Raeisi, Fatemeh

Lexical bundle frequency and function in abstract and conclusion sections of stand-alone literature reviews in Linguistics, Dentistry, and Mechanical Engineering

Stand-alone literature reviews are created to summarize the extensive amount of information in modern academia (Wright, 2019). However, there is limited research on this type of review writings. This study aimed to investigate the occurrence, distribution, and purposes of lexical bundles in stand-alone literature reviews. A corpus consisting of 1.2 million words and 218 literature reviews in Linguistics, Dentistry, and Mechanical Engineering in English language assembled. Four-word combinations that appeared more than 20 times per 500,000 words were extracted. The corpus was then divided into sections (abstracts and conclusions), and the frequency, distribution, and functions of these lexical bundles were analysed within each section. The results showed that the lexical bundles in stand-alone literature reviews weren’t similar to those found in other studies of academic writing, discourse organization bundles were the most common, followed by stance bundles and then referential bundles. However, the frequency of each bundle varied across sections, and analysis of concordance lines revealed a range of functions. These bundles filled research gaps, clarified results and methods, presented data, supported interpretations, and provided context for findings. Further research is necessary to understand the frequency and function patterns of lexical bundles within different sections of stand-alone literature reviews in order to establish guidelines for their effective use. Keywords: Academic Writing; Corpus; Corpus Analysis; Function; Lexical Bundles; Stand Alone-Literature Review