A corpus study of structural types of lexical bundles in MUET reading texts

In view of the recurrent issues concerning university students’ inability to comprehend reading passages in their studies, texts used in a Malaysian examination for tertiary education were analysed. This study investigates the use of lexical bundles (LBs) in the reading passages of Malaysian Univers...

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Main Authors:	Christina Ong, Sook Beng, Yuen, Chee Keong
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM 2014
Online Access:	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7221/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7221/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7221/1/5219-16710-1-PB.pdf

id	ukm-7221
recordtype	eprints
spelling	ukm-72212016-12-14T06:43:26Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7221/ A corpus study of structural types of lexical bundles in MUET reading texts Christina Ong, Sook Beng Yuen, Chee Keong In view of the recurrent issues concerning university students’ inability to comprehend reading passages in their studies, texts used in a Malaysian examination for tertiary education were analysed. This study investigates the use of lexical bundles (LBs) in the reading passages of Malaysian University English Test (MUET). A specialised corpus of MUET test papers comprised of only the reading passages grouped into two main disciplines namely arts and science was built. Besides identifying commonly used LBs, this study aims to compare and contrast structural types of LBs found in arts and science-based texts. Using WordSmith Tools version 5, the lists of LBs of the identified disciplines were generated. They were analysed qualitatively based on Biber, Conrad & Cortes’ (2004) Structural Taxonomy. Findings revealed that the number of LBs in both disciplines differs significantly but many similar LBs are employed. It was also evident that science-based texts tend to employ more NP-based and VP-based LBs while the most commonly used structure in arts-based texts is dependent clause. In general, PP-based LBs are very significant in both science and arts-based texts. The extent to which LBs are specific to particular disciplines is therefore confirmed and an overview of how LBs in texts construct information is also obtained. Pedagogically, teachers should consider incorporating corpora-based material, to exploit consciousness raising tasks and not to emphasise too much on grammatical items so that LBs do not go unnoticed. Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM 2014 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7221/1/5219-16710-1-PB.pdf Christina Ong, Sook Beng and Yuen, Chee Keong (2014) A corpus study of structural types of lexical bundles in MUET reading texts. 3L; Language,Linguistics and Literature,The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies., 20 (2). pp. 127-140. ISSN 0128-5157 http://ejournals.ukm.my/3l/index
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building	UKM Institutional Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
description	In view of the recurrent issues concerning university students’ inability to comprehend reading passages in their studies, texts used in a Malaysian examination for tertiary education were analysed. This study investigates the use of lexical bundles (LBs) in the reading passages of Malaysian University English Test (MUET). A specialised corpus of MUET test papers comprised of only the reading passages grouped into two main disciplines namely arts and science was built. Besides identifying commonly used LBs, this study aims to compare and contrast structural types of LBs found in arts and science-based texts. Using WordSmith Tools version 5, the lists of LBs of the identified disciplines were generated. They were analysed qualitatively based on Biber, Conrad & Cortes’ (2004) Structural Taxonomy. Findings revealed that the number of LBs in both disciplines differs significantly but many similar LBs are employed. It was also evident that science-based texts tend to employ more NP-based and VP-based LBs while the most commonly used structure in arts-based texts is dependent clause. In general, PP-based LBs are very significant in both science and arts-based texts. The extent to which LBs are specific to particular disciplines is therefore confirmed and an overview of how LBs in texts construct information is also obtained. Pedagogically, teachers should consider incorporating corpora-based material, to exploit consciousness raising tasks and not to emphasise too much on grammatical items so that LBs do not go unnoticed.
format	Article
author	Christina Ong, Sook Beng Yuen, Chee Keong
spellingShingle	Christina Ong, Sook Beng Yuen, Chee Keong A corpus study of structural types of lexical bundles in MUET reading texts
author_facet	Christina Ong, Sook Beng Yuen, Chee Keong
author_sort	Christina Ong, Sook Beng
title	A corpus study of structural types of lexical bundles in MUET reading texts
title_short	A corpus study of structural types of lexical bundles in MUET reading texts
title_full	A corpus study of structural types of lexical bundles in MUET reading texts
title_fullStr	A corpus study of structural types of lexical bundles in MUET reading texts
title_full_unstemmed	A corpus study of structural types of lexical bundles in MUET reading texts
title_sort	corpus study of structural types of lexical bundles in muet reading texts
publisher	Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM
publishDate	2014
url	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7221/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7221/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7221/1/5219-16710-1-PB.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T19:49:05Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T19:49:05Z
_version_	1777406098468241408

A corpus study of structural types of lexical bundles in MUET reading texts

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