Lexical Bundles within English for Academic Purposes Written Teaching Materials: A Canadian Context

Research surrounding lexical bundles in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is fundamental to the academic success of students pursuing postsecondary education. Recent studies suggest that awareness of the presence and function of lexical bundles in academic English is beneficial to students and teachers, and leads to a deeper understanding of the construction of discourse (Biber, 2004). Using corpus linguistics, this study presents the degree to which students of an English Second Language Acquisition (ESLA) program at a mid-sized Canadian university encounter four-word lexical bundles in their written teaching materials. The study uses functional taxonomy to classify the lexical bundles of the Moynié corpus I created. The results indicate the need for further research to assess the frequency of lexical bundles amongst all registers that students come across in their academic studies. This is to ensure the students achieve fluency in English, and can competently understand, recognize and utilize lexical bundles.