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1.3Englishacademicdiscourse:Previousstudies
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inresearcharticlesinmedicineandlinguistics.Herresultsindicatethatthere
isamarkedtendencyforepistemicexpressionswhichovertlypresupposean
evaluatingagent,suchasassumeorseem,toappearinlinguisticsratherthanin
medicineresearchpapers,whilemarkerswhichdisguisethemodalizingagent,
suchascouldormay,tendtobepreferredinthefieldofmedicine.
Noteworthydisparitiesinthelexicalorganisationoftextandinthefunc-
tionofspecificdiscourseelementscanalsobefoundbetweenclosedisciplines,
asshownbyBondi(2006)andheranalysisofnarrativestructuresinbusiness
andeconomicsacademicprose.Forexample,sheobservesthatsignalsofhy-
pothetical,speculativereasoning,suchasif,then,case,andgiven,aremarked-
lymorefrequentineconomicsthaninbusinessacademictexts.
ImportantinsightsintoacademicvarietiesofEnglishhavecomefromthe
studyoflexicalbundles,i.e.,recurrentsequencesofwordswhichoftendo
notformcompletestructuralunits(Biberetal.,1999;Biber,2006a).AsBiber
(2006a)convincinglydemonstrates,differentsetsoflexicalbundlesarechar-
acteristicofdifferentacademicandotheruniversityregisters.Forexample,
discourseorganisingbundles,whichintroduceandelaborateonatopic,have
beenfoundtooccurmoreofteninnon-academicthaninacademicuniversi-
tyregistersand,withregardtothelatter,slightlymorefrequentlyintextbooks
thaninotheracademicprose(BiberandBarbieri,2007).Asregardsdiscipli-
naryregistervariation,Hyland(2008b)reportsthattext-orientedbundles,
acategorywhichincludesdiscourseorganisingbundles,tendtooccurwith
higherfrequencyinappliedlinguisticsandbusinessacademicprosethanin
biologyandengineering,disciplinesdominatedbyresearch-orientedbundles,
whichhelpdescriberesearchenvironment,materialandprocedures.
Thestudyandcomparisonofthelexicalprofilesofvariousacademictexts
haveinmanywaysbenefitedfromthedevelopmentofanacademicwordlist
(Coxhead,2000),alistof570wordfamilies,eachcomprisingtheheadword
withitsinflectedformsandderivatives,mostfrequentlyandwidelyusedin
writtentextsacrossdifferentsubjectareas.Usefulasitprovedtobeindevel-
opingstudentliteracies(CoxheadandNation,2001;Coxhead,2006,McCarthy
andO)Dell,2008;Arabskietal.,2009),thelistwasatthesametimecriticised
forovergeneralisingtheucommoncore”ofacademicvocabularyandignor-
ingdiscipline-specificpatternsoflexis,whichinturntriggeredresearchinto
specialised,discipline-definedlexiconsanddiscipline-specificusageofindi-
vidualvocabularyitems(ChenandGe,2007;HylandandTse,2009;Marti-
nezetal.,2009).
Orientationinthevarietyanddistinctivenessofacademicregisters—and,
asBiber(2006a)observes,otheruniversityvarietiesofEnglish—posesprob-
