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Article published In: Pedagogical Linguistics
Vol. 2:1 (2021) ► pp.30–63

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Comparing lexical bundle use in EAP reading textbooks to lower-division university textbooks

ORCiD logo with link | Northern Arizona University
Published online: 8 February 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pl.21001.lyn
Abstract
This study employed a corpus analysis to describe differences in lexical bundle patterns between English for academic purposes (EAP) reading textbooks and lower-division university textbooks by focusing on three characteristics: (1) the frequency of occurrence of bundles, (2) the frequency of bundle structures (e.g., phrasal vs. clausal), and (3) the frequency of bundle discourse functions (e.g., stance, discourse organizers, and referential; see Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Cortes, V. (2004). If you look at…: Lexical bundles in university teaching and textbooks. Applied Linguistics, 25(3), 371–405. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Biber, D. (2006). University language: A corpus-based study of spoken and written registers (Vol. 231). John Benjamins Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Results revealed that the corpus representing lower-division university textbooks employed more passive bundles, intangible framing bundles, and text deixis bundles. On the other hand, the corpus representing EAP reading textbooks contained more prepositional phrase bundles, anticipatory it bundles, and place bundles. A qualitative comparison also revealed that quantity bundles in the corpus representing lower-division university textbooks made reference to technical and academic calculations. These results show how the communicative purposes of EAP reading textbooks differ from introductory university textbooks, which can be used to inform EAP reading instruction.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background and core research questions
    • 2.1Using lexical bundles to compare registers
    • 2.2Lexical bundles in university textbooks
    • 2.3Lexical bundles and multi-word constructions in EAP reading textbooks compared to university textbooks
    • 2.4The present study
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Corpora
      • 3.1.1EAP reading textbook corpus
      • 3.1.2The lower-division university textbook corpus
    • 3.2Bundle extraction
    • 3.3Bundle analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Bundle types and tokens
    • 4.2Structural frequency of bundles
      • 4.2.1Phrasal bundles
      • 4.2.2Clausal bundles
    • 4.3Frequency of discourse functions
      • 4.3.1Stance bundles
      • 4.3.2Discourse organizers
      • 4.3.3Referential bundles
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (35)
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