A Study On The Features Of Lexical Bundles In Ba Theses By English Majors

Lexical bundles are the word combinations that frequently occur in a specific register and across certain texts.As the essential building blocks of discourse,lexical bundles can improve the fluency and accuracy of writing.In recent decades,a significant number of corpus-based studies have been conducted from various aspects,including different registers,different writers’ groups,different types of academic writing,and various disciplines.However,a few studies have explored the features of four-word lexical bundles in BA theses written by Chinese English majors.This study adopts Biber’s(Biber et.al.,1999)structural taxonomy and Hyland’s(Hyland 2008)functional taxonomy.Data of the study consists of 100 BA theses as analysis data and the same number of journals as reference data.With the software Antconc,lexical bundles are retrieved and analyzed by quantitative and qualitative methods.Therefore,the functional and structural features of 4-word lexical bundles in BA theses are investigated.The findings suggest that student writers overuse lexical bundles with less variation in BA theses.Structurally,specific bundles are overused(e.g.,Noun phrase with of-phrase fragment)or underused(e.g.,Noun phrase with other post-modifier fragments)by English majors.Bundles with informal characters are found in BA theses.In addition,the position of bundles(e.g.,at the same time,on the other hand)is not used properly,which leads to ungrammatical sentences.Functionally,research-oriented bundles are widely used.Participant-oriented bundles occur frequently.There are more stance bundles with directed verbs rather than hedges.The engagement bundles are less frequently used in BA theses.For the relationship,research-oriented bundles mainly consist of phrasal bundles.Text-oriented bundles are largely made up of PP-based bundles and VP-based bundles.Participant-oriented bundles mostly contain VP-based bundles.The present study explores the features of four-word lexical bundles in BA theses written by English majors,which has implications for BA theses writing and teaching.