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摘要：Most previous studies of epistemic modality in legal settings discuss epistemic modality as performing an interpersonal engagement or a positioning function. Via a probability test, the present corpus-driven study examined the way in which epistemic modality is employed in civil judgments to construct legal facts and to indicate legal probability. The study compared how different types of epistemic modality are used in judicial practice in different jurisdictions, namely Hong Kong, which is a common law jurisdiction, and Scotland, which is a mixed jurisdiction. Specifically, we examined the variation in the orientation of epistemic modality, that is, whether implicit or explicit and whether subjective or objective, and the variation in the value of epistemic modality, that is, high, median, or low. The findings suggest that both subjective epistemic modality and objective epistemic modality are employed in adjudication where the judges decide the degree of probability, and the value distribution of epistemic modality indicates that the same standard, that is, the balance of probability, is adopted in Hong Kong and Scotland. We propose an integrated framework of principle of proof and discuss the continuum of probability in law. Based on the conclusions, we propose pedagogical implications for English for Legal Purposes. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：This study investigated (a) the lexical demands of academic spoken English and (b) the coverage of the Academic Word List (AWL) in academic spoken English. The researchers analyzed the vocabulary in 160 lectures and 39 seminars from four disciplinary sub-corpora of the British Academic Spoken English (BASE) corpus: Arts and Humanities, Life and Medical Sciences, Physical Sciences and Social Sciences. The results showed that knowledge of the most frequent 4,000 word families plus proper nouns and marginal words provided 96.05% coverage, and knowledge of the most frequent 8,000 word families plus proper nouns and marginal words provided 98.00% coverage of academic spoken English. The vocabulary size necessary to reach 95% coverage of each sub-corpus ranged from 3,000 to 5,000 word families plus proper nouns and marginal words and 5,000 to 13,000 word families plus proper nouns and marginal words to reach 98% coverage. The AWL accounted for 4.41% coverage of academic spoken English. Its coverage in each sub-corpus ranged from 3.82% to 5.21%. With the help of the AWL, learners with knowledge of proper nouns and marginal words will need a vocabulary of 3,000 and 8,000 word families to reach 95% and 98% coverage of academic spoken English, respectively. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：Usage-based theories of language learning suggest that native speakers of a language are acutely aware of formulaic language due in large part to frequency effects. Corpora and data-driven learning can offer useful insights into frequent patterns of naturally occurring language to second/foreign language learners who, unlike native speakers, are not privy to a lifetime of input and fine-tuning. Recently, the use of the web in combination with the Google search engine as an accessible corpus and concordancer has received much attention. This article describes an experiment which tests the hypothesis that native speakers of English perceive learner-generated phrases to be more natural after learners have searched the phrases on Google and modified them in light of the frequency of search results. The findings indicate that native speakers perceive phrases that generated more results in Google searches to be more natural.

摘要：This study explores the development of multiple dimensions of linguistic complexity in the writing of beginning learners of German both as a group and as individuals. The data come from an annotated, longitudinal learner corpus. The development of lexicogrammatical complexity is explored at 2 intersections: (a) between cross-sectional trendlines and the individual development paths of 2 focal learners and (b) between different complexity variables. The study contributes to the empirical body of linguistic complexity research by close tracking of beginning learners over 4 semesters of collegiate study of German as a second language (L2). For this purpose, data for multiple variables were collected at dense time intervals using multiple waves, and correlation analysis between various datasets was performed. The results confirm some general developmental trends established in previous research. However, the study also found significant variability between individual and cross-sectional data. Furthermore, differences found for more specific complexity measures between this study's results and previous research are explained in terms of differences in instructional approaches. In addition, the study contributes to the discussion of methods and metrics appropriate for tracking the development of complexity in foreign language writing. The study concludes with implications for L2 pedagogy and further research, including applications of computational methods. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study explores adolescents' accounts of self-harm with a view to elucidate the implications for health care practitioners seeking to administer care to teenagers in English. Drawing on a corpus of 1.6 million words from messages posted on a UK-hosted adolescent health Web site, analysis began by identifying a range of keywords relating to self-harm. The subsequent contextual examination of these keywords afforded a close description of the contributors' experiences of self-harm and the factors that resulted in their self-injurious behaviours. A recurring theme was that of the habitual nature of self-harm, with the act being represented as a form of addiction over which they had little control. Self-harmers construct the phenomenon as particularly powerful, and the act is formulated as the only effective means of relief from emotional turmoil. If we are to increase parents and health professionals' ability to respond to self-injury in the medium of English, close linguistic attention to individuals' accounts of self-harm is valuable. Online health resources are also valuable means of eliciting concerns from distressed adolescents who are often reluctant to seek support from professionals face-to-face. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This paper examines the use of CMC in both Japanese and English dominated domains by Australian learners of Japanese. The natural, social online communication of 12 Australian university students with 18 of their Japanese contacts was collected for a period of up to four years, resulting in a corpus of approximately 2,000 instances of blogs, e-mails, SNS interactions, chat conversations, game profiles, and mobile phone communications. To supplement this data, interviews were conducted to further explore participants' Internet communication and L2 use. These interviews, paired with evidence from the corpus of collected data, are analysed using Sealey and Carter's (2004) social realism framework in order to explore questions of language selection, identity construction and nationality, as well as what it means to be a foreigner online. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This article examines the stance options used by writers responding to a data description task in the discipline of Statistics. Based on a small learner corpus, it uses inductive qualitative content analysis to explore both the content propositions that students included in their writing, and the ways in which they expressed evaluative stance vis-a-vis such propositions. In the light of an interview with a specialist informant, the article discusses the appropriacy of the content choices and stance options taken by students. It then discusses the potential exploitation of the learner corpus for pedagogic purposes. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：Recent ESP research into academic writing has shown how writers convey their stance and interact with readers across different disciplines. However, little research has been carried out into the disciplinary writing practices of the pure mathematics academic community from an ESP genre analysis perspective. This study begins to address this gap by applying Hyland's stance and engagement framework to pure mathematics research articles. The data consists of a corpus of 25 articles collected from five authors and semi-structured interviews with the same authors. The results of the corpus analysis reveal a low number of hedges and attitude markers compared to other hard and soft disciplines, but higher than expected shared knowledge and reader references. Furthermore, triangulation with interview data suggests that the epistemology and research practices of the discourse community can account for these frequency patterns, and that writers are conscious of the need to situate oneself within the norms of the discourse community by adhering to disciplinary writing conventions. The study also confirms that Hyland's framework can be usefully applied to pure mathematics research articles, although the boundaries between categories in the taxonomy are fuzzier than a stance/engagement dichotomy might suggest. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：In order for discourse to be considered idiomatic, it needs to exhibit features like fluency and pragmatically appropriate language use. Advances in corpus linguistics make it possible to examine idiomaticity from the perspective of recurrent word combinations. One approach to capture such word combinations is by the automatic retrieval of lexical bundles. We investigated the use of English-language lexical bundles in advanced learner writing by L1 speakers of Swedish and in comparable native-speaker writing, all produced by undergraduate university students in the discipline of linguistics. The material was culled from a new corpus of university student writing, the Stockholm University Student English Corpus (SUSEC), amounting to over one million words. The investigation involved a quantitative analysis of the use of four-word lexical bundles and a qualitative analysis of the functions they serve. The results show that the native speakers have a larger number of types of lexical bundles, which are also more varied, such as unattended 'this' bundles, existential 'there' bundles, and hedging bundles. Other lexical bundles which were found to be more common and more varied in the native-speaker data involved negations. The findings are shown to be largely similar to those of the phraseological research tradition in SLA. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：Using the academic writing sub-corpora of the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus as data and building on previous research, this study strives to identify the most frequently-used multi-word constructions (MWCs) of various types (e.g., idioms, lexical bundles, and phrasal/prepositional verbs) in general academic writing across the academic divisions of the corpora and to examine their usage patterns. The study produces: (1) a list of the 228 most common MWCs in general academic written English across the academic divisions in the corpora, organized by frequency and semantic function respectively, (2) new findings regarding the usage patterns of academic written MWCs, and (3) results about differences in the use of MWCs between American and British English. The study also demonstrates the critical importance of using large corpora in the study of MWCs in general academic writing. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：This research compiled two corpora, one for English-medium textbooks for business core courses (totaling 7.2 million running words) and the other for business research articles (7.62 million tokens), to form a basis of analysis. The results show that knowledge of the most frequent 3500 word families and 5000 word families plus proper nouns would provide 95% lexical coverage of a business textbook and a business research article respectively. Business textbooks reached 98% coverage at the 5000 word level while business research articles reached 98% coverage at the 8000 word level. Among the textbooks across 12 business subject areas, production & operation (involving the 3000 word level necessary for minimal comprehension at 95% lexical coverage and the 4000 word level necessary for adequate comprehension at 98% coverage) was the least vocabulary-demanding, while business policy & strategy (covering 95% at the 5000 word level and 98% at the 7000 word level) was the most vocabulary-demanding. Excluding business policy & strategy and management information systems which showed the greatest variation, the vocabulary levels of research papers entailing different specialist knowledge were mostly within the range of 5000 word families (at 95% coverage) and 8000 word families (at 98%). [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：The purpose of this research is to identify and interpret statistically significant lexicogrammatical items that are used in on-site spoken communication in the international construction industry, initially through comparisons with reference corpora of everyday spoken and business language. Several data sources, including audio and video recordings, interviews, expert informant insights and observation notes are operationalised to understand the context that the lexicogrammatical items reflexively constitute, for instance the discursive practices the engineers invoke in their working day. As in other workplaces, several types of interpersonal items are statistically significant when compared to everyday talk, such as deontic modality, hedges and fillers, certain back channels and the pronoun we. Also, place deixis is statistically significant in this specific context, and is often accompanied by nonverbal communication and visual images. These findings shed light on the way power and solidarity are negotiated in this context, and on the importance of face. In conclusion, the authors recommend training for inexperienced engineers and engineering students that develops their problem-solving, relationship-building and communication skills. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：This paper attempts to apply Lung's (2008) model of the discursive hierarchical patterning of cases to a closer and more specific study of Economics cases and proposes a model of the distinct discursive hierarchical patterning of the same. It examines a corpus of 150 Economics cases with a view to uncovering the patterns of discourse construction. These patterns, to a certain extent, may be attributed to the nature of the discipline. It has been noted that learners need to be given a more informed and realistic framework as seen from the model provided in this paper. By recognising the 'thumb-print' of the discursive patterning of Economics cases, students and novices in a profession will be better equipped to meet the challenge of attaining professionalism in their chosen careers. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：In this paper I use two case studies to show how corpus linguistics can be used to help in the teaching of business English. Senior managers in global companies often find themselves having to do their job in a foreign language. Given that language is one of the key tools of management, the senior managers are normally very keen to develop a sophisticated command of what they perceive to be key lexis. Consequently, the business English teacher may be required to answer searching and demanding questions in a very precise and accurate way. In this paper I show how a corpus-based investigation of the collocational behaviour of key lexis can be used to answer many of these questions. For example, a study of this kind can reveal the different senses of a word and show how it may be associated with a particular semantic prosody. By studying the collocations associated with a group of so-called synonyms it is often possible to identify slight but significant differences in the meaning of the words in the group. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：There is currently much interest in creating pedagogically-oriented descriptions of formulaic language. Research in this area has typically taken what we call a 'form-first' approach, in which formulas are identified as the most frequent recurrent forms in a relevant corpus. While this research continues to yield valuable results, the present paper argues that much can also be gained by taking a 'function-first' approach, in which a corpus is first annotated for communicative functions and formulas are then identified as the recurrent patterns associated with each function. We demonstrate this approach through a comparative analysis of introductions to student essays and research articles. Focusing on one particularly common communicative function, the analysis demonstrates that (1) this function is more common in student essays than in articles; (2) both the choice to use the function and the choice of linguistic forms that realize the function vary across subject areas in research articles, but not in student essays; (3) research articles tend to be more formulaic in expressing the function than student essays; and (4) some parts of the forms used are highly formulaic, while others are more open. The key formulas are described and suggestions made regarding their pedagogical presentation. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：This study uses the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus as data and Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, and Finegan's (1999) and Gardner and Davies' (2007) informative studies as a starting point and reference. The study offers a cross-English variety and cross-register examination of the use of English phrasal verbs (PVs), one of the most difficult aspects of English for learners of English as a foreign language or English as a second language. The study first identified the frequency and usage patterns of the most common PVs in the two corpora and then analyzed the results using statistical procedures, the chi-square and dispersion tests, to determine any significant cross-variety or -register differences. Besides validating many of the findings of the two previous studies (although neither was a cross-English variety examination), the results of this study provide new, useful information about the use of PVs. In addition, the study resulted in a comprehensive list of the most common PVs in American and British English, one that complements those offered by the two previous studies with more necessary items and more detailed usage information. The study also presents a cross-register list of the most frequent PVs, showing in which register(s) each of the PVs is primarily used. Finally, pedagogical and research implications are discussed. Adapted from the source document

摘要：In this study, the scripts of 288 television episodes were analyzed to determine the extent to which vocabulary reoccurs in related and unrelated television programs, and the potential for incidental vocabulary learning through watching one season (approximately 24 episodes) of television programs. The scripts consisted of 1,330,268 running words and had a total running time of 203 hours and 49 minutes with a mean running time of 42 minutes. The vocabulary from a single season of six individual television programs (142 episodes) was compared with six sets of random television programs (146 episodes). The results indicated that, when there are an equivalent number of running words, related television programs are likely to contain fewer word families than unrelated programs. The findings also indicated that word families from the 4,000-14,000 levels were more likely to reoccur in a complete season of a television program than in random television programs. The percentage of low-frequency word families encountered 10 or more times was higher, and the percentage of word families encountered once was fewer in all six programs than in the random television programs. Adapted from the source document

摘要：In this article I examine the collocational behaviour of groups of semantically related verbs (e.g., head, run, manage) and nouns (e.g., issue, factor, aspect) from the domain of business English. The results of this corpus-based study show that much of the collocational behaviour exhibited by these lexical items can be explained by examining some of the linguistic features and processes which influence the way collocations are formed. These include the semantics of the individual items themselves, the use of metaphor, semantic prosody, and the tendency for many of the selected items to be part of larger phraseological units. I show that it is possible to explain many of these collocations by considering the linguistic features and processes which have influenced the way they have been formed. My contention is that, if the learner is encouraged to look for an explanation, it makes the process of learning collocations more memorable. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Studies of L2 writing development usually measure T-units and clausal subordination to assess grammatical complexity, assuming that increased subordination is typical of advanced writing. In this article we challenge this practice by showing that these measures are much more characteristic of conversation than academic writing. The article begins with a critical evaluation of T-units and clausal subordination as measures of writing development, arguing that they have not proven to be effective discriminators of language proficiency differences. These shortcomings lead to the question of whether these measures actually capture the complexities of professional academic writing, and if not, what alternative measures are better suited? Corpus-based analyses are undertaken to answer these questions, investigating 28 grammatical features in research articles contrasted with conversation. The results are surprising, showing that most clausal subordination measures are actually more common in conversation than academic writing. In contrast, fundamentally different kinds of grammatical complexity are common in academic writing: complex noun phrase constituents (rather than clause constituents) and complex phrases (rather than clauses). Based on these findings, we hypothesize a sequence of developmental stages for student writing, proposing a radically new approach for the study of complexity in student writing development. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This article reports results of a corpus-based evaluation of 14 syntactic complexity measures as objective indices of college-level English as a second language (ESL) writers' language development. I analyzed large-scale ESL writing data from the Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners (Wen, Wang, & Liang, 2005) using a computational system designed to automate syntactic complexity measurement with 14 measures that have been proposed in second language writing development studies (Lu, 2010). This analysis allows us to investigate the impact of sampling condition on the relationship between syntactic complexity and language development, to identify measures that significantly differentiate between developmental levels, to determine the magnitude at which between-level differences in each measure reach statistical significance, to assess the pattern of development associated with each measure, and to examine the strength of the relationship between different pairs of measures. This research provides ESL teachers and researchers with useful insights into how these measures can be used effectively as indices of college-level ESL writers' language development. Adapted from the source document