A Corpus-Based Functional Analysis of Complex Nominal Groups in Written Business Discourse: The Case of "Business"

Abstract

This paper uses a case study approach to explore the internal structure of complex nominal groups in written business discourse. A one-million word corpus of banks' corporate annual reports was compiled, and complex nominal groups with business as head noun were analyzed in terms of functions and logical relationships. The analysis shows that in the business English texts, complex nominal groups have distinctive functional and logical structures as well as particular patterns of co-occurrences among multiple premodification. Classification was found to be the main function of the experiential structure, with sub-modification used for further specifying the head referent. The co-occurrences of premodifiers also show the tendencies of functional associations underlying the configuration of the experiential structure. These findings suggest the distinctive register features of the informational writing in the written business discourse. The paper concludes with pedagogical implications of the findings for the teaching of business English to language learners.