LEXICAL BUNDLES IN WHATSAPP CONVERSATION BETWEEN NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH

摘要

The paper draws on an investigation on the use of lexical bundles and their functions in WhatsApp conversations between a native and a non-native speaker of English. The aim of this study is to explore the lexical bundles used by the two speakers in order to explain how these bundles contribute to the coherence in the conversations. The study employs the lexical bundle taxonomy by Biber et al. (1999) and the functional types of lexical bundles by Conrad and Biber (2005). In terms of functions, the lexical bundles produced by native and non-native speakers of English mostly express Stance between the speaker and hearer which includes functions of epistemic stance and attitudinal/modality stance to show intention, desire, ability, obligation, and directive. The Discourse Organizing function is also used, particularly to introduce and elaborate the topic; while, the Referential Expression type is not very much used in the conversation. The pedagogical implication of this study is that a wide variety of lexical bundles to express various functions in communication should be explicitly taught to develop the communicative competence of English language learners.