Investigating the Lexical Bundle Use of Novice and Upper-Level Writers Within a University Discipline

This was a quantitative dominant, mixed method study, examining how novice and upper-level student writers (native and non-native speakers) in an applied linguistics and discourse studies (ALDS) program used lexical bundles. A novice and upper-level corpus of ALDS student writing were analyzed for overall bundle counts as well as discourse functions. The results showed that novice writers use a larger number of lexical bundles than their upper-level counterparts, and that lower-level novice writers use fewer of the bundles found in the upper-level writing. In the second phase of the study, questionnaires and interviews were conducted with four ALDS students to inquire about the meaningfulness of lexical bundles as a component of language support. One implication of the study is that lexical bundle analysis can be used to highlight differences in the writing of novice and upper-level students within a single discipline. Results also suggest that the use of lexical bundles, especially text organizing bundles, is an important component of successful ALDS writing.