Xia Liu , Shuangling LI , Wenzhang Fan , Qimeng Dang
{"title":"Corpus-based bundle analysis to disciplinary variations: Relocating the role of bundle extraction criteria","authors":"Xia Liu , Shuangling LI , Wenzhang Fan , Qimeng Dang","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2022.12.004","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Previous lexical bundle research has stimulated heated discussions on disciplinary variations and disciplinary specificity-generality spectrum. The current study explores whether (and how) bundle extraction criteria (i.e. frequency, dispersion, and bundle length) may affect the conclusions on disciplinary variations and specificity-generality. Focusing on eight disciplines, it used an 11-million corpus of academic journal articles with a balanced design (the same number of texts and similar average text length for each subcorpus). The results indicated a clear picture of disciplinary variations and a strong tendency towards disciplinary specificity. More importantly, the results suggested that different methodological criteria played an important part, especially concerning the analysis of disciplinary specificity or generality. The choice of ‘4-word’ bundles over ‘3-word’ bundles, in particular, would tend to be associated with a result of a higher degree of disciplinary specificity. Regarding disciplinary variations, it was found that the effect from different choices of bundle extraction criteria was relatively smaller. Only the choice on different dispersion requirements could predict the significant differences between certain disciplines. These findings provide support for disciplinary variations and new perspectives on the disciplinary specificity-generality debate.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"70 ","pages":"Pages 151-163"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"English for Specific Purposes","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889490622000746","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Previous lexical bundle research has stimulated heated discussions on disciplinary variations and disciplinary specificity-generality spectrum. The current study explores whether (and how) bundle extraction criteria (i.e. frequency, dispersion, and bundle length) may affect the conclusions on disciplinary variations and specificity-generality. Focusing on eight disciplines, it used an 11-million corpus of academic journal articles with a balanced design (the same number of texts and similar average text length for each subcorpus). The results indicated a clear picture of disciplinary variations and a strong tendency towards disciplinary specificity. More importantly, the results suggested that different methodological criteria played an important part, especially concerning the analysis of disciplinary specificity or generality. The choice of ‘4-word’ bundles over ‘3-word’ bundles, in particular, would tend to be associated with a result of a higher degree of disciplinary specificity. Regarding disciplinary variations, it was found that the effect from different choices of bundle extraction criteria was relatively smaller. Only the choice on different dispersion requirements could predict the significant differences between certain disciplines. These findings provide support for disciplinary variations and new perspectives on the disciplinary specificity-generality debate.
期刊介绍:
English For Specific Purposes is an international peer-reviewed journal that welcomes submissions from across the world. Authors are encouraged to submit articles and research/discussion notes on topics relevant to the teaching and learning of discourse for specific communities: academic, occupational, or otherwise specialized. Topics such as the following may be treated from the perspective of English for specific purposes: second language acquisition in specialized contexts, needs assessment, curriculum development and evaluation, materials preparation, discourse analysis, descriptions of specialized varieties of English.