Research Article
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LEXICAL BUNDLES ACROSS DISCIPLINES: THE CASE OF RESEARCH ARTICLES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Year 2022, Volume: 11 Issue: 2, 272 - 291, 31.12.2022
https://doi.org/10.54282/inijoss.1143817

Abstract

In order for an academic text to be considered appropriate in the community, it needs to exhibit disciplinary and cultural-based linguistic conventions. With the advances in corpus linguistics, scholars have been able to reveal the employment of these conventions in academic genres, one of which is lexical bundles. Simply defined as recurrent word combinations, lexical bundles reflect prominent functions in academic genres, as they deal with discourse organization, writer-reader negotiation, and stance construction, all of which achieve academic persuasion. Although the previous research has established the importance of lexical bundles, there is much less information about the disciplinary variations in the use of lexical bundles in academic genres. Adopting an automated frequency-driven approach, this research attempted to identify lexical bundles in research articles in the social sciences. Based on the investigation of 4-word lexical bundles in a corpus of research articles written between 2010 and 2019 in applied linguistics, marketing, and political sciences, we observed an impact of disciplinary variation on the overall lexical bundle usages. Concerning the structural and functional distributions of word strings, we observed differences across the disciplines, indicating that the academic communities might have a decisive role in text construction, yielding divergence across the disciplines in the social sciences. Despite differences, we also observed some similarities regarding the structural and functional sequences of bundles across the disciplines, indicating that the social sciences, an umbrella field in academia, has its own merits resulting in convergence across different disciplines.

References

  • Ädel, A. (2006). Metadiscourse in L1 and L2 English. John Benjamins Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.24
  • Anthony, L. (2022). AntConc (Version 4.1.0) [Computer Software]. Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University. Available from https://www.laurenceanthony.net/software
  • Biber, D. (2004). Historical patterns for the grammatical marking of stance: A cross-register comparison. Journal of historical pragmatics, 5(1), 107-136. https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.5.1.06bib
  • Biber, D. (2006). Stance in spoken and written university registers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5(2), 97-116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2006.05.001
  • Biber, D., & Barbieri, F. (2007). Lexical bundles in university spoken and written registers. English for Specific Purposes, 26(3), 263-286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2006.08.003
  • Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Cortes, V. (2004). If you look at…: Lexical bundles in university teaching and textbooks. Applied Linguistics, 25(3), 371-405. https://doi.org/10.1093/ applin/25.3.371
  • Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Longman.
  • Cortes, V. (2004). Lexical bundles in published and student disciplinary writing: Examples from history and biology. English for Specific Purposes, 23(4), 397-423. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2003.12.001
  • Cortes, V. (2006). Teaching lexical bundles in the disciplines: An example from a writing intensive history class. Linguistics and Education, 17(4), 391-406. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2007.02.001
  • Cortes, V. (2008). A comparative analysis of lexical bundles in academic history writing in English and Spanish. Corpora, 3(1), 43-57. https://doi.org/10.3366/E1749503208000063
  • Cortes, V. (2013). The purpose of this study is to: Connecting lexical bundles and moves in research article introductions. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 12(1), 33-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2012.11.002
  • Csomay, E., & Cortes, V. (2010). Lexical bundle distribution in university classroom talk. In S. Gries, S. Wulff, & M. Davies (Eds.), Corpus-linguistic applications (pp. 153-168). Brill.
  • Demirel, E. T., & Hesamoddin, S. A. (2013). Lexical bundles in research article acknowledgments: A corpus comparison. Hacettepe University Journal of Education, 28, 2, 457-468.
  • Dontcheva-Navratilova, O. (2012). Lexical bundles in academic texts by non-native speakers. Brno Studies in English, 38(2), 37-58. https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2012-2-3
  • Dontcheva-Navrátilová, O. (2018). Persuasion in academic discourse. In J. Pelclova and W. Lu (Eds.), Persuasion in public discourse: Cognitive and functional perspectives (pp. 227-258). John Benjamins.
  • Güngör, F., & Uysal, H. H. (2016). A comparative analysis of lexical bundles used by native and non-native Scholars. English Language Teaching, 9(6), 176-188. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v9n6p176
  • Hewings, M., & Hewings, A. (2002). “It is interesting to note that…”: a comparative study of anticipatory ‘it’in student and published writing. English for Specific Purposes, 21(4), 367-383. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(01)00016-3
  • Hyland, K. (2004). Disciplinary interactions: Metadiscourse in L2 postgraduate writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 13(2), 133-151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2004.02.001
  • Hyland, K. (2005a). A convincing argument: corpus analysis and academic persuasion. In Connor, U. & Upton, T. (Eds.), Discourse in the Professions: Perspectives from Corpus Linguistics (pp. 87-114). Benjamins.
  • Hyland, K. (2005b). Stance and engagement: A model of interaction in academic discourse. Discourse studies, 7(2), 173-192. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445605050365
  • Hyland, K. (2008a). Academic clusters: Text patterning in published and postgraduate writing. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 18(1), 41-62. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1473-4192.2008.00178.x
  • Hyland, K. (2008b). As can be seen: Lexical bundles and disciplinary variation. English for Specific Purposes, 27(1), 4-21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2007.06.001
  • Hyland, K. (2012). Bundles in academic discourse. Annual review of applied linguistics, 32, 150-169. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190512000037
  • Hyland, K., & Jiang, F. K. (2018). Academic lexical bundles: How are they changing? International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 23(4), 383-407. https://doi.org/10.1075/ ijcl.17080.hyl
  • Hyland, K., & Tse, P. (2004). Metadiscourse in academic writing: A reappraisal. Applied Linguistics, 25(2), 156-177. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/25.2.156
  • Hyland, K., & Zou, H. J. (2020). In the frame: Signalling structure in academic articles and blogs. Journal of Pragmatics, 165, 31-44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.05.002
  • Karabacak, E., & Qin, J. (2013). Comparison of lexical bundles used by Turkish, Chinese, and American university students. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 70, 622-628. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.01.101
  • Kockelman, P. (2004). Stance and subjectivity. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 14(2), 127-150. https://doi.org/10.1525/jlin.2004.14.2.127
  • Lu, X., & Deng, J. (2019). With the rapid development: A contrastive analysis of lexical bundles in dissertation abstracts by Chinese and L1 English doctoral students. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 39, 21-36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2019.03.008
  • Mur-Duenas, P. (2018). Promotional strategies in academic writing. In J. Pelclova and W. Lu (Eds.), Persuasion in public discourse: Cognitive and functional perspectives (pp. 259-277). John Benjamins.
  • Muşlu, M. (2018). Use of stance lexical bundles by Turkish and Japanese EFL learners and native English speakers in academic writing. Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences, 17(4), 1319-1337. https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.444386
  • Nattinger, J. R., & DeCarrico, J. S. (1992). Lexical phrases and language teaching. Oxford University Press.
  • Nesi, H., & Basturkmen, H. (2006). Lexical bundles and discourse signalling in academic lectures. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 11(3), 283-304. https://doi.org/10. 1075/bct.17.03nes
  • Rodman, L. (1991). Anticipatory it in scientific discourse. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 21(1), 17-27. https://doi.org/10.2190/PWJ6-AG95-MCQD-RG1W
  • Shin, Y. K., Cortes, V., & Yoo, I. W. (2018). Using lexical bundles as a tool to analyze definite article use in L2 academic writing: An exploratory study. Journal of Second Language Writing, 39, 29-41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2017.09.004
  • Wright, H. R. (2019). Lexical bundles in stand-alone literature reviews: Sections, frequencies, and functions. English for Specific Purposes, 54, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp. 2018.09.001
  • Yakut, I., Genç, B., & Bada, E. (2021). Epicene pronoun usage in the social sciences: The case of research articles. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 52, 101005, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2021.101005
  • Yakut, I., Yuvayapan, F., & Bada, E. (2021). Lexical bundles in L1 and L2 English doctoral dissertations. Journal of Teaching English for Specific and Academic Purposes, 9(3), 475-493. https://doi.org/10.22190/JTESAP2103475Y
  • Zamel, V (1998). Questioning Academic Discourse. In V. Zamel and R. Spack (Eds.), Negotiating academic literacies: Teaching and learning across languages and cultures (pp. 187-197). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

FARKLI DİSİPLİNLERDE SÖZCÜK ÖBEKLERİ: SOSYAL BİLİMLERDEKİ ARAŞTIRMA MAKALELERİ ÖRNEĞİ

Year 2022, Volume: 11 Issue: 2, 272 - 291, 31.12.2022
https://doi.org/10.54282/inijoss.1143817

Abstract

Akademik bir metnin uygun görülebilmesi için disiplin ve kültürel temelli dilsel teamüllere uygun olması gerekmektedir. Derlem dilbilimindeki gelişmelerle birlikte, bilim insanları, akademik türlerdeki teamülleri – bunlardan birisi sözcük öbeği olan – belirlemeye başlamışlardır. En basit şekliyle tekrarlayan kelime kombinasyonları olarak tanımlanan sözcük öbekleri, akademik türlerde tamamı akademik ikna sürecini inşa eden diskur organizasyonunda, yazar-okuyucu müzakerelerinde ve yazar duruşunu yansıtmada önemli işlevler üstlenirler. Önceki araştırmalar sözcük öbeklerinin önemini ortaya koymuş olsa da, akademik türlerde kullanımındaki disiplin farklılıkları hakkında çok daha az bilgi vardır. Otomatik frekans-odaklı yaklaşımın benimsendiği bu araştırmada, sosyal bilimlerdeki araştırma makalelerindeki sözcük öbekleri belirlenmeye çalışılmıştır. Uygulamalı dilbilim, pazarlama ve siyaset biliminde 2010 ve 2019 yılları arasında yazılmış araştırma makalelerinden oluşan bir derlemde, dört kelimelik sözcük öbeklerinin araştırılmasına dayanan bu çalışmada, sözcük öbeği kullanımları üzerinde disiplin farklılıklarının bir etkisi olduğunu gözlemledik. Kelime dizilerinin yapısal ve işlevsel dağılımları ile ilgili olarak, disiplinler arasında farklılıklar gözlemledik. Bu durum akademik toplulukların metin inşasında belirleyici bir role sahip olabileceğini ve sosyal bilimlerdeki disiplinler arasında farklılıklara yol açabileceğini gösterdi. Gözlemlenen farklılıklarla beraber, disiplinler arasında sözcük öbeklerinin yapısal ve işlevsel dizileri ile ilgili bazı benzerlikler de gözlemledik. Bu durum ise sosyal bilimlerin akademide bir kapsayıcı alan olarak farklı disiplinler arasında sözcük öbeği kullanımında benzeşmelerin oluşmasında etkili olabilecek normlara sahip olduğunu göstermektedir.

References

  • Ädel, A. (2006). Metadiscourse in L1 and L2 English. John Benjamins Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.24
  • Anthony, L. (2022). AntConc (Version 4.1.0) [Computer Software]. Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University. Available from https://www.laurenceanthony.net/software
  • Biber, D. (2004). Historical patterns for the grammatical marking of stance: A cross-register comparison. Journal of historical pragmatics, 5(1), 107-136. https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.5.1.06bib
  • Biber, D. (2006). Stance in spoken and written university registers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5(2), 97-116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2006.05.001
  • Biber, D., & Barbieri, F. (2007). Lexical bundles in university spoken and written registers. English for Specific Purposes, 26(3), 263-286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2006.08.003
  • Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Cortes, V. (2004). If you look at…: Lexical bundles in university teaching and textbooks. Applied Linguistics, 25(3), 371-405. https://doi.org/10.1093/ applin/25.3.371
  • Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Longman.
  • Cortes, V. (2004). Lexical bundles in published and student disciplinary writing: Examples from history and biology. English for Specific Purposes, 23(4), 397-423. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2003.12.001
  • Cortes, V. (2006). Teaching lexical bundles in the disciplines: An example from a writing intensive history class. Linguistics and Education, 17(4), 391-406. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2007.02.001
  • Cortes, V. (2008). A comparative analysis of lexical bundles in academic history writing in English and Spanish. Corpora, 3(1), 43-57. https://doi.org/10.3366/E1749503208000063
  • Cortes, V. (2013). The purpose of this study is to: Connecting lexical bundles and moves in research article introductions. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 12(1), 33-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2012.11.002
  • Csomay, E., & Cortes, V. (2010). Lexical bundle distribution in university classroom talk. In S. Gries, S. Wulff, & M. Davies (Eds.), Corpus-linguistic applications (pp. 153-168). Brill.
  • Demirel, E. T., & Hesamoddin, S. A. (2013). Lexical bundles in research article acknowledgments: A corpus comparison. Hacettepe University Journal of Education, 28, 2, 457-468.
  • Dontcheva-Navratilova, O. (2012). Lexical bundles in academic texts by non-native speakers. Brno Studies in English, 38(2), 37-58. https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2012-2-3
  • Dontcheva-Navrátilová, O. (2018). Persuasion in academic discourse. In J. Pelclova and W. Lu (Eds.), Persuasion in public discourse: Cognitive and functional perspectives (pp. 227-258). John Benjamins.
  • Güngör, F., & Uysal, H. H. (2016). A comparative analysis of lexical bundles used by native and non-native Scholars. English Language Teaching, 9(6), 176-188. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v9n6p176
  • Hewings, M., & Hewings, A. (2002). “It is interesting to note that…”: a comparative study of anticipatory ‘it’in student and published writing. English for Specific Purposes, 21(4), 367-383. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(01)00016-3
  • Hyland, K. (2004). Disciplinary interactions: Metadiscourse in L2 postgraduate writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 13(2), 133-151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2004.02.001
  • Hyland, K. (2005a). A convincing argument: corpus analysis and academic persuasion. In Connor, U. & Upton, T. (Eds.), Discourse in the Professions: Perspectives from Corpus Linguistics (pp. 87-114). Benjamins.
  • Hyland, K. (2005b). Stance and engagement: A model of interaction in academic discourse. Discourse studies, 7(2), 173-192. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445605050365
  • Hyland, K. (2008a). Academic clusters: Text patterning in published and postgraduate writing. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 18(1), 41-62. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1473-4192.2008.00178.x
  • Hyland, K. (2008b). As can be seen: Lexical bundles and disciplinary variation. English for Specific Purposes, 27(1), 4-21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2007.06.001
  • Hyland, K. (2012). Bundles in academic discourse. Annual review of applied linguistics, 32, 150-169. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190512000037
  • Hyland, K., & Jiang, F. K. (2018). Academic lexical bundles: How are they changing? International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 23(4), 383-407. https://doi.org/10.1075/ ijcl.17080.hyl
  • Hyland, K., & Tse, P. (2004). Metadiscourse in academic writing: A reappraisal. Applied Linguistics, 25(2), 156-177. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/25.2.156
  • Hyland, K., & Zou, H. J. (2020). In the frame: Signalling structure in academic articles and blogs. Journal of Pragmatics, 165, 31-44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.05.002
  • Karabacak, E., & Qin, J. (2013). Comparison of lexical bundles used by Turkish, Chinese, and American university students. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 70, 622-628. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.01.101
  • Kockelman, P. (2004). Stance and subjectivity. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 14(2), 127-150. https://doi.org/10.1525/jlin.2004.14.2.127
  • Lu, X., & Deng, J. (2019). With the rapid development: A contrastive analysis of lexical bundles in dissertation abstracts by Chinese and L1 English doctoral students. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 39, 21-36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2019.03.008
  • Mur-Duenas, P. (2018). Promotional strategies in academic writing. In J. Pelclova and W. Lu (Eds.), Persuasion in public discourse: Cognitive and functional perspectives (pp. 259-277). John Benjamins.
  • Muşlu, M. (2018). Use of stance lexical bundles by Turkish and Japanese EFL learners and native English speakers in academic writing. Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences, 17(4), 1319-1337. https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.444386
  • Nattinger, J. R., & DeCarrico, J. S. (1992). Lexical phrases and language teaching. Oxford University Press.
  • Nesi, H., & Basturkmen, H. (2006). Lexical bundles and discourse signalling in academic lectures. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 11(3), 283-304. https://doi.org/10. 1075/bct.17.03nes
  • Rodman, L. (1991). Anticipatory it in scientific discourse. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 21(1), 17-27. https://doi.org/10.2190/PWJ6-AG95-MCQD-RG1W
  • Shin, Y. K., Cortes, V., & Yoo, I. W. (2018). Using lexical bundles as a tool to analyze definite article use in L2 academic writing: An exploratory study. Journal of Second Language Writing, 39, 29-41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2017.09.004
  • Wright, H. R. (2019). Lexical bundles in stand-alone literature reviews: Sections, frequencies, and functions. English for Specific Purposes, 54, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp. 2018.09.001
  • Yakut, I., Genç, B., & Bada, E. (2021). Epicene pronoun usage in the social sciences: The case of research articles. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 52, 101005, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2021.101005
  • Yakut, I., Yuvayapan, F., & Bada, E. (2021). Lexical bundles in L1 and L2 English doctoral dissertations. Journal of Teaching English for Specific and Academic Purposes, 9(3), 475-493. https://doi.org/10.22190/JTESAP2103475Y
  • Zamel, V (1998). Questioning Academic Discourse. In V. Zamel and R. Spack (Eds.), Negotiating academic literacies: Teaching and learning across languages and cultures (pp. 187-197). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
There are 39 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Linguistics
Journal Section Makaleler
Authors

İlyas Yakut 0000-0001-9680-4561

Fatma Yuvayapan 0000-0002-7924-0933

Publication Date December 31, 2022
Submission Date July 14, 2022
Published in Issue Year 2022 Volume: 11 Issue: 2

Cite

APA Yakut, İ., & Yuvayapan, F. (2022). LEXICAL BUNDLES ACROSS DISCIPLINES: THE CASE OF RESEARCH ARTICLES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES. İnönü Üniversitesi Uluslararası Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 11(2), 272-291. https://doi.org/10.54282/inijoss.1143817

İnönü Üniversitesi Uluslararası Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 

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