A corpus-based exploration of constructions in written academic
English as a lingua franca
With English being the global language of
research, academic English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) research has
gained wide recognition. While early research showcased the dynamic
nature of spoken academic ELF, written academic ELF, a more recent
focus of research, remains to be under-studied. However, not only
are there known differences between speaking and writing, writing is
also the dominant mode of reporting new research in academia.
Situated within usage-based Construction Grammar (CxG), the present
study aims to identify constructions in written academic ELF in
comparison to American academic writing. Our methodological
approach, which combined a key word analysis with systematic
explorations of fixed and variable phraseological items in a corpus
of ELF academic writing, leads to the identification of
constructions that are characteristic of written academic ELF.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Literature review
- 2.1A brief overview of written academic ELF research
- 2.2Corpus-based phraseology and Construction Grammar
- 2.3The current study
- 3.Data and method
- 3.1Corpora used
- 3.1.1The ELF corpus: WrELFA
- 3.1.2The ENL reference corpus: COCA Academic
- 3.2Analysis
- 3.2.1Making a case for the ‘key function words to
constructions’ approach
- 3.2.2Analytical steps for the identification of
constructions
- 4.Results
- 4.1KFW exploration 1: Of
- 4.2KFW exploration 2: In
- 4.3Construction candidates with KFWs in and
of
- 4.4KFW exploration 3: On
- 5.Discussion and conclusion
- 5.1Core constructions of written academic ELF
- 5.2Limitations and future directions
-
Note
-
References
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