A Corpus-Based Analysis of Lexical Bundles in Medical Research Articles with a View to Evaluating Editing Effects

Lexical bundles (LBs), recognized as building blocks of fluent language production and key components of academic discourse, have been studied extensively from various perspectives, but comparatively less attention has been paid to non-native authors who face numerous challenges in having their research published. Nor has there been a study to investigate the possible changes that LBs might undergo in non-native authors’ productions when submitted to copy editors. Therefore, to fill this gap, a ۹۱۴۶۶۶-word corpus was selected, encompassing both edited and unedited articles in medical sciences written by Persian academics. Then, we studied the frequency of ۴-word bundles alongside their structural and functional features, as well as the changes the editing process could bring about in this regard. The results indicated that although types and tokens of bundles generally increased by ۶.۶% and ۱۷.۳%, respectively after the editing process, this increase did not include all subcategories. Furthermore, the editing process was not found to make any tangible modifications structurally and functionally and, in some cases, it actually seemed to push the data further away from those reported on native authors’ productions. Pedagogically, our findings could have implications for research article writing classes, non-native academics and copy editors.