A Corpus-based Analysis of Noun Phrase Complexity in Research Article Part-genres in Applied Linguistics and Clinical Medicine

Complexity measures in academic writing have experienced a shift from clausal to phrasal indices in recent years. Drawing on a subset of Biber et al.’s (۲۰۱۱) hypothesized stages of writing development, we explored phrasal complexity across sections (part-genres) of research articles (RAs) in applied linguistics and clinical medicine. A ۳۸۹,۳۳۲-word corpus consisting of ۸۰ randomly selected RAs from leading journals in applied linguistics and clinical medicine was compiled for the purposes of the present study.  One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and independent-samples t-test, as implemented in SPSS (version ۲۵), were employed to find differences across the RA sections and between two groups of academic writers. The findings indicated that RAs in clinical medicine relied more heavily on noun phrase modifiers in all sections than those in applied linguistics, suggesting that the distributional pattern of these linguistic expressions is discipline-independent. The implications of the distributional pattern of phrasal complexity are discussed in relation to L۲ writing pedagogy and the development of genre-based, discipline-specific academic writing.   

Keywords:

academic disciplines , applied linguistics , clinical medicine , part-genres , phrasal complexity , research articles , academic disciplines , applied linguistics , clinical medicine , part-genres , phrasal complexity , research articles