Preposition Phrase Expressions: A Corpus-Based Study of Lexical Bundles in Pakistani Textbooks

• Published in: Corporum
• Main Author: Gulfam Hussain
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Corpus Research Center 2019-12-01
• Subjects: corpus-based study; english for academic purposes; english language teaching; lexical bundles; pakistani textbooks; preposition phrase expressions
• Online Access: https://journals.au.edu.pk/ojscrc/index.php/crc/article/view/50/58

Recurring strings of words known as lexical bundles (LBs) such as on the other hand, at the end of, are a significant defining feature of academic discourse and important constituents of fluent linguistic production. Although neither idiomatic nor complete grammatical structures, lexical bundles function as basic building blocks of discourse. It is a general perception that Pakistani students at the higher secondary school level are not well aware of lexical bundles used in academic writing. They are thus presumably not proficient enough in utilizing lexical bundles in academic discourse. Lexical bundles in different generes have been extensively studied in relation to written and spoken language. However, little research has been conducted to explore the occurrence, nature, and frequency of lexical bundles in Pakistani academic discourse, especially in textbooks. The present study therefore aimed to investigate four-word Prepositional Phrase lexical bundles used in Pakistani higher secondary school textbooks in order to explore their numbers, frequencies and functional taxonomies. For data collection, specialized corpora were built from the textbooks of physics and chemistry used at a higher secondary school (HSC) level. AntConc (3.5.2 windows 2018) software was used for the extraction of the bundles. The study found twenty common core preposition phrase expressions or lexical bundles. The respective lexical bundles have been analyzed functionally and examples have been taken form textbooks. The findings related to frequent strings of words and their possible variations in use have great pedagogic implications for teachers of English in general, English for academic purposes: for HSC level learners and specific academic purposes: enriching writing in relation to physics and chemistry. The study recommends using lexical bundles to enhance students’ academic writing and their ability of comprehending different types of texts.