ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on differences between the 2000 and the 2017 tutors' talk. It also focuses on the lexical bundles that differentiated the 2000 and 2017 student writers' talk. Lexical bundles manifest three important characteristics. First, they are usually not true idioms. True idioms are word sequences such as "bite the bullet" in which the whole means something other than the sum of its parts. Second, they are not salient; speakers do not notice them in their own speech or the speech of others. Third, as Biber and Barbieri point out, they usually do not consist of a complete structural phrase or clause. Analysis of student writers' lexical bundles confirmed the results of prior research: student writers' talk is rife with markers of uncertainty. Analysis of lexical bundles helped reveal the consistencies in the aboutness of the discourse produced in the Wisconsin-Superior Writing Center (UWSWC) in 2000 and 2017, including the uncertainty that characterized much of student writers' talk.
