A corpus-assisted analysis of grammatical metaphors in successful student writing

Research has established the critical role grammatical metaphor (GM) plays in academic discourse and argues for its explicit instruction. However, despite a growing body of research investigating students’ use of GM, there is as yet no reference tool to assist researchers or instructors examining or teaching this powerful resource. Although some automated analyses are enabled through corpus tools, these studies are limited to derivational GMs. To respond to these inefficiencies, the present study presents a profile of GMs used in a 164,925-word sample of the British Academic Written English Corpus (BAWE). Our aim in compiling this profile was to identify which GMs successful students most commonly use in the four disciplinary groupings provided in the BAWE. By doing so, we are able to provide an introductory list of 2702 experiential GMs instructors could use to inform their teaching of GM and researchers could use to inform further GM investigations in other corpora.