe linguistic variation in L2 writing for content classes and to compare these linguistic patterns to those found in L1 writing. A multi-dimensional (MD) analysis was conducted in two corpora, BAWE and BrAWE, extracting five dimensions. The L2 corpus contained 379 texts written by Brazilian students doing part of their undergrad in the UK and the L1 corpus contained 395 texts from BAWE. The results of this study indicate that L1 and L2 writers use similar linguistic resources to convey the purpose of university registers, with the exception of case studies, designs, exercises and research reports. This linguistic variation between L1 and L2 writers might be explained by students’ interpretation of these registers’ communicative purposes.

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Automatically Augmenting Academic Text for Language Learning

Handbook of Research on Integrating Technology Into Contemporary Language Learning and Teaching - Advances in Educational Technologies and Instructional Design ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-5140-9.ch025 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 512-537

Author(s):

Shaoqun Wu ◽

Alannah Fitzgerald ◽

Ian H. Witten ◽

Alex Yu

Keyword(s):

Open Access ◽

Language Learning ◽

Academic Writing ◽

Teaching And Learning ◽

Contextual Information ◽

British Library ◽

Linguistic Features ◽

Lexical Bundles ◽

English Writing ◽

Design Considerations

This chapter describes the automated FLAX language system (flax.nzdl.org) that extracts salient linguistic features from academic text and presents them in an interface designed for L2 students who are learning academic writing. Typical lexico-grammatical features of any word or phrase, collocations, and lexical bundles are automatically identified and extracted in a corpus; learners can explore them by searching and browsing, and inspect them along with contextual information. This chapter uses a single running example, the PhD abstracts corpus of 9.8 million words derived from the open access Electronic Theses Online Service (EThOS) at the British Library, but the approach is fully automated and can be applied to any collection of English writing. Implications for reusing open access publications for non-commercial educational and research purposes are presented for discussion. Design considerations for developing teaching and learning applications that focus on the rhetorical and lexico-grammatical patterns found in the abstract genre are also discussed.

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Lexical frames in academic prose and conversation

International Journal of Corpus Linguistics ◽

10.1075/ijcl.18.1.08gra ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 18 (1) ◽

pp. 109-136 ◽

Cited By ~ 34

Author(s):

Bethany Gray ◽

Douglas Biber

Keyword(s):

Academic Writing ◽

Computational Analysis ◽

Lexical Bundles ◽

Complete Set ◽

Alternative Approaches

While lexical bundles research identifies continuous sequences (e.g. the end of the, I don’t know if), researchers have also been interested in discontinuous sequences in which words form a ‘frame’ surrounding a variable slot (e.g. I don’t * to, it is * to). To date, most research has focused on a few intuitively-selected frames, or has begun with frequent continuous sequences and then analyzed those to identify associated frames. Few previous studies have attempted to directly identify the full set of discontinuous sequences in a corpus. In the present study, we work towards that goal, using a corpus-driven approach to identify the set of recurrent four-word continuous and discontinuous patterns in corpora of conversation and academic writing. This direct computational analysis of the corpora reveals a more complete set of frames than alternative approaches, resulting in the documentation of highly frequent frames that have not been identified in previous research.

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Indirectness in L1 and L2 academic writing

Journal of Pragmatics ◽

10.1016/s0378-2166(96)00040-9 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 27 (3) ◽

pp. 361-386 ◽

Cited By ~ 50

Author(s):

Eli Hinkel

Keyword(s):

Academic Writing ◽

L1 And L2

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Personal and Social Voices in Written Discourse Revisited1

Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics ◽

10.1515/cjal-2019-0021 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 42 (3) ◽

pp. 345-364

Author(s):

Fatemeh Bagheri ◽

Liming Deng

Keyword(s):

Academic Writing ◽

Critical Review ◽

Previous Literature ◽

Written Discourse ◽

Dominant Dimension ◽

Five Dimensions ◽

Integrated Framework ◽

Social Perspectives ◽

Good Writing ◽

L1 And L2

Abstract For years, personal and social voices have been the issue of discussion on voice construction in written discourse (e.g., Elbow, 1999; Flowerdew, 2011; Hyland, 2002, 2010a, 2012b; Mauranen, 2013; Ramanathan & Atkinson, 1999; Tardy, 2005). However, there is a lack of an integrated examination of the dimensions which determine voice construction in writing from personal and social perspectives. This article re-examines the issue of voice construction through a critical review of previous literature on identity in written discourse. It is argued that there are five major dimensions for the construction of voice in written discourse. How writers appropriate their voice according to such five dimensions as genre, transition, culture, discipline and audience will be discussed. This paper lends further support to the view that voice in written discourse is both personal and social. As it is known, good writing expresses both personal and social voices. However, based on the dominant dimension(s), voice construction should be adjusted. Sometimes personal voice is boldly expressed; sometimes social voice is; and some other times the boundary between the two is unnoticeable. The study provides an integrated framework as well as pedagogical implications for the teaching of academic writing within L1 and L2 contexts.

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Paradigmatic influences on lexical bundles in research articles in the discipline of education

Corpora ◽

10.3366/cor.2019.0170 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 237-263

Author(s):

Duygu Candarli ◽

Steven Jones

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Research ◽

Academic Writing ◽

Structural Characteristics ◽

Research Articles ◽

Lexical Bundles ◽

Research Paradigms ◽

Quantitative And Qualitative Research ◽

Writing Research ◽

Novice Writers ◽

English Academic Writing

Lexical bundles are pervasive in English academic writing; however, little scholarly attention has been paid to how quantitative and qualitative research paradigms influence the use of lexical bundles in research articles. In order to investigate this, we created two equal-size corpora of research articles in the discipline of education. We examined four-word lexical bundles in terms of their structural characteristics and discourse functions in the quantitative and qualitative research articles published in international English-medium journals. We attribute intra-disciplinary variations in the use of lexical bundles to the knowledge-making practices that are specific to quantitative and qualitative research articles. This paper provides further evidence that the research article is not a unitary construct. The results have implications for academic writing, and corpus building and design in academic discourse. One of the key implications of this study is that L2 novice writers need to take into account the influences of research paradigms on the use of lexical bundles when writing research articles for English-medium journals in the discipline of education.

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