Published Online:June 2026
Product Name:The IUP Journal of English Studies
Product Type:Article
Product Code:IJES100626
DOI:10.71329/IUPJES/2026.21.2.110-132
Author Name:Radika Subramaniam
Availability:YES
Subject/Domain:Arts and Humanities
Download Format:PDF
Pages:110-132
This study unveils the shared and unshared verb phrase (VP)-based bundles across three groups’ academic writing. Sketch Engine is employed as the corpus tool to generate the list of lexical bundles from three corpora (i.e., Malaysian Polytechnic Electronic Engineering Learner Corpus [MyPolyEELC], British Academic Written English [BAWE] Sub-Corpus, and Electrical and Electronic Engineering Research Articles Corpus [3ERAC]). The findings reveal that can be used to, can be seen in, and as shown in fig./figure are among the shared bundles across the three corpora, with each as the most frequently occurring verb-based lexical bundle in the respective corpus (MyPolyEELC, BAWE Sub-Corpus, and 3ERAC). More shared bundles are found between native novice and expert writing in the list of the top 100 most frequently occurring VP-based bundles in all three corpora. The unshared bundles, which are unique to native and expert writing, are apt for pedagogical recommendations in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classrooms for second-language learners. The analyses have also uncovered variations across the corpora, demonstrating more conversation-like registers in the use of VP-based bundles in L2 learner writing, compared to academic prose, unlike the other two groups of writings.
Research in the field of English for Specific/Academic Purposes (ESP/EAP/ESAP) underwent gradual development from merely ‘textual’ (Swales, 2019) to ‘practice’ relating to the research and instruction of spoken and written academic language at the tertiary level of education (Hyland, 2006).