Through consultations with the online version of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), this study focuses on distinguishing between the two synonymous verbs "restrict" and "constrain," both part of Coxhead's (2000) Academic Word List, in terms of formality…

This contrastive corpus-based study aims to analyze the similarities and differences of two synonyms "important" and "significant" concerning on the degree of formality in their distribution across genres as well as their collocations and semantic preference. The corpus data derived from the Corpus of Contemporary American…

This empirical investigation rigorously evaluated the teaching potential of Data-Driven Learning (DDL) for enhancing the ability of learners to apply 30 near-synonymous change-of-state verbs in two EFL Freshman English courses in a college setting across two semesters. In the study, 32 participants in the experimental group and 22 in the control…

This study compared syntactic complexity between undergraduate students' research papers and published research papers. A 2 (Groups: experts, students) × 4 (Sections: introduction, methods, results, discussions) mixed factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted on each of the following variables: T-unit length, clause density, the…

Corpus-based studies of lexical bundles have opened new avenues for language teaching research. The fact that naturally occurring language consists of patterns of lexical repetition and multi-word units has given rise to the question of chunkiness in learner language. This study was designed to examine lexical bundles and their functions in a…

As a key component of fluent linguistic production, multi-word sequences called lexical bundles are considered an important distinguishing feature of discourse in different registers, genres, and disciplines. They are also an important aspect of empirically correct and proficient language use in a corpus of natural language because they enable…

This study was conducted to examine the lexical bundles used by nonnative speakers of English and explore any potential L1 influence on L2 lexical bundle use. Following a corpus-based approach, the frequency and types of English four-word lexical bundles in the postgraduate academic writing of Turkish and American students were analyzed, and the…

Research into vocabulary knowledge often differentiates between breadth (how many words a person knows) and depth (how well the words are known). Both theoretical categories are essential for understanding language learners' lexical development, but how the different aspects of vocabulary knowledge interconnect has not received the same attention…

This study aims at shedding light on the linguistic significance of collocation networks in the academic writing context. Following Firth's principle "You shall know a word by the company it keeps." The study intends to examine three selected nodes (i.e. research, study, and paper) shared collocations in an academic context. This is…

This study describes academic literacy development during mid-adolescence, when learners need to adjust to the demands of academic discourse as a gateway to linguistic adulthood. Unlike most research to date, which is cross-sectional and detached from disciplinary content, this study provides a two-year longitudinal description of academic…

Virtually all researchers understand the requirement of presenting their studies in peer-reviewed English-medium journals. Russian scientific writers understand this necessity too; however, evidence suggests that these particular researchers are under-performing relative to similar non-native English speakers. The considerable challenge Russians…

This study is about student writers' development of their own approaches to using formulaic phrases from a compendium (Academic Phrasebank). While the essential role of formulaic phrases in academic texts has been well established in research, teaching about the effective use of these phrases is not widely available, and little attention has been…

This study outlines the steps taken to create an academic multi-word unit list derived from corpus data. It gives details on the procedure used and the rationale behind why certain approaches were utilised. It also compares existing resources and makes some suggestions for practical use of the resulting resource.

Stance is a feature of academic writing that refers to how writers interact and engage with their readers by means of linguistic devices. This study focuses on the grammatical devices--and semantic distinctions thereof--that are employed by academic writers of English to express stance in research article abstracts in the areas of applied…

Given that formulaic sequences play an important role in enhancing L2 learners' academic writing skills and that phraseological sequences constitute a large proportion of written discourse, the current study was an attempt to draw up a list of key phrase frames--phraseological sequences with a variable slot--in a corpus of research articles (RAs)…