lexical bundle

A fixed set of words (usually between three to five words in length) which are
reasonably frequent in natural language use. They are sometimes referred to
as clusters, chunks, multi-word sequences, lexical phrases, formulas, routines,
fixed expressions and prefabricated patterns. Unlike idioms like kick the
bucket, lexical bundles tend to be difficult to identify (and are thus overlooked
in language grammars and teaching materials) because they often bridge two
structural units, for example, the lack of the. CORPUS LINGUISTICS approaches
have been able to identify such bundles and facilitate their categorization into
particular functions. Referential expressions are used to identify something as
being important or to be specific about something, for example, something
like that, a little bit about, in the United States. Stance indicators express
modality or attitude towards a proposition: I dont know if, it is important to,
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I want you to. Discourse organizers introduce, clarify or elaborate on a topic:
I want to talk about, you know what I mean, has to do with the. See Biber
et al. (1999, 2004).