Multidimensional Analysis of Differences in Lexico-Grammatical Patterns in Saudi and British Linguistics and English Language Teaching Research Articles

This study explores linguistic variation in research papers published by Saudi and British researchers in Linguistics and English language teaching (ELT). The main aim is to identify and compare interdisciplinary lexico-grammatical patterns between and within the sub-disciplines of these research articles, exploring the extent to which Saudi research articles align with or diverge from their British counterparts. Utilizing Biber’s (1988) multidimensional model, this research developed a specialized corpus of academic research articles, which was analyzed using multivariate statistical techniques to investigate linguistic variation. The corpus included tagging of 67 linguistic features, and factor analysis was employed to identify patterns of linguistic cooccurrence. Significant findings indicate that Saudi research papers distinctly differ from British papers in their preference for informational, explicit, non-argumentative, and abstract discourse. Notably, while most sections of the research papers showed variations in non-argumentative discourse, the ELT conclusion sections from both regions demonstrated a tendency towards mixedpurpose discourse. The significance of the study lies in its detailed analysis of how regional differences affect lexico-grammatical choices within academic writing, offering a deeper understanding of linguistic strategies in scholarly communication. The study concludes with recommendations for further research to explore underlying factors contributing to these differences and suggests the development of targeted academic writing aids to support researchers in achieving greater international coherence in their discourse. This could potentially enhance the clarity and impact of scholarly communication across diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.