Table Of ContentLexical Bundles in Native and Non-native Scientific Writing
Studies in Corpus Linguistics (SCL)
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Volume 65
Lexical Bundles in Native and Non-native Scientific Writing.
Applying a corpus-based study to language teaching
by Danica Salazar
Lexical Bundles in Native
and Non-native Scientific Writing
Applying a corpus-based study to language teaching
Danica Salazar
University of Oxford
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
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Cover design: Françoise Berserik
Cover illustration from original painting Random Order
by Lorenzo Pezzatini, Florence, 1996.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Salazar, Danica.
Lexical Bundles in Native and Non-native Scientific Writing : Applying a corpus-based
study to language teaching / Danica Salazar.
p. cm. (Studies in Corpus Linguistics, issn 1388-0373 ; v. 65)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Lexical-functional grammar. 2. Academic writing--Study and teaching. 3. Technical
writing--Study and teaching. 4. Phraseology. 5. Applied linguistics. 6. Second
language acquisition. I. Title.
P158.25.S25 2014
415--dc23 2014021966
isbn 978 90 272 0373 1 (Hb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 6952 2 (Eb)
© 2014 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
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John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
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Table of contents
Acknowledgments ix
Chapter 0
Introduction, aims and scope 1
1. Introduction 1
2. Aims, scope and structure of the volume 3
Part 1
Lexical bundles in native and non-native scientific writing 7
Chapter 1
Theory and applications of phraseology and lexical bundles 9
1. Distributional approaches to phraseology 9
2. Lexical bundles 13
2.1 Definition and characteristic features 13
2.2 Fixedness, variation and compositionality 14
2.3 Lexical bundle structures 15
2.4 Lexical bundle functions 16
2.5 Rationale for the lexical bundle approach 19
3. Phraseology and academic discourse 20
3.1 Phraseological units as markers of register 21
3.2 Phraseological units as markers of genre 22
3.3 Phraseological units as markers of discipline 23
3.4 Phraseological units as markers of academic competence 25
4. Phraseology in language teaching and learning 26
4.1 Impact of phraseology on fluency and pragmatic competence 26
4.2 Resources for the teaching and learning of phraseology 28
4.3 Issues of selection and prioritization 31
4.4 Phraseology in learner corpora 33
4.5 Issues of acquisition and development 36
4.6 Issues of classroom practice 38
4.7 Way forward 39
vi Table of contents
Chapter 2
Investigating lexical bundles in biomedical research writing 41
1. Corpus of published scientific writing 41
2. Creating and analyzing the list of target lexical bundles 42
2.1 Lexical bundle identification 42
2.2 Mutual Information score 43
2.3 Exclusion criteria 45
2.4 Structural classification 50
2.5 Functional classification 50
2.6 Keyword and prototype analysis 53
3. Comparison with the non-native corpus 59
3.1 Corpus of non-native scientific writing 59
3.2 Analysis of non-native scientific writing 60
4. Concluding remarks 61
Chapter 3
Target bundles 63
Frequency, structure and functions
1. Frequency of target bundles 63
2. Structural characteristics of target bundles 68
2.1 Noun structures 70
2.2 Verb structures 73
2.3 Prepositional-phrase fragments 76
2.4 Other structures 78
2.4.1 Verb or adjective + to-clause fragment 80
2.4.2 Verb phrase or noun phrase + that-clause fragment 81
2.4.3 Adverbial-clause fragment 81
2.4.4 Copula be + adjective phrase 82
2.4.5 Anticipatory it + verb or adjectival phrase 83
2.4.6 Other adjectival phrases 83
2.4.7 Other expressions 83
3. Functions of target bundles 84
3.1 Multifunctionality of lexical bundles 84
3.2 Distribution of target-bundle functions 90
3.3 Research-oriented bundles 93
3.4 Text-oriented bundles 97
3.5 Participant-oriented bundles 103
4. Concluding remarks 108
Table of contents vii
Chapter 4
Target bundles in non-native expert scientific writing 111
1. Frequency of target bundles in the non-native corpus 111
2. Structural characteristics of target bundles in the non-native corpus 116
2.1 Noun structures 122
2.2 Verb structures 123
2.3 Prepositional-phrase fragments 128
2.4 Other structures 131
3. Functions of target bundles in the non-native corpus 135
3.1 Research-oriented bundles 141
3.2 Text-oriented bundles 142
3.3 Participant-oriented bundles 144
4. Concluding remarks 146
Part 2
Pedagogical applications of the study 151
Chapter 5
Pedagogical utility of the list of target bundles 153
1. The list is a sortable inventory that can be used for the selection of lexical
bundles for teaching 153
2. The list addresses issues connected to bundle length and overlap 155
3. The list offers information on how lexical bundles are used in context 156
4. The list links lexical bundles to the functions they perform
in scientific texts 157
5. The list can facilitate the conscious analysis of lexical bundles 158
6. The list can help provide non-native science writers with more exposure to
lexical bundles 159
7. Concluding remarks 160
Chapter 6
Specific activities for the teaching of lexical bundles in scientific discourse 161
1. Activities for noticing bundles 161
Activity 1. Noticing bundles for comparing and contrasting 162
Activity 2. Asking students about the use of lexical bundles (Eriksson 2012,
204) 163
Activity 3. Concordancing task for key word fact (adapted from Thurston
and Candlin 1998, 272) 164
2. Activities for the retrieval of lexical bundles 165
viii Table of contents
Activity 4. Asking students to think about lexical bundles in their own
writing (Eriksson 2012, 204) 166
Activity 5. Preposition matching task 167
Activity 6. Missing-word task with key word role (adapted from de Prada,
Salazar, and Molero 2012) 167
3. Activities for the generation of lexical bundles 168
Activity 7. Polysemous-verb task 169
Activity 8. Adjectival modification 170
Activity 9. Adverbial modification 171
Activity 10. Derivation task 172
Activity 11. Substitution task 173
Activity 12. Ordering task 174
Activity 13. Reporting verbs (adapted from Bloch 2009, 69–70) 175
Activity 14. Correction task 177
4. Concluding remarks 178
Chapter 7
Conclusions and recommendations 179
References 185
Articles from the Health Science Corpus used in examples 199
Index 209
Acknowledgments
First, I would like to acknowledge financial support that enabled me to carry out
research for this book: funding provided to me by the Government of Catalonia
through the Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR,
grant no. 2008FI 00044), as well as funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science
and Innovation and FEDER for the SciE-Lex project (project no. HUM2007-
64332/FILO), in which I was fortunate enough to take part.
I will always be grateful to those who were instrumental in the writing of this
volume, foremost among them my kind and supportive mentor Isabel Verdaguer,
but also my other friends in Barcelona: Emilia Castaño, Elisabet Comelles,
Trinidad Guzman, Joseph Hilferty, Natalia Judith Laso, Aaron Ventura, Mar Cruz,
Claudia Marcela Chapetón, Mireia Ortega and Marisa de Prada; in Louvain-la-
Neuve: Magali Paquot, Sylviane Granger, Sylvie De Cock, Gaëtanelle Gilquin and
Fanny Meunier; and in York: Rachel Wicaksono and Christopher Hall. I am also
indebted to Iliana Martínez of the National University of Río Cuarto in Argentina,
for allowing me to me use her corpus of Argentinian research writing; and to Kees
Vaes for his patience and kind encouragement.
I thank my family and friends in Oxford and Manila, and in other parts of the
world, for their love and generosity. I especially thank my mother, Arlene Decin,
my stepfather, Rene Decin, and my aunt, Arminda Rayala, for giving me support
when I most needed it.
Finally, I give my love and thanks to my husband, Enrico Marchioni, without
whom none of this would be possible.
Maraming salamat.
Danica Salazar
Oxford, May 2014
