A corpus-based analysis of phrase-frames in applied linguistics research articles

Abstract

In recent years, research on phraseology has advanced rapidly, particularly in the field of written academic discourse. However, while continuous phraseological patterns such as collocations and lexical bundles, have been widely examined, discontinuous phraseological patterns -especially phrase-frames (p-frames) and their pedagogical application in EAP contexts have relatively received limited attention in academic discourse analysis. With this in mind, this study aims to address this gap by investigating four-word p-frames within the IMRAD sections of research articles in the discipline of Applied Linguistics. Utilizing the integration of quantitative (e.g. corpus statistics) and qualitative (e.g. manual filtering) methods, the study identified a final list of 213 four-word p-frames. Dependent on these analyses, these frames were categorized using both structural and functional taxonomies. The functional classifications were further validated via inter-rater reliability checks, achieving a high agreement rate of 91,5 %. Despite certain limitations, this corpus-based study compiles a pedagogically oriented list of p-frames that may inform academic writing instruction in EAP contexts and foster learners’ phraseological competence to support effective academic writing.