A Comparative Study On Lexical Bundles In American And Chinese Economic Journals

With the development of corpus linguistics, the research on lexical bundles has been valued by scholars from domestic and overseas. Lexical bundles have been important elements in fluency and accuracy of language and important parts in language learning. The previous studies mainly focus on differences between native speakers and L2 learners in the use of lexical bundles, but researches on lexical bundles in certain discipline are relative fewer. This study will research on four-word lexical bundles of academic writings in Chinese and American economics journals.The author established two corpora, in which one was from American scholars’(ASs) academic writings and another was from Chinese scholars’(CSs) academic writings. This study mainly analyzed structures, functions and other aspects of qualified lexical bundles in the two corpora so as to explore the features and differences between ASs and CSs in the use of lexical bundles. The research findings show that the there are distinct differences between ASs and CSs in the use of lexical bundles. The research findings show that CSs have more reliance on lexical bundles in academic writings. From the structural perspective, ASs use the NP-based and PP-based bundles more frequently, but the VP-based bundles are more frequently used by CSs. From the functional perspective, it can be easily found that research-oriented lexical bundles are more frequently used than other categories in the two corpora. However, CSs use transitional and passive lexical bundles more frequently. From this study it can be found that there are differences between CSs and ASs in the use of lexical bundles, which need to be changed and improved so as to make academic writings be more idiomatic and precise.By exploring the features of lexical bundles in economic academic writings between ASs and CSs, this study further supports and supplies the previous study. This study is beneficial for economic English study, and also can provide guidance for EAP and ESP learning and teaching.