| Over the past one hundred years,linguists have researched frequent multiword sequences from various perspectives.Nowadays,with the development of corpus linguistics,the studies on lexical bundles,i.e.a special type of multi-word sequences that co-occur frequently in a particular register,have become more and more popular,which indicates the importance of academic writing ability.Lexical bundles are an important part of the knowledge needed for the comprehension of academic discourse.The present study investigates four-word lexical bundles in two corpora.The first one is the GXUN corpus,which is made up of 77 theses written by Chinese postgraduates majoring in Linguistics and Applied linguistics,and English Language and Literature,whose year of admission range from 2008 to 2014.The other corpus,Brown Family,is actually the combination of the Brown corpus,Frown corpus,FLOB corpus,LOB corpus,which includes 83 learned genre theses written by native-English writers.The present research aims to answer the following questions:1)What are the patterns of frequency distribution of four-word lexical bundles in the two corpora?2)What are the structural and functional characteristics of four-word lexical bundles in the two corpora ?3)What are the structural and functional similarities and differences of fourword lexical bundles between the two corpora?The present study adopts Biber's(1999)structural classification of lexical bundles and Biber's(2003)functional taxonomy of lexical bundles,uses CQPweb as a major research instrument to retrieve the four-word lexical bundles,and does a quantitative analysis of their use and a qualitative analysis of their function.The findings are that: 1)The postgraduates in GXUN employ more four-word lexical bundles than native-English academic writers.There are significant differences in the frequency of 10 shared bundles in the two corpora,among which 8bundles are overused and 2 bundles are underused by postgraduates in GXUN.2)Both the postgraduates in GXUN and native-English academic writers use considerable phrasal lexical bundles rather than clausal lexical bundles in their writings,especially the use of PP-based structure type,which ranks the top one.However,the postgraduates in GXUN have a limited repertoire of NP-based and PPbased lexical bundles,and use more VP-based(especially the passive verb)lexical bundles than academic writers.In addition,colloquial-type lexical bundles are used more frequently in the postgraduate theses,e.g.we can see/find that.3)The functional analysis of the four-word lexical bundles in the two corpora presents that the postgraduates in GXUN and native-English academic writers are more likely to use four-word lexical bundles to serve referential function.However,postgraduates in GXUN have a preference for using subject-bound bundles and identification/focus bundles to perform the referential function,whereas the nativeEnglish academic writers tend to use more referential bundles for Time/Place/Text reference.Besides,postgraduates in GXUN use less stance bundles and discourse bundles than the native-English academic writers.4)The modality stance bundles in the masters' theses are often of the “passive verb+prepositional phrase fragment”structure type,but those in native-English academic writing are often of the“anticipatory it+adjective fragment” structure type.Besides,those bundles of the“topic introduction/focus” function category of the masters' theses are often of the VP-based structure type,whereas those in native-English academic writing are often of PP-based structure type.Finally,the present study has pedagogical implications for Chinese postgraduates' academic writing.In particular,the study of four-word lexical bundles in Brown Family will provide postgraduates in GXUN with a reference to write more academically.It will offer the teachers,especially those in GXUN,an insight to teach academic writing. |
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