Use of Stance Lexical Bundles by Turkish and Japanese EFL Learners and Native English Speakers in Academic Writing

Abstract

Linguists have been interested in the sequences of words that tend to occur for a long time. The present study examines a particular type of recurrent chunks called lexical bundles (LB). LBs are multi-word expressions and an important component of the fluent linguistic production depends on the control of them (Hyland, 2008a). The purpose of this study was to find out the most common stance LBs used in argumentative essays written by native English speakers and Turkish and Japanese EFL learners. It also aimed at finding the structural and functional characteristics of these bundles, and to what extent these structures used by the Turkish and Japanese EFL learners are similar to the ones used by the native speakers. To answer these questions, Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS), Japanese International Corpus of Learner English (JPICLE) and Turkish International Corpus of Learner English (TICLE) were used. The structures of the stance LBs were determined by following Biber’s (2006) classification and the functions were determined by adapting their classification. The concordancing program WordSmith was used to find and determine the 3-4 word stance LBs. In the statistical analysis, Type-token ratio and Log Likelihood were used. The results showed that native speakers use lexical bundles least; whereas, Japanese EFL learners use them most frequently. The functions and the structures of LBs vary in each group. Suggestions regarding how to teach these devices in foreign language education were also given.

Keywords

• Lexical bundles,Corpus Linguistics,stance,Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis,academic writing,Turkish and Japanese EFL learners

Tutum Sözcük Örüntülerinin İngilizceyi Yabancı Dil Olarak Öğrenen Türk ve Japon Öğrenciler ve İngilizce Anadil Konuşucuları Tarafından Akademik Yazımda Kullanımı

Abstract

Dilbilimciler uzun zamandan beri bir arada olma eğiliminde olan ardışık kelimeleri incelemektedirler. Bu çalışmada sözcük örüntüsü denilen ve sürekli tekrar eden belirli bir kelime grubu incelenmektedir. Sözcük örüntüsü, ‘küme’ ya da ‘yığın’ da denilen birkaç kelimenin yan yana gelmesi ile oluşan kelime gruplarıdır ve dili akıcı bir şekilde kullanmanın önemli bir bölümü bu yapılara hakim olmaktan geçer (Hyland, 2008a). Bu çalışma, anadili İngilizce olan ve İngilizce’yi yabancı dil olarak öğrenen Türk ve Japon öğrenciler tarafından tartışma türünde yazılmış kompozisyonlarda en çok kullanılan ‘tutum sözcük örüntüleri’ni (TSÖ) bulmayı amaçlamıştır. Çalışma aynı zamanda, bu kelime grubunun yapısal ve işlevsel olarak hangi özellikleri gösterdiğini ve bu özelliklerin anadili İngilizce olan ve İngilizce’yi yabancı dil olarak öğrenen öğrenciler arasında nasıl bir farklılık gösterdiğini bulmayı hedeflemiştir. Bu amaçlara ulaşmak için veri toplama aracı olarak Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS), Japanese International Corpus of Learner English (JPICLE) ve Turkish International Corpus of Learner English (TICLE) kullanılmıştır.  Tutum sözcük örüntüleri yapısal ve işlevsel olarak analiz edilirken Biber’in (2006) sınıflandırması takip edilmiş ancak bu sınıflandırma çıkan sonuçlara göre adapte edilmiştir. 3-4 kelimeden oluşan sözcük örüntülerini bulmak için WordSmith programı kullanılmştır. İstatistiksel analizde, Type/token ratio ve Log Likelihood Analizi kullanılmıştır. Çıkan sonuçlara göre anadili İngilizce olan katılımcılar TSÖ’yü en az kullanırken en fazla kullanan grup Japon öğrenciler olmuştur. TSÖ’lerin yapısal ve işlevsel kullanımları her grupta farklılık göstermiştir. Bu yapıların yabancı dil öğretiminde kullanımına yönelik önerilere de çalışmada yer verilmiştir.

Keywords

• Sözcük Örüntüleri,Derlem Dilbilim,tutum,karşılaştırmalı aradil çalışması,akademik yazım,İngilizceyi yabancı dil olarak öğrenen Türk ve Japon öğrenciler

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