Published vs. Postgraduate Writing in Applied Linguistics: The Case of Lexical Bundles

Abstract: Lexical bundles, as building blocks of coherent discourse, have been the subject of much research in the last two decades. While many of such studies have been mainly concerned with  exploring  variations  in  the  use  of  these  word  sequences  across  different  registers  and disciplines, very few have addressed the use of some particular groups of lexical bundles within some genres of academy. To address generic variations, this research focused on anticipatory it bundles  as  a  particular  structural  group  of  bundles.  More  specifically,  this  study  chose  to investigate range, frequency, and function of these word clusters in applied linguistics research articles  and  postgraduate writing. Through  the  use  of  two  big  corpora  of research  articles and postgraduate theses, two text analysis programs, and a functional taxonomy of  it bundles, this study found  that it bundles were used relatively frequently in both published and postgraduate writing. Functional analysis showed that anticipatory it lexical bundles served a wide variety of functions in both genres investigated. This study also revealed that some anticipatory  it lexical bundles  commonly  used  by  students  in  their  postgraduate  writing  did  not  count  as  bundles  in research articles, both in terms of variety and frequency. As for implications, the study calls for the incorporation of such clusters in L2 and/or EAP (English for Academic Purposes) courses.