A linguistic depiction of a picture description task using Register Analysis

Abstract

Picture description tasks are a common task-based activity that is often used both in the classroom as well as on major English language tests like the Eiken. This paper provides a linguistic description of a picture description task by using lexical bundles analyzed with a Register Analysis (RA) methodology. A picture description of a neighborhood from the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT-JLT) corpora was used. The study used the same structural taxonomy as Biber et al. (2004); however, the author of the paper created a different functional taxonomy for the specific communication goals of the task. This study found that verb phrase bundles made up the majority of lexical bundles and were often used to describe action and existence, though there was also a large amount of noun phrase/prepositional phrase bundles which were widely used to describe location. Specifically, verb phrase bundles consisting of the structures There + is + NP and Third Person Singular + present participle were very common. Bundles expressing location and direction (e.g., in front of the, on the car) were very common noun phrases/prepositional phrase bundles. This information can assist teachers in preparing and executing picture description tasks in their classrooms by providing them with the common lexico-grammatical patterns associated with the task.