Academic lexical bundles in graduate-level math texts: A corpus-based expert-approved list

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to synthesize and analyse the most frequently occurring, widely dispersed and pedagogically useful lexical bundles in mathematical texts. Drawing on a five-million-word corpus of graduate-level textbooks, a total of 65 academic sequences meeting a predefined set of length, frequency and distribution criteria are obtained for functional and structural analyses. Results indicate that the structural forms of the sequences are clausal and that the dominant function is research-oriented. Sequences are rank-ordered according to a composite score obtained as a result of triangulating frequency profiles, distribution proportions and expert judgements. This article concludes by highlighting the pedagogical implications of the study for both language educators and mathematics practitioners.