Presentation The Use of Lexical Bundles in FinTech Research Articles more

In an attempt to explore the use of lexical bundles within the emerging cross-disciplinary domain of FinTech, this study compiles a 127,472-word corpus of 113 research articles from 30 leading journals in information technology and information systems. Through this corpus, this study identifies 110 four-word lexical bundles, 42 five-word lexical bundles, and 2 six-word lexical bundles and thereafter analyzes their forms and functions in accordance with the taxonomies devised by Biber et al. (1999, 2004) and Hyland (2008). The findings reveal that (1) most of these high-frequency bundles are not uncommon in academic writing, with some expressions unique to FinTech, (2) four-word bundles are dominated by NP-based and PP-based structures, while five-word bundles primarily consist of VP-based expressions, and (3) both four-word and five-word bundles are predominantly research-oriented and text-oriented in function. However, a closer look suggests that certain bundles exhibit cross-disciplinary linguistic features that reflect FinTech’s hybrid nature—combining discourse of finance and technology. Such findings may contribute to EAP instruction by raising students’ awareness of general academic lexis and the distinctive linguistic patterns of FinTech. This study also yields insights into how corpus-informed research can provide a more efficient means of identifying lexical trends in rapidly evolving domains.