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Knowledge construction of Discussion/Conclusion sections of research articles written by English L1 and L2 and Castilian Spanish L1 writers
Abstract
The paper investigates the Discussion/Conclusion sections of research articles (RA) written by English L1, English L2 and Spanish L1 writers in applied linguistics, seeking to assist scholars in Spain and Latin America to get published in reputable international English-language journals, i.e. those listed in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). It draws on move analysis, contrasting texts written in two languages and by three groups of writers, a first in the literature. The study will advance our understanding of the complexity of these RA sections, and the difficulties faced by scholars whose first language is not English but who are under institutional pressure to publish in English. Results showed variances in the move structures in the Discussion/Conclusion sections written by the three groups. The English L1 group produced more rhetorically complex texts than the Spanish L1 group, while the English L2 group displayed hybridity in their texts as they brought to the fore the rhetorical practices of their L1 culture. The findings are expected to assist scholars to make their intellectual contributions accessible in mainstream international publications, whatever their native language.
... This study employed a Likert scale questionnaire, with a rating of 5 for very important, 4 is for quite important, 3 for sometimes important, 2 is for not so important and 1 is not important at all. The second section will touch on evaluating the study in FYPP conclusion section, with seven items that were adopted from Loi et al., [6], Ruiying et al., [29], Alamri [32], Maswana et al., [33], Sheldon [34] and Swales et al., [36]. While the third section is looking into providing a deduction of the FYPP conclusion section with two items involved, for this item the researcher adopted them from Loi et al., [6], Adel et al., [28], Ruiying et al., [29], Sheldon [34] and Swales et al., [35]. ...
... The second section will touch on evaluating the study in FYPP conclusion section, with seven items that were adopted from Loi et al., [6], Ruiying et al., [29], Alamri [32], Maswana et al., [33], Sheldon [34] and Swales et al., [36]. While the third section is looking into providing a deduction of the FYPP conclusion section with two items involved, for this item the researcher adopted them from Loi et al., [6], Adel et al., [28], Ruiying et al., [29], Sheldon [34] and Swales et al., [35]. The FYP students were given a link to the questionnaire and they able to complete the questionnaire within a minute of time. ...
... Summarising the FYP requires the students to summarise their final year project in term of objectives, aims or results of the project which crucial in making the conclusion section meaningful. These results were consistent with Rosalina [7], Maswana et al., [33], Sheldon [34] and Bhattacharyya [38] whose stated conclusion section focused more on summarising the study, highlighting overall results and evaluating the study. From the study, it seemed that the students were aware of the moves that were needed in their FYPP. ...
The Final Year Project Presentation or FYPP is an essential academic oral presentation for tertiary students across various university courses and fields. Despite its importance, there exists a notable lack of comprehensive understanding about the genre, particularly about the conclusion section. This study aimed to investigate engineering students' perception of the good characteristics of the conclusion section in FYPP. A questionnaire survey was administered to a sample of 33 engineering students, who identified the following features as important components of the conclusion section: a summary of the final year project, presentation of overall findings, references to previous research, discussion of issues related to the final year project, restatement of the objective/focus, specific results, interpretation of results, significance of the results, limitations, counter-arguments, and an explanation of the final year project. The study reveals that students are aware of the various elements that make up the conclusion section and suggests that this knowledge can help them improve their FYPPs. By better understanding the genre expectations and characteristics, engineering students can present their final year project findings more effectively and demonstrate their mastery of the discipline.
... Although it is possible to trace works related to MR within a single section of RA, such as Introduction (Lim, 2012;Ozturk, 2007), Method (Lim, 2006;Peacock, 2011), Results (Atai & Falah, 2005;Kanoksilapatham, 2005), and Discussion (Basturkmen, 2009(Basturkmen, , 2012Sheldon, 2019), it is not easy to find an accurate record of studies reporting MR in the four conventional sections of RAs, including the Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion (IMRD) sections of soft science RAs. ...
... The Objective move recycling has also been extensively reported in the Discussion sections (e.g., Ershadi & Farnia, 2015;Joseph & Lim, 2018;Kanoksilapatham, 2005;Peacock, 2002;Sheldon, 2019). However, various terminologies have been suggested for this move, such as 'Contextualizing the Study' by Kanoksilapatham (2005), 'Background Information' by Joseph and Lim (2018), and 'Focus of the Study' by Sheldon (2019). ...
... The Objective move recycling has also been extensively reported in the Discussion sections (e.g., Ershadi & Farnia, 2015;Joseph & Lim, 2018;Kanoksilapatham, 2005;Peacock, 2002;Sheldon, 2019). However, various terminologies have been suggested for this move, such as 'Contextualizing the Study' by Kanoksilapatham (2005), 'Background Information' by Joseph and Lim (2018), and 'Focus of the Study' by Sheldon (2019). According to Joseph and Lim, this move was present in 100% of the Discussion sections in Law (Tessuto, 2015), 90 % in Biochemistry (Kanoksilapatham, 2015), 71.5% in Biology (Peacock, 2002), and 60 % in Dentistry (Basturkmen, 2012). ...
Although a plethora of research endeavors have investigated the rhetorical structure of the Research Articles (RAs) through the lens of move analysis, Move Recycling (MR) across RA sections has remained unnoticed. The current study sought to bridge this gap by exploring cross-disciplinary variations in the recycling of the Objective move (research questions/hypotheses/purposes) across four conventional sections (Introduction, Method, Result, and Discussion) of RAs. To this end, 600 English RAs from four prestigious journals in six soft science disciplines, published between 2006 and 2018, were selected. The quantitative data analysis results revealed that the Objective move's recycling was sensitive to the disciplinary variations and RA sections. That is, Economics RAs were the main platforms for recycling the Objective move, and Psychology RAs witnessed the least amount of its recycling. Moreover, Objective move recycling was observed most frequently in the Discussion sections and least frequently in the Method sections of RAs. In the study's qualitative phase, the RA authors' rationales for MR, which were received via email, underwent content analysis. Based on the recurrent themes in the RA authors' responses, four main reasons for MR, including editorial policy, readers' guidance, discipline conventions, and RA length, were identified. This study's findings might provide a concise view of MR for researchers, teachers, and students in various disciplines. EAP instructors can raise students' awareness of MR and encourage them to use it in their RAs as a comprehension facilitator.
... A thorough examination of existing literature discloses that MR has been reported within a single section of RA, including the Introduction (Lim, 2012;Ozturk, 2007), Method (Lim, 2006;Peacock, 2011), Results (Atai & Falah, 2005;Kanoksilapatham, 2005), and Discussion (Basturkmen, 2009(Basturkmen, , 2012Sheldon, 2019). There is no doubt that MR within a single section of RA may highlight the importance of recycled moves; however, we believe that MR across RA sections is more crucial; because, by incorporating MR throughout the RA sections, RA authors endeavor to create a unified text that may aid and facilitate their readers' reading process. ...
... A close review of the existing literature demonstrates that the recycling of Objective move variously called 'Contextualizing the Study' by Kanoksilapatham (2005), 'Focus of the Study' by Sheldon (2019), and 'Background Information' by Joseph and Lim (2018) has been reported by several researchers in the RA Discussion sections (Annesley, 2010;Basturkmen, 2012;Ershadi & Farnia, 2015;Joseph & Lim, 2018;Kanoksilapatham, 2007;Peacock, 2002;Sheldon, 2019;Swales & Feak, 1994;Tessuto, 2015;Yang & Allison, 2003). For instance, this move was reported by Ershadi and Farnia (2015) as one of the most frequently used moves in the Computer RA Discussions. ...
... According to them, this move is incorporated into 100% of the Discussion sections in Law (Tessuto, 2015), 95% in Education (Loi et al., 2016), 90% in Biochemistry (Kanoksilapatham, 2015), 71.5% in Biology (Peacock, 2002), and 60 % in Dentistry (Basturkmen, 2012). In a recent crosscultural, cross-linguistics study Sheldon (2019) investigated the Discussion/Conclusion sections in Applied Linguistics RAs among three groups of authors: Spanish L1, English L1, and English L2. The analysis revealed that the 'Focus of the Study' move, was recycled in 61%, 50%, and 56% of RAs written by Spanish L1, English L1, English L2 authors, respectively. ...
While numerous studies have scrutinized the rhetorical structures of Research Articles (RAs) through move analysis, it appears that Move Recycling (MR) across RA sections has received little attention. The current study sought to fill this gap by investigating whether the recycling of Objective move (study purposes/questions/hypotheses) in RA Discussion sections, which was previously used in the Introduction, is vulnerable to disciplinary differences. To achieve the study’s objective, 600 English RAs published between 2006 and 2018 in six Soft Science disciplines, with an equal number in each discipline were selected. The move model developed by Weissberg and Buker (1990) served as a road map for analyzing RAs. After identifying the Objective move in RA Introductions, the frequency of its recycling in RA Discussions was calculated and compared across disciplines. The data analysis revealed that disciplinary variations do not result in variations in the recycling of this move in the RA Discussions. It was concluded that the recycling of the Objective move has been established in the sample RA Discussion sections to achieve certain rhetorical functions. The findings may help students, novice researchers, and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing instructors understand how Objective move spans in Soft Science RA Discussions.
... The field of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) has recently seen a heightened interest in the results, discussion, and conclusion sections (collectively referred to here as post-methods sections). Genre analyses have explored how these sections differ across writings by L1 and L2 writers (e.g., Sadeghi & Alinasab, 2020), in English compared to other languages (Moreno & Swales, 2018;Sheldon, 2019), across different disciplines (Cotos, Link, & Huffman, 2016;Deng & Liu, 2023;Liu & Xiao, 2022), and by writers at different proficiency levels (e.g., Li & Zhang, 2022). Collectively, this body of research offers valuable insights into the rhetorical structures and linguistic realizations of these sections, which often pose considerable challenges to novice researchers (e.g., Bitchener & Basturkmen, 2006;Cotos et al., 2016). ...
... Genre analyses have explored how these sections differ across writings by L1 and L2 writers (e.g., Sadeghi & Alinasab, 2020), in English compared to other languages (Moreno & Swales, 2018;Sheldon, 2019), across different disciplines (Cotos, Link, & Huffman, 2016;Deng & Liu, 2023;Liu & Xiao, 2022), and by writers at different proficiency levels (e.g., Li & Zhang, 2022). Collectively, this body of research offers valuable insights into the rhetorical structures and linguistic realizations of these sections, which often pose considerable challenges to novice researchers (e.g., Bitchener & Basturkmen, 2006;Cotos et al., 2016). ...
... Different RA sections serve distinct communicative purposes (Swales, 1990). The conclusion section, serving as the closing section and last chance to present results and highlight the significance, and thus as an important sub-section in RAs (for example, 26 out of 31 of the RAs published in English for Specific Purposes in 2015 had separate conclusion sections), plays a big part in achieving the communicative purposes of summarizing and emphasizing the results, highlighting the contribution and providing future directions (Yang and Allison, 2003;Sheldon, 2019). However, it has received less attention in comparison with the abstract (Alghazo et al., 2021), introductions (Loi and Lim, 2013), and discussions (Li and Xu, 2020). ...
... Thus, writers have to change their strategies and expressions of stance-taking. Furthermore, with the broadening of the academic group, the competition in publishing and maintaining a career is increasing (Sheldon, 2019;Chen, 2020), and the promotional aspect is more salient (Hyland and Jiang, 2019), which puts the burden on writers to express themselves more explicitly through stance markers in academic writing. ...
Research article conclusions form an important sub-genre in the academic community. This study aims to compare the use of stance markers in English and Chinese research article conclusions and investigate how stance markers may vary in soft and hard sciences. Based on Hyland's stance model, an analysis of stance markers over 20 years was made in two corpora, which were compiled with 180 research article conclusions in each language from four disciplines. It was found that English writers and soft science writers tended to make statements more tentatively by hedges and craft their persona more explicitly through self-mentions. However, Chinese writers and hard science writers made their claims with more certainty by boosters and showed their affective attitude more frequently through attitude markers. The results reveal how writers from different cultural backgrounds construct their stances and also unveil the disciplinary differences involved in stance-taking. It is hoped that this corpus study will inspire future research on stance-taking in the conclusion section and also help cultivate writers' genre awareness.
... Yang & Allison, 2003), or annotated as a separate move segment (e.g. Sheldon, 2019). However, as Moreno and Swales (2018) argue, such segment types are not strictly moves-steps themselves because they do not contribute to moving the text forward, although they are relevant in relation to a neighbouring move-step segment. ...
... Future studies in intercultural rhetoric research could use these comparative results to explore the possible negative effect of transfer (Connor, 2011;Moreno, 2010) of Spanish OSSC authors' tendency to include fewer Limitations when they write DC sections for publication in English. Considering that the statement of Limitations is conventional in OSSC but only optional in AL in English (Sheldon, 2019), my findings argue for the provision of relevant training for OSSC researchers. The variations are so subtle, and discipline bound, that they are unlikely to be clearly perceptible unless scrutinised, as in the present study, before being used in training sessions. ...
... English 3 as the international 3 language plays a interest role in global relations and therefore a compulsory subject in the secondary education curriculum in Indonesia (Bashori et al., 2021). Sheldon, (2019) in one recent decades English has become the default language of academia. As declared in 2013 Curriculum 1 English 1 subject in senior high school is broken into two different subject groups. ...
The study investigated the teaching speaking skill of English as foreign language in Secondary School level at SMAN 2 Malang from some aspects, the English teacher’s role, the teaching activities, materials, the media, and the assessment of the English teacher. The design of the research belongs to descriptive qualitative research. The participant of this research was an English teacher and the 33 students of X MIPA 2. The setting was SMAN 2 Malang. The data was obtained through observation, interview and documents. The result of this research noted that the teacher has already known role in teaching speaking. Based on the 2013 curriculum students centered was applied and the teacher facilitated the students, teacher created fun speaking activity such as role play, presentation in group and individual, the teacher also used modern media to support the teaching speaking, material that suitable for speaking activities is provided by the teacher based on the syllabus. Fluency, accuracy, pronunciation and expression were the aspect to assess students speaking skill. In this research, the researcher concluded that the teaching speaking skill in SMAN 2 Malang has already well.
... Lin & Evans 的研究引发了体裁结构从"中观-微观"转 向"宏观-中观-微观"的研究范式变化。其研究发现，39 个学科期刊论文正文的宏观结构通常为"引言-文献综 述 -方法-结 果 与 讨 论 -结论(IL[RD]C ) " ， 其 次 是 IM[RD]C、IMRDC、ILMRDC 及 ILMRD [5]。在其影 响下，从"宏观-中观-微观"三个层面探讨体裁结构成为 近期研究的焦点 [6,7]。而 Basturkme 的研究则引发了 体裁分析从"语步-语阶"转向更微观的"语步-语阶-次语 阶" [8]，更深入地揭示体裁结构功能的复杂性 [9,10] 其它"(Additional Elements)、"开篇导入" (Lead-in)、"任务描述"(Task Description)、"理据提 供" (Rationale Providing)、"案例分析" (Case Analysis)、 "实践总结"(Conclusion)和 "材料支持"(Supplementary Material)以及主要语阶(Steps)，语阶包括"致谢"、 "Acknowledgements"、 "Introduction"、 "摘要"、 "Abstract"、 "Task Description" 、 "Translation Task" 、 "Translation Process"、 "Translation Theory"、 "Theoretical Framework"、 "Case Analysis" 、 "Analysis of…" 、 "Conclusion" 、 "Summary"、"附录"、"References"、"Bibliography"。这 ...
... (g1-4) Eg 37: The mismatch between patterns of perceptual similarity and patterns of unfaithful mapping is inconsistent with a potential extension of the P-map hypothesis to the production of phonotactically unattested sequences. (g1- 18) Eg 38: It is therefore especially important for Chinese scientists to develop an awareness of the variety of hedging devices that could be employed in showing detachment or commitment in their writing. (g2-4) ...
Epistemic modality is an important and complex linguistic device in academic writing, which could help authors state their claims and positions. The conclusion is also a critical part in research articles, where authors summarize their studies and give suggestions. Many scholars study modality in many aspects, but they rarely focus on its application in research article conclusions. Therefore, this study compared the use of modality in 25 conclusions of linguistic research papers written by native English speakers and 25 English conclusions written by Chinese authors from a systemic functional perspective. It focused on the similarities and differences of the use of modality in linguistic research article conclusions from two perspectives: value and orientation. The results show that both native English speakers and Chinese authors are more likely to rely on low and median value and subjective orientation in their conclusions. The findings suggest that linguistic research article authors tend to make claims in a reserved and tentative way. Moreover, this study shows that Chinese authors are more likely to employ modal expressions and subjective orientation of modality in their conclusions, which may relate to cultural diversity and modality shift. The findings of the study may help non-native English authors to produce linguistic research articles in a more acceptable way.
... Table 4 shows that the percentages of the four promotional strategies are higher in Chinese than in English. One possible explanation is that RAs written in LOTE from AL, wherein genre analysis has been extensively conducted, are more or less under the influence of the genre conventions of English RA writing (Sheldon, 2019). Therefore, Chinese writers tend to abide by Swales's 1990 version of the CARS model to make their papers more acceptable to their disciplinary community. ...
... The discussion sections in research articles of international journals and national journals have been comparatively studied by many scholars (e.g., Alharbi, 2016;Sheldon, 2019;. Alharbi (2016) compared the schematic structure of the English discussion sections in British and Saudi dental journals. ...
The purpose of this study was to compare the discussion sections of research articles in applied linguistics in Thai and international journals. The corpus consisted of 20 English research articles: 10 from Thai journals and 10 from international journals. The adverbials framework of Biber et al. (1999) was employed in this study. The study explained the different usage of adverbials in discussion sections of both corpora. The results show that most of the use of adverbials in research article discussion sections in Thai and international journals is similar. There are five adverbials which are different and influence the presentation of content in discussion sections. It is hoped that this study may help teachers to design writing courses for novice writers or undergraduate and postgraduate students in writing research article discussion sections to publish in an international level.
... To date, research on 'limitations' sections has examined their interpersonal strategies (Sun & Crosthwaite, 2022b;Zhou & Jiang, 2023), or in most cases, researchers tended to draw on a structural view to explore how the 'limitations' section functions as a constituent of macro part-genres (Cotos et al., 2015;Paltridge & Starfield, 2020;Sheldon, 2019). By comparison, little is known about the articulation of 'limitations' sections from a phraseological view, and whether any variations with respect to the use of phraseology in acknowledging limitations lie across disciplines. ...
... Largely, many SLA studies above considered the use of L1 in L2 pedagogies in relation to human cognition. There are relatively fewer studies discussing the role of L1 in the L2 knowledge construction process at the social or psychological level in the human mind (Sheldon, 2019). In this case, Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of mind (1978,1986) is of great help in elucidating the role of L1 in L2 learning due to its chief concern about how L1, as a crucial semiotic device, mediates the process of learning a target language (TL). ...
Over the past few decades, there have been an increasing number of empirical studies exploring the use of the first language (L1) in pedagogical approaches (e.g., Lee, 2018; Lo, 2015; Turnbull, 2001). However, to date relatively less research has undressed the role of the L1 from a sociocultural perspective to inform educational practitioners of theory-supported teaching practices. With a focus on two specific pedagogical approaches, namely, task-based language teaching (TBLT) and content and language integrated learning (CLIL), this paper reviews two recent studies whose findings pertaining to the role of L1 in second language (L2) learning and teaching are discussed and re-interpreted through the lens of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of mind (1978, 1986). The discussion uncovers the multifaceted role of L1 as a cognitive, affective, and interactional mediator, which I argue could optimise the L2 learning process within both the TBLT and CLIL classroom discourse. Such a reconceptualisation of the mediating role of the L1 may shed light on the benefits of using L1 in TBLT and CLIL pedagogies and help language educators make research-informed decisions about their language use choices in the L2 classroom.
... English 3 as the international 3 language plays a interest role in global relations and therefore a compulsory subject in the secondary education curriculum in Indonesia (Bashori et al., 2021). Sheldon, (2019) in one recent decades English has become the default language of academia. As declared in 2013 Curriculum 1 English 1 subject in senior high school is broken into two different subject groups. ...
The study investigated the teaching speaking skill of English as foreign language in Secondary School level at SMAN 2 Malang from some aspects, the English teacher’s role, the teaching activities, materials, the media, and the assessment of the English teacher. The design of the research belongs to descriptive qualitative research. The participant of this research was an English teacher and the 33 students of X MIPA 2. The setting was SMAN 2 Malang. The data was obtained through observation, interview and documents. The result of this research noted that the teacher has already known role in teaching speaking. Based on the 2013 curriculum students centered was applied and the teacher facilitated the students, teacher created fun speaking activity such as role play, presentation in group and individual, the teacher also used modern media to support the teaching speaking, material that suitable for speaking activities is provided by the teacher based on the syllabus. Fluency, accuracy, pronunciation and expression were the aspect to assess students speaking skill. In this research, the researcher concluded that the teaching speaking skill in SMAN 2 Malang has already well.
... Previous work investigating metadiscourse features in different RA sections have mainly been focused on the abstract [9] and introduction [11], yet results and discussion (R&D) remains an under-researched part-genre. This study chooses the combined sections of results and discussion (R&D) of an RA as the focus due to its critical role in establishing the significance of the study based on research findings [16,17]. R&D is a place where the writer demonstrates their ability to think critically about his/her own research and those of others, and to convince readers of the value of the study [18]. ...
English for foreign language (EFL) novice writer-researchers are faced with an increasing pressure for international publication as a prerequisite for sustainable career development in academia. The use of metadiscourse, as a key indicator for their discourse competence, has been a subject of research for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and/or English for Specific Purposes (ESP) scholars. This study investigates metadiscourse features of research articles’ (RA) results and discussion (R&D) sections written by Chinese PhD students and their writer identities reflected through metadiscourse choice. A corpus was built, consisting of a subcorpus of R&D of unpublished research articles (RAs) written by Chinese PhD students (CNWs) and one of the same part-genre by English-speaking expert writers (EEWs). Metadiscourse used by the two groups were identified based on Hyland’s interpersonal model of metadiscourse. Quantitative analyses on the frequency and variety of metadiscourse markers found a significant difference not only in interactional metadiscourse but also in some subcategories of interactive and interactional metadiscourse, indicating that CNWs attach more importance to organisation of ideas than to the persuasiveness of arguments. A questionnaire survey was conducted to explore the influence of the CNWs’ perception of RA writing on their metadiscourse choice. It revealed that knowledge of generic conventions and metadiscourse functions, awareness of the writer–reader relationship, and confidence in language competence may influence metadiscourse choice. The paper concludes with the view that the CNWs generally view themselves as a recounter and reporter of their research, remaining conservative when presenting an authoritative voice and a confident identity as a knowledge creator.
... In the conclusion section, the high percentages of relational and existential processes could be attributed to the purpose of making objective summaries of the whole articles. The high percentage of mental processes reveals that the conclusion section at the same time contains interpersonal components, particularly when presenting the significance or contribution of the reported study and the insights for application and future research (Sheldon, 2019). ...
This study investigates the transitivity structure of research articles and examines the variations of process types across sections, aiming to explore experiential meaning construction in academic discourse. The corpus for this study consists of ten applied linguistics research articles published from 2018 to 2020 in the top journals of the discipline. Features of the transitivity structure of the whole research articles are presented. The distribution of different process types is also examined in relation to the rhetorical purposes and stylistic features of the abstract, introduction, method, results and discussion, and conclusion sections. The findings reveal that transitivity structure could largely reflect the stylistic features of research articles, which are characterized as being informative and objective as well as interpersonal. Results also show that the distribution of process types may contribute to the regularity manifestation and purpose fulfillment of distinctive sections. This study has implications for both academic writers and academic writing courses.
... To date, research on 'limitations' sections has examined their interpersonal strategies (Sun & Crosthwaite, 2022b;Zhou & Jiang, 2023), or in most cases, researchers tended to draw on a structural view to explore how the 'limitations' section functions as a constituent of macro partgenres (Cotos et al., 2015;Paltridge & Starfield, 2020;Sheldon, 2019). By comparison, little is known about the articulation of 'limitations' sections from a phraseological view, and whether any variations with respect to the use of phraseology in acknowledging limitations lie across disciplines. ...
The focus of LxGr is the interaction of lexis and grammar. The focus is influenced by Halliday’s view of lexis and grammar as “complementary perspectives” (1991: 32), and his conception of the two as notional ends of a continuum (lexicogrammar), in that “if you interrogate the system grammatically you will get grammar-like answers and if you interrogate it lexically you get lexis-like answers” (1992: 64).
LxGr primarily welcomes papers reporting on corpus-based research on any aspect of the interaction of lexis and grammar, and is particularly interested in studies that interrogate the system lexicogrammatically to get lexicogrammatical answers. However, position papers discussing theoretical or methodological issues are also welcome, as long as they are relevant to both lexicogrammar and corpus linguistics.
... The present study aims to investigate graduation resources employed by authors of international journals in developing the conclusion sections of research articles in psychology (as a representative of soft science) and industrial engineering (as a representative of hard science). As a less researched section of research articles (Sheldon, 2018), conclusion section presents the value of the contribution a study makes to the area of knowledge. Moreover, the study of different disciplines offer insights as to how writers communicate and present knowledge to their target audience (Becher & Trowler, 2001). ...
... The present study aims to investigate graduation resources employed by authors of international journals in developing the conclusion sections of research articles in psychology (as a representative of soft science) and industrial engineering (as a representative of hard science). As a less researched section of research articles (Sheldon, 2018), conclusion section presents the value of the contribution a study makes to the area of knowledge. Moreover, the study of different disciplines offer insights as to how writers communicate and present knowledge to their target audience (Becher & Trowler, 2001). ...
In academia, different disciplines tend to represent themselves, their writers, and their readers in unique ways. To be able to probe into such cross-disciplinary discursive variations, the present cross-disciplinary study used Martin and White’s appraisal framework incorporating lexico-grammar and language evaluation strategies to explore the linguistic construal of evaluative stance in the conclusion section of academic research articles. To this end, a corpus of 160 research articles randomly selected from English international journals of psychology as a representative of soft sciences and industrial engineering as a representative of hard scienceswere examined in the light of Martin and White’s scheme, with a focus on graduation. To code the data, UAM Corpus Tool was used for the ease of descriptive analyses. In general, the findings indicated that the number of graduation words and graduation types were significantly higher in the hard science corpus compared to the soft science one, suggesting that the authors of hard science articles mainly attempted to express their appreciation and judgment and report the fluctuation of a specific feature in their findings.
... The incentive for English-medium publication primarily emanated from the scholarly purpose for disseminating knowledge. Later, universities and other academic institutions started to put more pressure on researchers for more research output in English (Luo and Hyland 2019;Sheldon 2019). This neoliberal push by English in the publication practices has persuaded "universities to Englishize in order to internationalize" (McKinley and Rose 2018: p. 2). ...
The present study was an attempt to explore international English-medium publication in humanities and social sciences in Iran. In so doing, 50 PhD students from 8 humanities and social sciences disciplines, who had already published or attempted to publish in English-medium journals, were requested to write reflection guide accounts and to take part in follow-up semi-structured interviews. The reflection guide and interview data were analyzed based on the principles of grounded theory research yielding the four major themes of motivations, hurdles, strategies, and call for support. The results indicated that the Iranian PhD students in the fields of humanities and social sciences are strongly motivated to publish in English-medium journals though they face considerable discursive and non-discursive challenges too. Moreover, although they pursue some strategies to rise to these challenges, they could not fight them off on their own and claim support by other more competent academics and officials. The authors also call for a firm action plan to improve the status of English-medium publication in humanities and social sciences. The action plan could count on support from more experienced doctoral students, professors and other university level officials, editors, reviewers, and high-level national policymakers.
Linguistic expressions of surprise (i.e., surprise markers) are epistemically motivated and inherently connected to knowledge construction. Taking a frame semantic approach, this study examined how surprise markers were used by academic writers to disseminate knowledge in research articles. Based on a self-built corpus of 640 journal articles totaling four million words, the study explored how the use of surprise markers was mediated by various factors, including disciplinary background (i.e., applied linguistics, history, biology, mechanical engineering), gender (male vs. female), geo-academic locations (Core vs. Periphery), and time of publication (1985–1989 vs. 2015–2019). Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with 16 disciplinary informants. Corpus-based quantitative analyses of surprise markers and a thematic analysis of the interviews uncovered distinct patterns in the use of surprise markers across the variables examined. These findings deepen our understanding of how surprise markers in academic writing function within specific linguistic and situational contexts, highlighting the intricate nature of knowledge construction in scholarly discourse.
This state-of-the-art volume offers a comprehensive and accessible examination of perspectives within the field of discourse analysis on the processes and conditions of second language learning, teaching, and use. The collection brings together leading global researchers in the field to guide readers through background theories, theoretical paradigms, methodological issues, and pedagogical implications by synthesizing current and past work, and setting a future agenda for discourse-oriented second language research.
The research article section, especially the introduction, has been a focus of scholarly discourse research for many years while linguistic strategies in the conclusion of research articles remain understudied. Moreover, most of the previous studies discussed linguistic features from the perspective of single-language strategies. Given this, this paper adopted an MDA (multi-dimensional analysis) method (Biber, 1988) to analyze the distribution of 67 linguistics features in the conclusions of 200 RAs (Research Articles) with the aid of the corpus tool MAT (Multi-dimensional Analysis Tagger) devised by Nini. The result showed that the dimension scores directed to the negative polarity for Dimension 1 (Mean=-15.80, SD=5.40), Dimension 2 (Mean=-2.61, SD=2.08) and Dimension 4 (Mean=-1.62, SD=2.74), and positive polarity for Dimension 3 (Mean=7.33, SD=2.85), Dimension 5 (Mean=5.47, SD=3.05), which indicated that conclusions of linguistic RAs are presented as informational-dense, relatively context-independent, less explicitly persuasive, highly technical, and abstract. Besides, the main linguistic features that contributed to the language variation of the RAs conclusion writing in Linguistics are Nouns, Attributive adjectives, Present tenses, Past participial WHIZ deletions, Phrasal coordination, Nominalization, Pied piping constructions, Infinitive TO, Possibility modals (e.g. may, might), Suasive verbs and Agentless passives. The study revealed the specific distribution of linguistic features of conclusion writing in RAs, highlighting the nature of informativeness and the abstractness of academic writing. This study may have some implications for writing academic papers, especially for graduates studying linguistics.
There is a dearth of research on cohesion in academic writing, specifically in research articles (RAs). In addition, there is little quantitative information on how cohesion is realized in different rhetorical sections of RAs. Thus, the present study investigated cohesion at sentence, paragraph, and the whole textual levels across the rhetorical sections of RAs of applied linguistics. To this end, 25 indices of local, global, and text cohesion were obtained from a corpus of 100 RAs in the field of applied linguistics divided into seven sections (abstract, introduction, literature review, method, results, discussion, and conclusion). The results of mixed-effects modeling showed that the measures of local and text cohesion were significantly affected by the rhetorical section. Moreover, random forest modeling revealed that the indices of global cohesion could predict the introduction, method, and results sections, while text cohesion was a classifier for abstract and conclusion sections. The findings are thoroughly discussed, offering insights into their theoretical and pedagogical implications.
The present study aimed to investigate whether Reports on the results and Comments on the results moves' recycling in the Research Article (RA) Discussion sections is affected by cultural/disciplinary variations. To this end, 600 empirical RAs in six Soft Science disciplines, including Economics, Sociology, Applied Linguistics, Linguistics, Management, and Psychology, with an equal number in each discipline and culture, published in the period from 2006 to 2018 were selected. Weissberg and Buker's (1990) move model was used as a starting point to analyze the RAs. First, the Reports on the results and Comments on the results moves were identified in the Results sections. The Chi-Square test was then used to calculate and compare the frequency of their recycling in the Discussion sections across cultures and disciplines. The data analysis results revealed that changes in the disciplines or sociocultural settings do not result in variations in recycling the two moves under study. Given that the current study provides a relatively new framework for scrutinizing scientific discourse, it may promise certain pedagogical implications for native and non-native students in Soft Science disciplines, researchers, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) instructors, and course designers.
Knowledge construction at graduate level discursively engages writers in building the connection between disciplinary literature and their authority of individual creation. Existing research often sees this construction as social and dialogic and has widely examined its rhetorical and interactional features within its disciplinary local contexts. However, little attention seems to be drawn to the interplay between the expected presentation of knowledge and students’ actual knowledge-making. Through detailed discourse and intertextual analyses, this study explores supervisory orientations offered through written feedback and their impact on two L2 students’ restructuring of knowledge in their master’s theses. Findings reveal these students’ incorporation of justifiable, interpretive and intertextually pertinent knowledge as concrete responses to these orientations. The ways they organized their conceptual and intertextual resources were shaped by explicit supervisory scaffold and how they wished to present a refined self (critical, self-reflexive, credible, socially-grounded) in writing.
Motivated by the assumption that the recycling of directional determinants (DDs) (the research purposes, hypotheses, questions) across English research articles (RAs) is evidence of the writer's responsibility, this study sought to investigate any potential differences between English and Iranian researchers in the recycling of DDs throughout RA sections. To this end, 600 empirical RAs representing six soft science disciplines from 2006 to 2018 were chosen, 300 of which were authored by English L1 scholars and another 300 by Iranian researchers. The quantitative analysis revealed similarities between the two groups of scholars, with the DD recycling appearing more frequently in the Discussion section than in other sections, and in Economics than in other disciplines. In the qualitative phase, the two groups of authors' common rationales for the DD recycling, including editorial policy, RA length, English academic writing conventions, and reader guidance were determined. However, only two reasons were identified in novice Iranian researchers' responses: redundancy and English academic writing conventions. This implies that EAP writing course designers need to provide more explicit teaching materials to help novice non-English L1 researchers find out how the DD recycling in each RA section directs the writing of that section and contributes to text coherence.
This article reports on a corpus-based study that examined the comparison-and-contrast markers in research articles of applied linguistics. The main argument is that comparison-and-contrast in academic writing functions as a rhetorical act that realises text organisation or dialogic contraction and as a cognitive act that fulfils representational changes and knowledge creation. Drawing upon the methodologies developed in the FrameNet project, this study retrieved and analysed comparison-and-contrast markers in a corpus of 30 research articles. A total of 1285 markers in the corpus were found to evoke nine interrelated semantic frames defined in FrameNet. Altogether, these nine frames contained 12 conceptually distinct elements. Based on their semantic overlap and conceptual necessity, we identified three core (Comparative_item, Dimension and Agent) and two non-core (Evaluation and Indication) frame elements and generated a comparison-and-contrast frame for research articles of applied linguistics. This frame serves as a cognitive device for understanding how comparison-and-contrast, shaped by disciplinary norms and epistemological assumptions, contributes to the creation and dissemination of scientific knowledge in applied linguistics. Recommendations are made about how this frame can serve as a basis for future research.
The present study aimed to investigate whether Reports on the results and Comments on the results moves' recycling in the Research Article (RA) Discussion sections is affected by cultural/disciplinary variations. To this end, 600 empirical RAs in six Soft Science disciplines, including Economics, Sociology, Applied Linguistics, Linguistics, Management, and Psychology, with an equal number in each discipline and culture, published in the period from 2006 to 2018 were selected. Weissberg and Buker's (1990) move model was used as a starting point to analyze the RAs. First, the Reports on the results and Comments on the results moves were identified in the Results sections. The Chi-Square test was then used to calculate and compare the frequency of their recycling in the Discussion sections across cultures and disciplines. The data analysis results revealed that changes in the disciplines or sociocultural settings do not result in variations in recycling the two moves under study. Given that the current study provides a relatively new framework for scrutinizing scientific discourse, it may promise certain pedagogical implications for native and non-native students in Soft Science disciplines, researchers, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) instructors, and course designers.
While novice writers are often expected to lucidly demonstrate the order in which different components of their reports are arranged, it is not clear as to whether such outlines are sufficiently prevalent in some social sciences. Neither are we certain about the range of structure- related language resources that can be introduced to novice writers. Based on an in-depth textual analysis and specialist informants’ inputs, this study ascertained the prevalence of structural outlines, reasons for using or avoiding them, and the linguistic resources needed to present them in high impact journals in two social science disciplines, namely ethnic studies (ES) and industrial relations (IR). It was found that the majority of the ES researchers avoid structural outlines, but most of the IR researchers incorporate them for reasons associated with the research methodologies chosen. While ES researchers prefer to use locative adverbials and different tenses, IR researchers tend to employ passive structures in structural outlines. Expert writers in both disciplines, however, rely on the use of nominalisations denoting discourse categories and personal pronouns in combination with communication, accomplishment and activity verbs. Recommendations are provided on how instructors can prepare relevant teaching materials to raise students’ consciousness of the prevalent lexico-grammatical choices needed.
This volume provides a concise overview of linguistic description in the field of English for Academic Purposes, charting its evolution and categorizing the various strands of research interest. Given the increasing use of English as a lingua franca, there has been a corresponding upsurge into research in EAP. The book synthesizes this research in one single volume and offers brief overviews on key terms and topics in EAP, including academic events and study genres, professional research genres and disciplinary discourses. This volume is key reading for graduate students new to the field as well as established researchers looking to expand their knowledge base in EAP. The work highlights the kinds of descriptions of academic English that have resulted from the research, which can be of interest to disciplinary teachers and lecturers, including those in English medium instruction.
Discussion (and/or other closing) (DC) sections of research articles in English-medium journals are difficult to write, especially when English is not a first language. This intercultural rhetoric research explores whether greater effort is made to promote research in English than in Spanish. I drew ten pairs of comparable DC sections from the EXEMPRAES (exemplary empirical research articles in English and Spanish) Corpus. I systematically annotated these sections for their communicative functions, and, for the first time, my annotations were validated by the article authors, themselves. Additionally, I used an online survey to understand the authors' promotional behaviour. This innovative mixed methodology confirmed that the social scientists in the study were more promotional in English than in Spanish. Authors in English highlighted more positive aspects of their studies and applications of their results. In contrast, Spanish authors were more neutral, focussing largely on statements of contribution and relevance to the zeitgeist. Revealing how different levels of culture (unstated communication principles, knowledge areas, socialisation processes and research assessment policies) affect the inclusion of specific communicative functions demonstrates how social scientists’ promotional approaches in DC sections are complex and merit further attention. Implications for the teaching of academic writing in English are drawn.
Pre-print available at: http://buleria.unileon.es/handle/10612/15057
Given the role of languages in disseminating knowledge, this study explored the positioning of Vietnamese researchers in relation to the foreign language they used for research. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews with six participants who were researchers in social sciences. Findings revealed that senior researchers positioned Russian and French as an ebbing tradition while the mid-career researcher considered Chinese providing less access to research. In contrast, early-career academics saw English as bringing great opportunities to their career despite expressing their anxiety about their proficiency in using English for publication. We argue that although disseminating knowledge in English amongst younger generation researchers is important, senior researchers in educational systems influenced by multiple languages should still be encouraged to capitalise on their existing multilingual capacity, using their preferable foreign languages to disseminate knowledge globally. Instead of solely conforming to the hegemony of English, policies and practices of research should consider multilingual sources in policymaking process.
The Discussion section constitutes a powerful closing argument used by a researcher to highlight key findings in relation to the existing knowledge with the aim of facilitating readers’ comprehension of the entire study. As previous research has yet to identify the frequencies of the different types of background information and the language resources used to present them, this study sought to identify the types of background information employed by expert writers, ascertain the frequencies and positions of the information concerned, and explore how expert writers use lexico-grammatical resources to present such information in the Discussion sections of Forestry research reports. Using a genre-based analytical framework, 60 Discussion sections in Forestry journals were studied. The findings revealed that provision of essential background information is a principal communicative move appearing in 95% of Forestry Discussion sections. This section comprises (i) contextual and theoretical information aimed at facilitating readers’ comprehension of the findings to be presented, and (ii) a reiteration of objectives, methods and/or hypotheses of the research. Based on the findings, it is suggested that background information be highlighted to learners as a segment that serves a promotional function which emphasises the significance of their research topic in relation to the plenitude of past studies. Using the language resources identified in this study, it is recommended that lecturers teaching English for Research Purposes (ERP) focus on the use of (i) adjectives denoting prominence, (ii) investigative and procedural verbs, (iii) means and purposive adjuncts, and (iv) infinitive clauses describing expected behaviours in order to help learners clearly furnish relevant background information. © 2018, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Press. All rights reserved.
Intercultural text-based research has shown remarkable differences in the rhetorical structure and devices of research articles (RAs) in different linguistic/cultural contexts of publication, including the Spanish local context and the English international context. However, not much attention has been paid to the research article (RA) writing process, which can throw light into the publication practices of second language (L2) scholars in particular disciplinary fields and which can help unveil their main writing difficulties. In this paper I focus on the "text histories" of a team of Spanish researchers in the field of Finance who struggle to get their research articles published internationally in English. These text histories correspond to 24 papers drafted and (re)submitted over the past 5-6 years. The analysis focuses on the extent to which they aim to publish their RAs in English, how they cope with writing their texts in English, their success in such a task and the kind of negative comments included in the referee reports they receive. Results show that this team of L2 scholars almost exclusively write their RAs in English and aim at publishing them in Englishmedium international journals; for this demanding task, they draw on a number of strategies. They are partially successful in that they have managed to publish half of their RAs in the first site where they were submitted. Their manuscripts received a lot of negative comments; especially relevant is the inclusion of a high number of unspecific negative comments related to language or style in major revision reports. Looking into the writing process can be of great help to provide L2 scholars with useful guidelines on drafting their RAs in English for international publication and to gain an insight into the forces driving international publication in this context.
The phenomenon of publishing scientific work in English, particularly on the part of nonnative English speakers, ought to be seen as a manifestation of the globalization occurring in the world today. Applied linguistics have paid in-creasing attention to the phenomenon in recent years of scientific texts
written by nonnative speakers of English (e.g. Li, 2006; Burgess, 2002; Flowerdew, 1999a, 1999b) and the process of international publishing (Salager-Meyer, 2008; Lillis and Curry,2006; Burrough-Boenisch, 2003) (see Uzuner, 2008 for a literature review of empirical studies). My aim is to better understand the social construction of publishing on the part of scientists situated outside the English-dominant countries. Thus an analytical framework is needed that integrates political entities, publishing policies, and the individual scientist-author. In this study, I bring together several theoretical lenses to focus on a telling case of one scholar’s publishing experience.
In this paper I explore cross-linguistic rhetorical variation in the Literature Review chapters of 30 computer science doctoral theses written by English L1 (EngL1), Spanish L1 (SpaL1) and English L2 (EngL2) writers. Using Kwan's (2006) genre-analytical framework (Move 1: Establishing one part of the territory of one's own research; Move 2: Creating a niche; Move 3: Occupying the research niche), I particularly examine how writers present their research in Move 3 (M3). The results show the functional importance of M3 strategies in the computer science PhD thesis Literature Reviews. The texts in English present a higher number of occurrences and a wider range of M3 strategies than the SpaL1 texts. However, the SpaL1 texts are more homogeneous in terms of rhetorical distribution. Variation is also found in the linguistic mechanisms that the writers of the three groups use to make themselves visible and promote their work. National writing styles, discipline conventions and language barriers to effective interpersonal communication seem to have an influence on these writers. EAP courses and specific genre-based writing instruction could help junior scholars to successfully manage M3 strategies.
Previous quantitative studies suggest that the burden researchers who use English as an additional language perceive when writing research articles (RAs) for publication in English (as L2) is 24% greater than the burden they perceive when they write RAs for publication in their L1. It remains unclear precisely which aspects of research article (RA) writing in English present these writers with the greatest challenge and just why they perceive this increase in difficulty. A structured questionnaire comprising thirty-seven questions about researchers' publication experiences in scientific journals in English and in Spanish was designed and sent out to all (n = 8,794) Spanish postdoctoral researchers at one research-only institution and four universities in Spain, yielding responses from 1,717 researchers. Our first results show that the discussion is the section that is perceived as more difficult to write for English-medium journals, across the four broad knowledge areas in a way that cannot be fully explained by their lower level of proficiency in English (as L2). This article proposes the rhetorical transfer hypothesis as a possible explanation for their additional difficulty. Our results also reveal that their increased perceived difficulty writing RA discussions in English (as L2) does not decrease noticeably until Spanish researchers report high or very high levels of proficiency in English (as L2) for academic or general purposes or have published on average at least 37 RAs as corresponding author in English-medium journals over the last ten years. Implications for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) research and pedagogy are discussed. Spanish researchers' perceived difficulty writing research articles for English-medium journals: the impact of proficiency in English versus publication experience
This chapter shows the importance of comparing corpora that are really comparable. The chapter conceives of texts as exemplars of situated genres and acknowledges that the rhetorical and discourse configuration of texts vary as a function of the contextual factors in which texts are situated. It argues that corpora may be considered equivalent (or similar to the maximum degree) across cultures to the extent that the text exemplars are similar in all of the relevant contextual factors. It concludes that cross- cultural corpora designs should attempt to control statistically as many of the relevant contextual factors as possible. If not, it may not be possible to say anything reliable about the possible effect of the language/culture factor on texts. Instead, possible differences found may be due to uncontrolled contextual variables.
This paper presents an analysis of the major generic structures of empirical research articles (RAs), with a particular focus on disciplinary variation and the relationship between the adjacent sections in the introductory and concluding parts. The findings were derived from a close “manual” analysis of 433 recent empirical RAs from high-impact English-language journals in 39 disciplines in the fields of engineering, applied sciences, social sciences and the humanities. This analysis reveals that while many empirical RAs follow the “standard” Introduction-Method-Results-Discussion (IMRD) pattern, this structure is not the default option for organizing such studies. The findings indicate that the most frequently used structural pattern is Introduction-Literature Review-Method-Results and Discussion-Conclusion (ILM[RD]C). The other prominent patterns found in the corpus are IM[RD]C, IMRDC, ILMRDC and ILMRD. The paper identifies and highlights the importance of the sections that are not fully accounted for in the conventional IMRD framework, namely the Literature Review (L), the merged (as opposed to separated) Results and Discussion [RD], and the Conclusion (C). The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the study for academic writing research as well as the design of RA writing courses and materials for research students and early-career academics.
This paper is a contribution to an expanding literature on the challenges non-Anglophone academics confront in disseminating their research in English, the dominant language of international scientific communication. Drawing on a corpus of interviews with senior Spanish academics, who remain a relatively little researched academic community compared to many others, we focus on the English language publishing/dissemination practices of our subjects, on their attitudes to the dominance of English, on their perceptions of the most problematic aspects of writing in English, and on their views as to how they might best be supported by their university with regard to their English language needs. The overall aim is to better understand how these academics cope with the challenge of disseminating research in English with a view to formulating the most realistic and most appropriate interventions to support them. Salient among our findings is that subjects report a particular sense of disadvantage in relation to spoken communication at conferences, more so than for academic writing. This, therefore, is a potentially fruitful area for supportive intervention along with others discussed in the conclusion to the paper.
This book provides a rich and accessible account of genre studies by a world-renowned applied linguist. The hardback edition discusses today's research world, its various configurations of genres, and the role of English within the genres. Theoretical and methodological issues are explored, with a special emphasis on various metaphors of genre. The book is full of carefully worded detail and each chapter ends with suggestions for pedagogical practice. The volume closes with evaluations of contrastive rhetoric, applied corpus linguistics, and critical approaches to EAP. Research Genres provides a rich and scholarly account of this key area.
A standard model for describing the structure of research article
introductions, the CARS (Create A Research Space) model, is evaluated in
terms of how well it can be applied to 12 articles which have received
“best paper” awards in the field of software engineering.
The results indicate that, although the model adequately describes the
main framework of the introductions, a number of important features are
not accounted for, in particular: an extensive review of background
literature, the inclusion of many definitions and examples, and an
evaluation of the research in terms of application or novelty of the
results
This paper reports on an analysis of the conclusion sections of English research articles published in Thai and international journals. A comparison was made between 20 conclusion sections in international journals and 20 conclusion sections in Thai journals written by Thai writers in the field of applied linguistics. The two corpora were analysed using Yang and Allison's (2003) move model. The results revealed that all three moves of the proposed model occurred in the two sets of data but with differences in their frequency of occurrence. There were no obligatory moves or steps in the two corpora. Move structures in the conclusion sections of the Thai corpus varied more from the proposed model than those of the conclusion sections in the international corpus. The findings could assist considerably in an understanding of the rhetorical move structure of the conclusion sections of research articles. In addition, they may yield implications for a pedagogical framework for the teaching of academic writing, syllabus design, and genre-based teaching and writing.
Coding is a critical part of research synthesis. It is an attempt to reduce a complex, messy, context-laden, and quantification-resistant reality to a matrix of numbers. Thus it will always remain a challenge to fit the numerical scheme to the reality, and the fit will never be perfect. Systematic strategies for evaluating coding decisions enable the synthesist to control for much of the error inherent in the process. When used in conjunction with other strategies, they can help reduce error as well. This chapter discusses strategies to reduce error as well as those to control for error and suggests further research to advance the theory and practice of this particular aspect of the synthesis process. To set the context, however, it is first useful to describe the sources of error in synthesis coding decisions.
The presentation of scientific discourse in academic texts is characterized, among other features, by the construction of an authorial voice which projects an image of the authors themselves and of their relation to their arguments, community, and readers. The construction of the author's voice is here explored in the frequency of use, distribution, and discourse function of first-person pronouns across languages (English and Spanish) in research articles within the discipline of Business Management written in English as L1, and in English as L2, and in Spanish by Spanish academics. The divergences observed suggest that the disciplinary and the linguistic variables interplay and determine the textual points in the research article at which authors make themselves visible, and the frequency of that visibility. Significant conclusions can be drawn as to how visible Spanish academics make themselves when writing in English, and whether the divergences/similarities found in comparison with their Anglo-American peers respond to interference of their academic literacies in Spanish. This knowledge may then allow them to make informed decisions as to whether and/or in what senses they may modulate their voice to comply with what is expected from writers publishing in international contexts in Business Management.
Genre analysis has provided insights into the textual organization of different genres. In the research article (RA) genre, previous studies demonstrate that disciplinary variation is discernible. To raise the investigation to the level of sub-disciplines, this study addresses two research questions: (1) What is the textual organization of individual RA sections in corpora from three engineering sub-disciplines? and (2) What are the significant statistical variations in textual organization that distinguish one engineering sub-discipline from another? Initially, three corpora were compiled, consisting of 180 full length high quality RAs representing three sub-disciplines of engineering (civil, software, and biomedical). Then, the corpora were analyzed using genre analysis to identify the textual organization prevalent in individual RA sections of each engineering sub-discipline. Subsequently, units of textual analysis called ‘move’ and ‘step’ were quantified and statistically analyzed to capture significant statistical variations in each section. The analysis reveals the influence of the sub-disciplines on the textual organization variations across the corpora, highlighting the unique characteristics and perspectives of each sub-discipline. The findings contribute to enhanced quality professional communication by creating and raising awareness and sensitivity among prospective engineering students and practitioners when they are involved in the task of reading and/or writing RAs.
Writing short stories constitutes an art that requires considerable knowledge, experience, skills, and understanding of both the generic structure and language resources needed to convey meaning and arouse readers' interest. Previous studies, however, have yet to provide a conclusive approach that shows how language mechanisms can be used to realise writers' wide-ranging communicative intentions in a specific second language context. Based on the argument that second language story-writing instruction needs to incorporate an in-depth study into some texts intended for second language writers in a particular socio-cultural setting, this study investigated the generic structure of short stories written by professional textbook writers for second language learners. Using the Swalesian analytical framework, we analysed a corpus of short stories selected from different education-related sources in a second language context, and subsequently ascertained the language resources needed to accomplish the communicative functions of the stories. We have identified eleven rhetorical steps, each of which has differing and yet inter-connected communicative functions performed by noteworthy language mechanisms. Our findings are useful in helping instructors prepare teaching materials that illustrate how second language writers can comprehend and employ salient communicative resources to write meaningful short stories in a socio-culturally relevant schematic structure.
This book reports on almost a decade of ethnographic research on the academic writing and publishing practices of 50 scholars of education and psychology located in central and southern Europe.
Research publication in the international arena, is crucial for multilingual scholars in most disciplinary areas. For many, among them Spanish scholars, it still represents a considerable hurdle. The findings we report here are part of a wider research project involving a large online survey of scholars at five universities and research institutions in Spain. We aimed to identify the needs of Spanish researchers in terms of research publishing skills in both English and Spanish, learn about their attitudes, motivations and experiences of research publication and of writing training. The present paper compares the results for scholars in History and Psychology. Through analysis of quantitative and comment data, we show how the motivations of these scholars with regard to research publication in the two languages work together with the strategies and resources available to them to determine language selection. We also review their experience of training in research writing and their willingness to pursue further training. Although the two groups of scholars differ in terms of attitudes to publication in English, they share a willingness to negotiate the challenges presented by institutional constraints, making strategic decisions about the choice of language in which to publish and their own language development.
Outwardly the rhetorical organisation of sections of research reports in different disciplines can appear similar. Close examination, however, may reveal subtle differences. Numerous studies have drawn on the genre-based approach developed by Swales (1990, 2004) to investigate the schematic structure of sections of articles in a range of disciplines. Dentistry does not appear to have attracted this kind of research interest. The present study examined discussion sections of articles in Dentistry with reference to a schematic framework of discussion sections in Applied Linguistics. Steps in ‘commenting on results’ moves were closely examined to understand how arguments about the meaning and significance of results in the Dentistry discussions were constructed. Findings showed the discussion sections could largely be accounted for in terms of moves and steps in the framework (thus indicating a broadly similar rhetorical organisation) and they revealed two patterns of argumentation in commenting moves, one not reported in previous genre-based research. Findings from the study are discussed in relation to disciplinary variation. The study provides a genre-based description of discussion sections of articles in Dentistry and suggests that analysis of steps, sub steps and sequences within moves can be a useful focus for genre-based investigation of disciplinary norms.
This corpus-based contrastive study examines the thematic use of the semantic field of research and researchers in the Discussion section of biomedical reports in Spanish native texts and English-Spanish translations. This semantic field was divided into integral reference (specific named researchers), general nouns for researchers, and singular and plural nouns referring to research. Themes containing these lexical items were examined with regard to their syntactic manifestations and their lexicogrammatical relations with the main finite verb. Quantitative analysis was used to establish reference values for the native texts and to reveal differences between the two subcorpora. Qualitative contextual analysis then investigated how the data might be applied to the translated texts. The quantitative study showed that the Spanish texts had more integral references and more general researcher nouns in their themes whereas the translations had more singular research nouns, especially those referring to the current study. Singular research nouns were associated with more prepositional adjuncts in the Spanish texts but with more subject themes, either as head or as modifier, in the translations. The distribution of tenses was different in all categories except for plural research nouns, with a higher percentage of present and present perfect in the Spanish texts and more past indefinite in the translations. Differences were also found in the distribution of lexical verbs related to integral references and singular research nouns. The contextual analysis revealed that awareness of these differences and strategic choices based on them could lead to thematic and discourse patterns that come closer to the target-language norms for this genre.
This paper compares the rhetorical organization of research article introductions in Brazilian Portuguese and in English within a subfield of Applied Linguistics. Using Swales’ (1990) CARS model as an analytical tool, this exploratory study investigated 20 research articles. The findings indicate that introductions in Brazilian Portuguese tend to follow a different pattern from that of the model, whereas the introductions in English follow it closely. Different explanations are offered to account for the cross-cultural differences.
The paper borrows inspiration from three main sources: discourse organization and processing, genre analysis, and ethnography of communication. It explores cross-cultural variation in academic discourse on the basis of some English and Polish data from the field of language studies. Strategies of paper introduction are examined and compared with the help of an extended version of Swales' (1990) Move Analysis. It is argued that there exist potential areas of (in)compatibility between the two writing styles. These involve first of all the scope of information that is normally revealed in initiating a paper, and the rhetorical work that is done to handle academic face-phenomena.
This paper deals with an underdeveloped notion in the EAP sub-discipline of contrastive rhetoric: culture. It argues that a better conceptualization of contrastive rhetoric needs to include a better conceptualization of culture. After engaging with the complex question “What is culture?” the paper moves on to consider four sets of current issues regarding the concept of culture: (1) received culture versus postmodern culture versus cultural studies culture; (2) culture as product versus culture as process; (3) culture in the head versus culture in the world; and (4) big culture versus small culture. The paper then ends with a call for greater attention to the culture concept in contrastive rhetoric studies.
Our paper examines how selected research articles (RAs) reporting empirical investigations in applied linguistics proceed from first presenting results to eventually offering final conclusions or some other form of closure. After reviewing the literature on relevant aspects of RA structure and its functions, we report the findings of a genre analysis of 20 RAs in applied linguistics concerning rhetorical choices among possible Results, Results and Discussion, Discussion, Conclusion, and Pedagogic Implications sections, and identify specific organizational choices within each section. We propose a two-level account (Moves and Steps) of the separate Discussion sections in our corpus, and argue that this is able to capture general trends and specific rhetorical realizations in an insightful way.
This paper presents a linguistic description of the schematic organisation of research articles in the field of computer science. Forty articles from three different academic journals in computing research have been analysed; the results indicate that the IMRD (introduction-methods-results-discussion) pattern cannot be applied to research articles in computer science systematically. Introductory and concluding sections, however, are used in more instances. It is the central part of these articles which seems to depart more from the IMRD pattern. Detailed analyses of the structure of introductions, results, and conclusions are included, and relevant comparisons with previous studies are drawn.
Taking as their starting point recent work in genre and discourse analysis the authors attempt, through the presentation of results of their own investigations, to establish a framework for a pedagogically useful description of the organisation of discussion sections in research-focused articles and dissertations. A provisional list of descriptive categories is offered along with observations on regularly occurring patterns of moves identified in the texts investigated.
This study uses a genre-based analysis of 20 research articles (RAs) from the discipline of sociology to present a provisional, pedagogically usable description of the communicative categories or “moves” (Swales 1981, 1990) found in the Results sections. These categories are described in terms of function, lexis, and grammatical form, and a model of the typical, cyclical patterns formed by combinations of the categories is given. The categories found extend and refine previous models of this section, reveal certain similarities with the Discussion sections of hard science RAs, and provide evidence of disciplinary variation.
Compositionists often speak of the need to help students acquire a voice or identity in their writing. This interest in teaching voice is understandable but also problematic. Satisfactorily defining “voice,” especially from a second language (L2) point of view, is one of those problems. Another is a reliance on various conceptualizations that privilege a “Western” or a romantic or individualistic notion of voice in classroom situations where many students do not share such a background. In this paper, we use three case studies to address a third problem: a tendency in L2 writing instruction and research to overlook the voices, or identities, already possessed by L2 writers, many of whom at the graduate level bring a history of success as professional/academic writers in their native language and culture to the L2 writing classroom. We examine the role voice can play not as a teaching device but rather as a means by which to investigate and understand the voice-related issues these mature writers encounter in L2 contexts.
The electronic version of this book has been prepared by scanning TIFF 600 dpi bitonal images of the pages of the text. Original source: Academic discourse and critical consciousness / Patricia Bizzell.; Bizzell, Patricia.; vi, 295 p. ; 24 cm.; Pittsburgh :; This electronic text file was created by Optical Character Recognition (OCR). No corrections have been made to the OCR-ed text and no editing has been done to the content of the original document. Encoding has been done through an automated process using the recommendations for Level 2 of the TEI in Libraries Guidelines. Digital page images are linked to the text file.
Recent years have seen a considerable growth in the area of genre-based language studies. Many of these studies focus on levels
of discourse structure which have been variously referred to in the literature as the 'schematic structure', 'generic structure',
and 'generic structural potential'for a particular genre. Very little research, however, has attempted to examine the criteria
that have been used for the identification of textual boundaries in genre studies. This paper examines a number of examples
of genre analysis with the aim of identifying the criteria employed for the identification of textual boundaries in these
studies. In doing so, it reaches the conclusion that there are non-linguistic, rather than linguistic, reasons for generic
staging in texts, and that the search for structural divisions in texts should be seen as a search for cognitive boundaries
in terms of convention, appropriacy, and content rather than as a search for linguistically defined boundaries.
Packed houses and intimate gatherings: Audience and rhetorical structure
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Las conclusiones de los artículos de investigaci on desde una perspectiva contrastiva
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