Structural and Functional Patterns of Lexical Bundles and Rhetorical Moves of L1 and L2 Research Article Abstracts in Applied Linguistics

Abstract

This comparative study aims to explore connections between lexical bundles and rhetorical moves in international research article (RA) abstracts of applied linguistics and Chinese RA abstracts of applied linguistics. The two corpora used in this study were Native Research Article Abstract Corpus (NRAC) and Chinese Research Article Abstract Corpus (CRAC). The results show that Move 1 (Background) is an optional, while Move 2 (Purpose/Aim), Move 3 (Methods), Move 4 (Results and Discussions) and Move 5 (Conclusion) are identified as obligatory moves in the RA abstracts of applied linguistics. Data analysis shows that the RA abstracts of applied linguistics are mainly composed of VP-based bundles. Both international and Chinese RA writers have included these four moves in their RA abstracts. The results of data analysis indicate that RA abstracts in applied linguistics are mainly composed of VP-based bundles. Both L1 and L2 writers rely heavily on VP-based bundles when they write their journal paper abstracts. Data analysis in the functional distribution of frequent bundles in the five moves shows that research-oriented and stanceoriented bundles have connection to Move 1, research-oriented bundles to Move 2 and Move 3, text-oriented bundles to Move 4, and stance-oriented and text-oriented bundles to Move 5. The comparison of bundle usage in L1 and L2 writers shows that L2 writers used more lexical bundles when compared to L1 writers in terms of overall lexical bundle tokens. The comparison of structural categories of lexical bundles in L1 and L2 writer groups reveals that there are different preferences for syntactical categories of lexical bundles from Move 2 to Move 5. Compared to an L1 writer group, the results show that L2 writers use more VP-based, less PP-based bundles in Move 2, more VP-based and less NP-based bundles in Move 3, less NP-based and PP-based and more VP-based bundles in Move 4 and more PP-based an less VP-based in Move 5. The comparison of functional distribution of lexical bundles in the two corpora has found that, for bundle tokens, L2 writers have underused research-oriented bundles in Move 1, text-oriented bundles in Move 3, stanceoriented bundles in Move 5 and overused text-oriented bundles in Move 2, stanceoriented bundles in Move 4 and research-oriented bundles in Move 5. For bundle types in functional comparison of L1 and L2 writer groups, there are no differences in the first three moves except that L2 writers have underused stanceoriented bundles and text-oriented bundles in Move 3 in Move 5 and have overused research-oriented bundles in Move 5. As for bundle-move connections, this research has found that RA abstracts are mainly composed of VP-based bundles syntactically and text-oriented bundles functionally. The findings from this current study may provide, hopefully, a reference for academic writing instruction in English for Academic Purposes or English as Second Language. Applications and further research suggestions have also been discussed accordingly.