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Title Lexical Bundles Employed in IELTS’ Self-Study Textbooks: A Corpus-Based Study

Author(s) Nayyab Zafar

Abstract Lexical bundles are essential components and building blocks of academic discourse. In the Pakistani context, IELTS students face difficulties in scoring the desired bands in the IELTS exam. Lexical bundles in various academic genres have extensively been studied. However, little investigation has been conducted into the frequency and nature of lexical bundles in IELTS self-studies textbooks. As a matter of fact, Pakistani students are not well aware of lexical bundles and their usage, especially those who appear in the IELTS exam. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate lexical bundles in 10 IELTS textbooks. Corpus linguistics has been used as a methodological framework. A specialized corpus of these books was constructed and analyzed. AntConc software was used to identify and extract lexical bundles. Biber’s model of structures and functions of lexical bundles has been employed as a theoretical framework. Lexical bundles have been characterized according to the structural and functional taxonomies provided by Biber. The analysis revealed the frequent existence of lexical bundles with clear structures and discourse functions in these books. The findings revealed that there are three hundred and fifty-two bundles occurring in selected IELTS books. These bundles are preposition phrases, noun phrases, verb phrase fragments, and so on. Also, these bundles serve various discourse functions like referential expression, organizing discourse, and so on. The study also found some new structures and functions of lexical bundles, which have been added to the selected theoretical framework. The study has analyzed that LBs contribute to the overall effectiveness of communication by ensuring that the reader can follow the logical progression of ideas from start to finish. They also help to establish coherence in the text. This study offers corpus-informed teaching materials (a list of lexical bundles with structures and discourse functions). ELT book writers and material developers can also benefit from this study to write books and design materials. Moreover, the study has potential pedagogical implications regarding the IELTS performance of the students.

Type Thesis/Dissertation MS

Faculty Languages

Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2024-06-12

Subject English Linguistics

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