Lexical bundles in ESP writing:

Previous research on lexical bundles produced by native versus non-native English speakers has been mostly carried out within the academic domain, yet it is not fully understood in ESP context. This study investigates the construct of lexical bundles in the genre of marine accident investigation reports (MAIR).Through comparison of lexical bundles used by L1-English versus L1-Japanese professionals in MAIR, differences between two groups are clearly displayed. It is found that compared with English reporters, Japanese professionals employ a considerably wider range of four-word bundles, exhibit an overuse tendency in almost all structural patterns and functional types and adopt different strategies to construct lexical bundles and fulfill discourse functions. Some similarities are also discovered between the two groups of writers, which are believed to reflect the special characteristics of MAIR genre.