Formulaic Language in Social Sciences: A Functional Analysis of Lexical Bundles in Native and Non-Native Academic Discourse

The current study explicates how differentially the native and non-native writers functionally use the lexical bundles in the academic discourse of PhD theses. The corpus data comprised 200 PhD theses produced by non-native Pakistani scholars and the native scholars in the five different disciplines of the social sciences. To conduct the analysis, the study employs a combination of functional taxonomies of the lexical bundles previously proposed and used by Biber and his associates (see, Biber, et al., 2004 & 2003); Biber & Barbieri, 2007). For data analysis, a corpus tool, AntConc 3.3.5, was used to generate and enlist the 4-word units of lexical bundles found in the collected corpus. These identified lexical bundles were, later, categorized into three functional categories as referential, discourse organizing, and stance. The findings of the study reveal that the native and non-native writers make significantly more use of referential lexical bundles and a minimum use of discourse organizing and stance bundles with certain qualitative differences. It is expected that the findings of the study can help EAP scholars in developing teaching materials to assist non-native writers in improving their academic skills