Search

A Corpus-Based Comparative Study of Four-Word Lexical Bundles in Expert and Student Sociological Writing

Author(s)

Wenhui Wang

Affiliation(s)

School of Foreign Languages, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China

Abstract

Lexical bundles are the basic building blocks of academic discourse, but their use in the field of sociology has not yet received sufficient attention from the academic community. This study compares the structural and functional characteristics of four-word lexical bundles in two self-compiled corpora of sociological academic writing, one produced by expert writers and the other by student writers. The expert corpus consists of 10 academic texts totaling 52,345 tokens, while the student corpus contains 20 academic texts with 51,947 tokens. Using frequency and dispersion as identification criteria, 201 bundle types are retrieved from the expert corpus, compared with 58 from the student corpus. Structural analysis shows that noun phrase-based bundles are the dominant type in both corpora, but they occur more extensively in expert writing, indicating a stronger tendency toward compressed informational expressions. By contrast, student writers rely more heavily on prepositional phrase-based bundles. Functional analysis reveals that expert writing contains more research-oriented bundles, especially descriptive ones, whereas student writing features more text-oriented and participant-oriented bundles. The results indicate that student writers have not yet developed stable use of some formulaic patterns typical of published sociology articles. These findings have important pedagogical implications for the instruction of academic writing in sociology.

Keywords

Lexical Bundles; Academic Writing; Sociology; Structural Features; Functional Features

References

[1]Hyland, K. Academic Discourse: English in a Global Context. New York: Continuum, 2009. [2]Duszak, A. Cross-cultural academic communication: A discourse community view. In A. Duszak(ed.). Culture and Styles of Academic Discourse. New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997:11-39. [3]Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. London: Longman. [4]Hyland, K. Academic clusters: Text patterning in published and postgraduate writing. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2008a, 18(1):41-62. [5]Biber, D., & Barbieri, F. (2007). Lexical bundles in university spoken and written registers. English for Specific Purposes, 26(3), 263-286. [6]Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Cortes, V. (2004). If you look at: Lexical bundles in university teaching and textbooks. Applied Linguistics, 25(3), 371-405. [7]Cortes, V. (2004). Lexical bundles in published and student disciplinary writing: Examples from history and biology. English for Specific Purposes, 23(4), 397-423. [8]Durrant, P. (2017). Lexical bundles and disciplinary variation in university students’ writing: Mapping the territories. Applied Linguistics, 38(2), 165-193. [9]Hyland, K. As can be seen: Lexical bundles and disciplinary variation. English for Specific Purposes, 2008b, 27(1):4-21. [10]Li, Y., & Jiang, Y. J. (2024). A contrastive study on chunk structure and pragmatic functions of academic terms in Chinese and English. Computer-Assisted Foreign Language Education, (6), 45–53+111. [11]Li, Y., & Jiang, F. (2025). Rhetorical step chunk features in the introduction sections of academic papers by Chinese and foreign scholars. Foreign Languages in China, 22(4), 61–67+112. [12]Li, Y., & Lei, H. (2025). Lexical bundles in L1 and L2 English academic writing: Convergent and divergent usage. Sage Open, 2, 1–14. [13]Altenberg, B. (1998). On the Phraseology of Spoken English: The Evidence of Recurrent Word-Combinations. In A. P. Cowie (Ed.), Phraseology: Theory, Analysis, and Applications (pp. 101-122). Oxford University Press. [14]De Cock, S. (1998). A recurrent word combination approach to the study of formulae in the speech of native and non-native speakers of English. Journal of Pragmatics, 30(1), 51-81. [15]Adel, A., & Erman, B. (2012). Recurrent word combinations in academic writing by native and non-native speakers of English: A lexical bundles approach. English for Specific Purposes, 31(2), 81-92. [16]Perez-Llantada, C. (2014). Formulaic language in L1 and L2 expert academic writing: Convergent and divergent usage. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 14, 84-94. [17]Pan, F., Reppen, R., & Biber, D. (2016). Comparing patterns of L1 versus L2 English academic professionals: Lexical bundles in telecommunications research journals. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 21, 60–71. [18]Chen, Y. H., & Baker, P. (2010). Lexical bundles in L1 and L2 academic writing. Language, Learning and Technology, 14(2), 30-49. [19]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. [20]Halliday, M. A. K. Spoken and Written Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.