LEXICAL BUNDLES
6. Conclusion
The main purpose of this study was finding the extent to which a group of postgraduate EFL students could select frequently-used lexical bundles correctly. For this purpose, students were asked to perform on a selection reading task in which they had to complete a set of textual fragments taken from some journal articles by choosing the bundles that had been removed. Overall, it was found that in many cases, lexical bundles chosen by students did not match those of published academics. It seems, therefore, that acquisition and appropriate use of these expressions cannot occur automatically. Given that lexical bundles are very recurrently used in published academic writing and they are for the most part discipline- bound(Cortes, Jones, and Stoller, 2002), students should be aided to find out that each discipline has different purposes and/or ways of seeing the world that are associated with its distinct communicative conventions (Cortes, 2006).
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Appendix
Lexical bundles tested in this study
it should be noted, the starting point of, in relation to the, in the case of, are more likely to, the meaning of the, at the beginning of, as well as the, be seen as a, at the end of, the fact that the, in the context of, in the eyes of, the beginning of the, Should be noted that, that there is a, is one of the, on the other hand, at the same time, in terms of the, for the purpose of, on the basis of, the results of the, in terms of their, to the fact that, in the sense that, the relationship between the, the extent to which, a wide range of, , of the present study, as a result of, one of the most, the end of the, can be seen as, the purpose of the, in the process of, on the one hand, can be found in, the ways in which, in other words the, the other hand the, at the level of, the role of the, in the present study, with respect to the, the nature of the, in the form of, on the part of, it is important to, the use of the.
Reading texts used in this study Text1
The teacher and student questionnaires were distributed 1………the semester after students had completed all their compositions and had turned in their portfolios and after the teachers had finished grading the portfolios. After final exams, students were approached and asked if they would be willing to fill out a short survey. The first author was present in order to answer any questions the students may have had about any of the questions. It was assumed that after final exams would be an ideal time for giving the survey because the students would not know their final grade or worry that rating their teachers would affect their grade in the course. Teachers were also approached during this same time and asked to fill out the survey.
Text2
Ward (2004), concentrated specifically on the use of we in constructing identities in discourse between trades union representatives and their members. Contrary to expectations, he found that we was associated with a discourse of exclusion by union representatives; we was linked with active roles for the union officials who had undertaken negotiations but the membership were excluded from this process, a fact which was underlined by the use of the exclusive we, meaning the union officials but not the workers. The significance of Ward's work lies in the way the use of pronouns
2……… suggestive of the interactional relations being constructed; it is indicative of language choices that contribute to delimiting discoursal roles.
Text3
In the quantification of the lexical errors, which was simply correct or incorrect, the following classes were used. Selection errors would be cases where an inappropriate alternative word is used for the original (e.g. ‘happy’ for ‘lively’). Word class errors are cases where the word class is wrong (e.g. ‘beauty’ for ‘beautiful’) and spelling errors where an item is spelt incorrectly (e.g. ‘gupsy’ for ‘gypsy’). Finally a blank would be a case where an item is left blank, sometimes unintentionally. The assessment was very strict
3……… vocabulary used during the translation, and in terms of spelling, so the following were wrong for ‘procession’: procesion, proccesion, prossecion.
Text4
There are two types of call centres, inbound and outbound. Inbound call centres are those where the customer calls in for service or information. They are usually considered to be more demanding places to work as there is no way of predicting precisely 4……… call, and often the agent is dealing with complex customer concerns. Inbound call centres account for most of the outsourced work in NNES destinations such as India and the Philippines. Outbound call centres on the other hand, are concerned mostly with telesales, surveys and selling. They tend to be of a more routine and predictable nature.
Text5
The performance frame is also constructed through spatial and temporal markers. As the first step for “getting into character,” teachers invariably placed themselves at the front of the class. Once there, they normally spent a few moments shuffling papers or arranging materials, then looked up expectantly at the professor for consent to begin. Just before beginning to speak most teachers physically took on their role by straightening their posture. Microteaching was separated, too, by timing. All lessons collected were to be completed within a specific amount of time, which is typical of performances (Schechner, 1988, p. 6). Professors often publicly noted the beginning and ending points. The math education professor used a timer to mark the end. 5……… microteaching, of course, time limits are also set in order to allow each student a turn and to simulate actual classroom conditions.
Text6
Lexicogrammatical patterns can be sensitive to register, as Halliday and Hasan (1985: 38–9) argue :
[S]ince it is a configuration of meanings, a register must also, of course, include the expressions, the lexicogrammatical and phonological features, that typically accompany or REALISE these meanings. And sometimes we find that a particular register also has indexical features, indices 6………
particular words, particular grammatical signals that have the function of indicating to the participants that this is the register in question. ‘Once upon a time’ is an indexical feature that serves to signal the fact that we are now embarking on a traditional tale.
Text7
Burrough-Boenisch (2003, p. 224) points out that Dutch-speaking scientists are neither excluded from mainstream scholarly publication nor do they suffer the material or financial disadvantages described by Canagarajah (1996) in the case of a group of Sri Lankan scholars he studied. The Mandarin-
speaking Chinese science students who are among the research participants
7……… do not suffer from the extreme difficulties reported by Canagarajah for Sri-Lanka, for example, they have access to the online literature, they have access to the internet, and they have good computer hardware and software. Neither, as we shall show, are they endowed with such benefits in terms of editorial assistance as those described by Burrough-Boenisch for the Netherlands.
Text8
In view of the above discussion, it can be suggested the M1-M2-M3 move structure commonly employed in the hard sciences is apparently predominant in second language acquisition research, as it is considered an ‘established’ area of study 8……… it occupies a relatively discrete and clearly defined area of study within applied linguistics. Indeed, the editorial policy of SSLA, from which the corpus used in the present study was compiled, provides support for such an argument. It reads,
Studies in Second Language Acquisition is a refereed journal devoted to the problems and issues in second and foreign language acquisition of any language. Theoretically based articles reporting research studies are preferred.
Text9
From a theoretical perspective, the differences between Schon’s ideas on the one hand, and those of Dewey, on the other, need to be taken on board if a better understanding of the concept of reflection is to be achieved. It must become clear whether reflection will make teachers more professional, and hence more integrated into their discourse community, or it makes them more independent from their fellow practitioners by giving them personal authority in matters of the classroom. Having a clear vision of where teachers are going to end up 9……… priorities for language teacher training communities.
Text10
That said, we can tease out certain saliencies from the findings and provisionally attribute them to sources and origins. The longer French sentences and the greater use of passives in English can be attributed to differences in the stylistic conventions and linguistic resources. 10………, it seems reasonable to suggest that the English espousal of “I” and French preference for “nous” in single-authored abstracts has little to do with stylistics per se, but more to do with cultural expectations as to what constitutes appropriate formal academic style, particularly with regard to how an author is expected to refer to herself or himself (see Fløttum, 2003) for more detailed discussion
of this issue(.
Text11
Even as it points towards institutional shortcomings and interpersonal difficulties, Yung-Li's path to finding an advisor is admirable: As a new student to her field, she came across a topic that captured her interest, pursued it critically, and then contacted a faculty member whose area of expertize was relevant. What was troubling to Yung-Li, however, is that she was unable to expedite the process. The master's degree in Human Studies is a 2-year program, including time to write and defend a thesis, and Dr. Denardo explained that generally students begin working with an advisor on the thesis project at
11………. first year. Yung-Li, however, spent 2 years believing that she had to generate a workable thesis topic before approaching an advisor.
Text12
Frequency lists are so powerful that there is a temptation to focus exclusively in our teaching on the GSL and AWL. However, it is suggested here that
12……… helpful approaches a teacher can adopt when teaching reading is to pre-teach a limited number of the most frequently occurring unknown words in the target text. This, as we have seen, can have an enormous effect on capacity to comprehend the text as a whole. This is vocabulary teaching for textual understanding and exploitation in the short term, and is intended to drive students before they embark on a text as close as possible to the 95 per cent threshold that Cobb has suggested.
Text13
Foremost among the aspects established abstractors take for granted is thematic structure. Our two bilinguals mistakenly believed that they should foreground the ‘new’. Furthermore, the ‘given’ was totally absent from Renan’s abstract owing to 13……… abstract depended by and large on the following text, hence Renan’s decision to ignore background information; what was more, he wished to model his own abstract on the RA text pattern. Having read the original abstract, Renan conceded that his output was inconsistent with the genre. This disclosure was important in that it made him stick to standard edition format, but, apparently, not illuminating enough to draw his attention to abstract writing conventions (Appendix F).
Text14
This paper describes aspects of a research project which used linguistic and
intertextual analysis of student writing to investigate
14……… academic curriculum and student voice in a first year economics course at a South African university. I argue that the discourses and practices of first year university economics textbooks provide a model of literacy practices which contradict many of the literacy practices of the discipline of economics. The first year economics textbook in particular, rather than exposing students to a variety of arguments and encouraging the development of critical reading skills appropriate for academic contexts, tends to be single voiced.
Text15
Further research should include delayed posttests in order to observe how much knowledge is retained after some time has passed, which will permit to make stronger claims about how time distribution affects the acquisition of a foreign language. In future studies we will also include different levels of proficiency in the three different types of programs presented in this paper, as well as a higher number of students, and results from writing and oral tasks. We will then be able to observe more clearly 15………
intensity of instruction may be related to level of proficiency and to different language skills.
Text16
The main analytical step in content and thematic analysis is the coding of narratives according to emerging themes, trends, patterns, or conceptual categories (Strauss and Corbin 1990). For instance, Francine Schumann (1980), interested in the influence of personal variables on the acquisition of a second language, identified ten such variables in the analysis of diaries she and her husband kept in Tunisia and Iran: transition anxiety, nesting patterns, reactions to pedagogical techniques, motivation for choice of language learning materials, desire to maintain one's own language learning agenda, eavesdropping versus speaking as a language learning strategy, competition versus cooperation, 16……… expatriate community in hindering the learning process, and the disadvantages of being a woman and an English-speaker.
Text17
The debate continues between those who believe in giving corrective feedback to students to improve their written accuracy and those who do not. Indeed,
17……… many experimental studies on written corrective feedback carried out over the last 20 years have been so contradictory that second language teachers looking to support their pedagogical choice to correct, or not correct, the grammar of their students’ written production are
left in the midst of controversy.
Text18
English has always held an important position in Hong Kong. Its primary uses,