A methodological exploration of the P-frame approach: implications for developing phrase lists

Aysel Şahin Kızıl, Benet Vincent, Lee McCallum

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    The widespread availability of corpora and corpus tools has led to considerable advances in our understanding of phraseology and how it can be investigated. An increasingly influential approach to investigating phraseology is the retrieval and analysis of phrase frames (p-frames), recurrent word sequences with a variable slot. Although the p-frame approach is quite well-established, pedagogically oriented research in this area is still quite new, in particular the application of phrase frames to generate useful lists of phrases. This paper aims to contribute to methodological efforts in this direction by presenting a case study to illustrate decision-making throughout the process from corpus compilation to the generation of a final pedagogical list of phrases. Using a corpus of research article (RA) introductions in Health Sciences, this study shows how key decisions including p-frame length, frequency and range thresholds were arrived at. It also discusses exclusion criteria focusing on variability and predictability of p-frame fillers, and the fine-tuning of the resulting list, focusing on semantic coherence and pedagogical usefulness. Finally, we present the results of an initial evaluation of the list by stakeholders. The main contributions of the study to p-frame research methodology lie in the clarification of threshold settings, the potential contribution of variability and predictability to decision-making and the proposal of more in-depth concordance analysis of co-text to aid in the identification of phrases.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article number100154
    Number of pages16
    JournalResearch Methods in Applied Linguistics
    Volume3
    Issue number3
    Early online date19 Sept 2024
    DOIs
    Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 19 Sept 2024

    Bibliographical note

    © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.

    Keywords

    • collocational frameworks
    • health communication
    • phrase-frames
    • phraseology methodology
    • research article introductions

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Language and Linguistics

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'A methodological exploration of the P-frame approach: implications for developing phrase lists'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this