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Phraseological teddy bears

Frequent lexical bundles in academic writing by Norwegian learners and native speakers of English
  • Hilde Hasselgård
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Corpus Linguistics, Context and Culture
This chapter is in the book Corpus Linguistics, Context and Culture

Abstract

This chapter compares frequent four-word lexical bundles in a learner corpus (VESPA) and a native speaker corpus (BAWE), both representing novice academic writing. The frequencies and dispersion of bundles in the two corpora reveal patterns of both over- and underuse among the learners. The learners are shown to use some bundles very frequently, but frequencies drop more sharply than in the native corpus. The dispersion of the frequent bundles tends to be broader in the native speaker corpus. In a closer scrutiny of four selected bundles the novice-expert dimension is addressed by consulting a corpus of published research articles. Contrasts between English and Norwegian are also considered in order to explain the learners’ apparently non-native usage. Some of the most overused bundles seem to have been generalized by the learners to fit into contexts where native speakers rarely use them; these can be described as ‘phraseological teddy bears’. Pedagogical applications of the results should start from the underused items in order to broaden the phraseological repertoire of the learners.

Abstract

This chapter compares frequent four-word lexical bundles in a learner corpus (VESPA) and a native speaker corpus (BAWE), both representing novice academic writing. The frequencies and dispersion of bundles in the two corpora reveal patterns of both over- and underuse among the learners. The learners are shown to use some bundles very frequently, but frequencies drop more sharply than in the native corpus. The dispersion of the frequent bundles tends to be broader in the native speaker corpus. In a closer scrutiny of four selected bundles the novice-expert dimension is addressed by consulting a corpus of published research articles. Contrasts between English and Norwegian are also considered in order to explain the learners’ apparently non-native usage. Some of the most overused bundles seem to have been generalized by the learners to fit into contexts where native speakers rarely use them; these can be described as ‘phraseological teddy bears’. Pedagogical applications of the results should start from the underused items in order to broaden the phraseological repertoire of the learners.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I: Discourse contexts and cultures
  5. Patterns of discursive urban place-making in Brooklyn, New York 13
  6. The English of current Caribbean newspapers 43
  7. Corporate identity and its variation over time 75
  8. Applying Geographical Information Systems to researching historical corpora 109
  9. Corpus linguistics: Widening the remit 137
  10. Part II: Contexts of lexis and grammar
  11. Family collocation 165
  12. Factors influencing the translation of -ing participial free adjuncts 197
  13. The diachronic productivity of native combining forms in American English 223
  14. Advise against -ing: An emerging class of exceptions to Bach’s Generalization 253
  15. Subjective progressives in the history of American English 275
  16. Part III: Learner contexts
  17. A syntactic analysis of the introductory it pattern in non-native-speaker and nativespeaker student writing 307
  18. Phraseological teddy bears 339
  19. “Dear Man men and women madam, dear xxx sir” 363
  20. Marked themes in advanced learner English 387
  21. Phrasal verbs in the spoken and written modes of Norwegian L2 learner English 409
  22. Conversational gesture corpus analysis 437
  23. Corpus research for SLA 467
  24. List of contributors 483
  25. Index 487
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110489071-013

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I: Discourse contexts and cultures
  5. Patterns of discursive urban place-making in Brooklyn, New York 13
  6. The English of current Caribbean newspapers 43
  7. Corporate identity and its variation over time 75
  8. Applying Geographical Information Systems to researching historical corpora 109
  9. Corpus linguistics: Widening the remit 137
  10. Part II: Contexts of lexis and grammar
  11. Family collocation 165
  12. Factors influencing the translation of -ing participial free adjuncts 197
  13. The diachronic productivity of native combining forms in American English 223
  14. Advise against -ing: An emerging class of exceptions to Bach’s Generalization 253
  15. Subjective progressives in the history of American English 275
  16. Part III: Learner contexts
  17. A syntactic analysis of the introductory it pattern in non-native-speaker and nativespeaker student writing 307
  18. Phraseological teddy bears 339
  19. “Dear Man men and women madam, dear xxx sir” 363
  20. Marked themes in advanced learner English 387
  21. Phrasal verbs in the spoken and written modes of Norwegian L2 learner English 409
  22. Conversational gesture corpus analysis 437
  23. Corpus research for SLA 467
  24. List of contributors 483
  25. Index 487
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