Staff View: A corpus-based analysis of lexical verbs in L2 professional engineering writing

A corpus-based analysis of lexical verbs in L2 professional engineering writing

This study focuses on the use of English lexical verbs in the writings of Malaysian professional engineers. The research objectives were to: (1) identify frequently used lexical verbs in written engineering texts, (2) determine whether these frequent verbs are highly relevant for engineering, and (...

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Main Authors:	Radina, Mohamad Deli, Chuah, Kee Man, Nur Tahirah, Razali
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	AESS Publications 2019
Subjects:	P Philology. Linguistics PR English literature
Online Access:	http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/26665/1/Radina.pdf http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/26665/ http://www.aessweb.com/journals/5007
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id	my.unimas.ir.26665
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spelling	my.unimas.ir.266652023-10-25T02:55:46Z http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/26665/ A corpus-based analysis of lexical verbs in L2 professional engineering writing Radina, Mohamad Deli Chuah, Kee Man Nur Tahirah, Razali P Philology. Linguistics PR English literature This study focuses on the use of English lexical verbs in the writings of Malaysian professional engineers. The research objectives were to: (1) identify frequently used lexical verbs in written engineering texts, (2) determine whether these frequent verbs are highly relevant for engineering, and (3) whether the verbs are technical or nontechnical in nature. A total of 20 written texts consisting of official reports, ‗pass down‘ instructions and memos from the fields of electrical, electrical and mechanical engineering were collected. The texts were contributed by non-native English speaking Malaysian engineers from various Malaysian-based companies. The annotated data was analysed using the AntConc 3.5.7 software. All verb forms were found to be used in texts namely the base, the infinitive, the past tense, the third person singular simple present tense, the present continuous and the past participle forms. The corpus contained the highest number of lexical verbs in the base form compared to the singular simple present form which had the lowest occurrence. A further analysis showed that the base form was used in the imperative to relay task instructions to peers or subordinates, while the singular present form may correlate with the infrequent usage of the active form in engineering texts. Of all 30 frequent verbs in the top 5 for each verb form, only eleven can be considered as highly relevant for engineering despite their non-technical nature. The results further suggest that overlaps exist between commonly used non-technical verbs in academic and professional engineering writing. AESS Publications 2019 Article PeerReviewed text en http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/26665/1/Radina.pdf Radina, Mohamad Deli and Chuah, Kee Man and Nur Tahirah, Razali (2019) A corpus-based analysis of lexical verbs in L2 professional engineering writing. International Journal of Asian Social Science, 9 (8). pp. 461-472. ISSN 2224-4441 http://www.aessweb.com/journals/5007 DOI: 10.18488/journal.1.2019.98.461.472
institution	Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
building	Centre for Academic Information Services (CAIS)
collection	Institutional Repository
continent	Asia
country	Malaysia
content_provider	Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
content_source	UNIMAS Institutional Repository
url_provider	http://ir.unimas.my/
language	English
topic	P Philology. Linguistics PR English literature
spellingShingle	P Philology. Linguistics PR English literature Radina, Mohamad Deli Chuah, Kee Man Nur Tahirah, Razali A corpus-based analysis of lexical verbs in L2 professional engineering writing
description	This study focuses on the use of English lexical verbs in the writings of Malaysian professional engineers. The research objectives were to: (1) identify frequently used lexical verbs in written engineering texts, (2) determine whether these frequent verbs are highly relevant for engineering, and (3) whether the verbs are technical or nontechnical in nature. A total of 20 written texts consisting of official reports, ‗pass down‘ instructions and memos from the fields of electrical, electrical and mechanical engineering were collected. The texts were contributed by non-native English speaking Malaysian engineers from various Malaysian-based companies. The annotated data was analysed using the AntConc 3.5.7 software. All verb forms were found to be used in texts namely the base, the infinitive, the past tense, the third person singular simple present tense, the present continuous and the past participle forms. The corpus contained the highest number of lexical verbs in the base form compared to the singular simple present form which had the lowest occurrence. A further analysis showed that the base form was used in the imperative to relay task instructions to peers or subordinates, while the singular present form may correlate with the infrequent usage of the active form in engineering texts. Of all 30 frequent verbs in the top 5 for each verb form, only eleven can be considered as highly relevant for engineering despite their non-technical nature. The results further suggest that overlaps exist between commonly used non-technical verbs in academic and professional engineering writing.
format	Article
author	Radina, Mohamad Deli Chuah, Kee Man Nur Tahirah, Razali
author_facet	Radina, Mohamad Deli Chuah, Kee Man Nur Tahirah, Razali
author_sort	Radina, Mohamad Deli
title	A corpus-based analysis of lexical verbs in L2 professional engineering writing
title_short	A corpus-based analysis of lexical verbs in L2 professional engineering writing
title_full	A corpus-based analysis of lexical verbs in L2 professional engineering writing
title_fullStr	A corpus-based analysis of lexical verbs in L2 professional engineering writing
title_full_unstemmed	A corpus-based analysis of lexical verbs in L2 professional engineering writing
title_sort	corpus-based analysis of lexical verbs in l2 professional engineering writing
publisher	AESS Publications
publishDate	2019
url	http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/26665/1/Radina.pdf http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/26665/ http://www.aessweb.com/journals/5007
_version_	1781710287513059328
score	13.211869

A corpus-based analysis of lexical verbs in L2 professional engineering writing

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