Formulaic language in English academic writing

LOGOFormulaiclanguageinEnglishacademicwritingAcorpus-basedstudyoftheformalandfunctionalvariationofalexicalphraseindifferentacademicdisciplines(often)asserted/believed/notedthatX5.Methodology6.ResultsandConclusion7.References）NattingerandDeCarrico(1992)thelexicalphraseasapedagogicallyapplicableformulaicsequence,andtheyspecifiedlexicalphrasestobeusedintheteachingofacademicwritingtolearnersofEnglishasaforeignlanguage2）Limitationlimitationsofthelinguisticdata3）NewmethodandstrategyCorpus-basedstudy:clearerandlessintuitive4）Purposeofthepresentstudy⑴investigatestheformalandfunctionalvariationofoneoftheselexicalphrasesasitisusedinacademicwritinginsocialscience,medical,andtechnicaldisciplines.⑵highlighttherelationshipbetweenthesyntagmaticandparadigmaticvariationofthislexicalphraseanditsdiscoursesignallingandorganisingfunctionsacrossdifferentacademicdisciplines.Fromdifferentperspectivestoresearchtheformulaiclanguage1）cognitivepsychology2）psycholinguistics3）writtentext`soutputisinsomepartmemorized,onlyaminorityofspokenclausesareentirelynovelcreationsinthesensethatthecombinationoflexicalitemsisnewtothespeaker(1983:205)foundevidenceofformulaiclanguageinthefirstlanguageacquisition(1983)proposeacorpus-drivengrammarofEnglishdescribedintermsofpatterns(2000)).Someviewpoints⑴Cowieformulaiclanguageofsomekindfeatureswidelyinlanguagelearningandlanguageuseandthusmaybeimportantforlearnersandusersofsecondlanguages,aswellastheirteachers.⑵Lewiscontendsanawarenessofthesentenceheadsandframestypicalofthegenre.⑶NattingerandDeCarricospecifiedlexicalphrasesforhelpingstudentswiththeorganisationandformoftheiressays;lexicalphrasesforwiderapplicationintheteachingofEnglishacademicwriting.thestructureofantypicalessayastudentwritesinNorthAmericanuniversity(1)Openinga.Topicprimingb.Topicnominationc.statementoftopic(2)Body(3)Closing(NattingerandDeCarrico1992:164)）Limitations⑴superficial⑵itisnotcleartowhatdegreethesephrasesare“representative”ofothergenressuchastheses,journalarticlesandsoon.⑶thelexicalphrasesmayneedtobemoregenre-specificthancurrentlyspecified.）Twoquestions⑴Arelexicalphrasesreplicableasspecifiedinauthenticcorpusdata?⑵Iflexicalphrasesareseentovaryacrossdisciplines,thenaone-size-fits-allpedagogicalapproachwillnotbesuffcient.(often)asserted/believed/notedthatXFeatures:1)discontinuousandhighlyvariable2)moreparadigmaticvariationispossiblethanspecified3)syntagmaticvariationwouldalsoseempossible(theinsertionofoften)Function:topicpriming）Thecorpussubset⑴asubsetoftheBritishNationalCorpus(OxfordUniversityPress1995)waschosen.⑵threeofLee’ssub-genreswerechosen,andtheresultingsubsetsearchedcomprisedalltextsinsocialscience,medicine,andtechnical/engineeringsub-genres(seeTable1below).）SearchesWordSmithToolsVersion3.0(Scott1999)twoconditionsneedtobesatisfiedinordertoidentifyalexicalphrase:itsformmustapproximatetothespecifiedstring,andthenthepragmaticfunctionofthephrasemustbetheonespecified.）Limitations※sentencebuilderlexicalphrasesarehighlyvariableanddiscontinuous.⑴Thispossibilityofvariationmeansthatasearchusingafixedsearchstring,e.g.ithasbeenshownthat,wouldyieldonlyoccurrencesofthatstringandmissanysyntagmaticandparadigmaticvariation.⑵searchingthiscorpussubsetusingthewildcardsearchstringithasbeen*thatwouldonlyhighlightparadigmaticvariation,andmisssyntagmaticvariationsuchastheinsertionofadverbsorconjunctions.）Resolving⑴Cumulativewildcardsearchstringsweretherefore(Table2below)usedinordertoensurethatallpossiblepatterns,notjustaparticularstring,werefound.⑵Intuitivejudgementisalsonecessarytoremoveirrelevantcasesandtoproposeapragmaticfunction1.Form2.Function1.occurrenceofwordstringsarenotveryfrequentinthecorpussubset.2.occurrenceofwordstringsvaryacrosssub-genres.(seeAppendix1).Thereareatotalof362simplepresentoccurrencespermillionwords,and261presentperfectoccurrence(seeTable3below)Thesimplepresentformwithbelievedistheonlyformtooccuracrossallthree