6,427 research outputs found

    A contrastive study of the rhetorical organisation of English and Spanish PhD thesis introductions

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    This paper presents an analysis of the introductory sections of a corpus of 20 doctoral theses on computing written in Spanish and in English. Our aim was to ascertain whether the theses, produced within the same scientific-technological area but by authors from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, employed the same rhetorical strategies to introduce the work presented. The analysis follows the Swalesian approach and is based on a move/step/sub-step model proposed for PhD introductions in Spanish (Carbonell-Olivares, Gil-Salom, & Soler-Monreal, 2009). The Spanish academic conventions appear to be that move 1 (M1- Establishing the Territory) and move 3 (M3- Occupying the Niche) are obligatory moves in PhD thesis introductions in Spanish, while move 2 (M2- Establishing the Niche) is optional. The structure of English thesis introductions reveals that they conform more closely to the M1-M2-M3 arrangement. Moreover, combinations of moves and patterns, cyclicity and embedding make their organisation more complex. The step analysis suggests that introductions in both languages rely mainly on the presentation of background information and the work carried out. However, the English introductions tend to stress the writer's own work, its originality and its contribution to the field of study. They also present more embedding and overlapping of steps and sub-steps than the Spanish texts. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.Soler Monreal, C.; Carbonell Olivares, MS.; Gil Salom, ML. (2011). A contrastive study of the rhetorical organisation of English and Spanish PhD thesis introductions. English for Specific Purposes. 30(1):4-17. doi:10.1016/j.esp.2010.04.005S41730

    Contrasting the rhetoric of abstracts in medical discourse: Implications and applications for English/Spanish translation

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    Producción CientíficaThe present study aims at offering a contrastive analysis framework for the specific textual patterns of the expert-to-expert communicative setting from a semantic and a functional approach. Our methodology tries to identify patterns of behaviour in one of the genres that might be said to be exclusive of expert-to-expert discourse in medicine: abstracts. By means of describing regularities, differences in the way information is distributed will be pinpointed. Since textual realizations have been agreed to bridge the distance between the semantic and the functional component, cohesion will be analyzed both as a semantic marker and as an indicator of information distribution — pragmatic marker — according to functional constraints. ‘Ad hoc’ comparable and translation corpora have been built, extracted from medical journals with a significant impact. Intra and interlingual analysis of those corpora has been carried out to attain a comprehensive description of textual patterns from the above mentioned semantic, formal and functional parametrical levels.Junta de Castilla y León (2005–2007) - Project (UEMC01A05)Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (HUM2005-01215

    Announcement of the principal findings and value addition in Computer Science research papers

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    This paper presents a rhetorical analysis of the Introductions of Computer Science (CS) research articles from a specialized corpus with reference to “Announcement of Principal Findings” and “Statement of Value” steps within the framework of the “Create A Research Space” (CARS) model (Swales, 2004), conducted through corpus-based techniques. The results show that discoursal practices in CS are result-oriented and in various ways highlight the writers’ contribution. The results are explicitly described with embedded “value” statements in the elaborate explanations of the nature of the present research. The common linguistic indicators used for this purpose are “contribution”, “efficient” and “novel”. The discussion concludes with the suggestion to amend the CARS model for CS writers

    A genre analysis of the introduction section of computer science research articles by Malaysian researchers

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    Research article introduction is crucial in determining the chances for publication. Non–native English writers have been reported to face difficulties in structuring rhetorical strategies in the introduction section. Although rhetorical models in writing are available, research articles of different disciplines vary in rhetorical structure and style. Therefore, there is a need to explore the rhetorical strategies in the Introduction sections for non-native writers in Computer Science discipline. This qualitative study explored the moves and steps in 150 Scopus indexed Computer Science research articles written by Malaysian academicians. It also examined the extent to which the writers conformed to Create a Research Space (CARS) model when writing the introduction sections. Move analysis using CARS model was employed to identify the rhetorical structures of the corpus while face-to-face semi- structured interviews were conducted to understand the use of rhetorical strategies through the perspectives of the writers. The findings show that Presenting research questions or hypothesis was not applied by the non-native writers. Five steps were underutilized, namely indicating a gap, Announcing present research descriptively or purposively, Announcing principle outcomes, Stating the value of the present research, and Outlining the structure of the paper. The findings also show that 12 moves and steps need to be included in the introduction section of Computer Science articles. This study contributes to the existing literature on the writing of Scopus indexed Computer Science articles by nonnative writers. The study also produced a set of guidelines that can be used by non-native writers and language instructors in the teaching and learning of research article writing

    Writer's positioning in literature reviews in English and Spanish computing doctoral theses

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    Making appropriate reference to other texts is an essential feature of successful academic writing (Hyland, 2000; Myers, 1990). Writers are expected to integrate others' ideas into their arguments to indicate what is already known about the area of study of the discipline, or to point out weaknesses, aligning themselves with a particular disciplinary framework (Thompson & Tribble, 2001). Literature reviews (LRs) of PhD theses provide support for the writer's position and show the novelty of her/his work. This study analysed the resources of evaluation at both rhetorical and linguistic levels used by the writers of 20 PhD LRs in computing in English and Spanish. The data reveal that the Spanish and the English PhD LRs have a similar rhetorical structure. However, the English writers use more strategies for the development of each move than the Spanish writers. Attitude markers are the most usual devices doctoral writers use to express opinion in both sets. Epistemic modality and a variety of discourse-based markers are typically found in the English LRs while the Spanish LRs seem to rely mainly on adversatives and certainty markers. Differences respond partly to individual writing styles, but also reflect rhetorical variation in the relationship with the audience. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reservedGil Salom, ML.; Soler Monreal, C. (2014). Writer's positioning in literature reviews in English and Spanish computing doctoral theses. Journal of English for Academic Purposes. 16:23-39. doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2014.08.002S23391

    An Approach to Corpus-based Discourse Analysis: The Move Analysis as Example

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    This post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of the article submitted to IUPUI ScholarWorks as part of the OASIS Project. Article reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Permission granted through posted policies on copyright owner’s website or through direct contact with copyright owner.This article presents a seven-step corpus-based approach to discourse analysis that starts with a detailed analysis of each individual text in a corpus that can then be generalized across all texts of a corpus, providing a description of typical patterns of discourse organization that hold for the entire corpus. This approach is applied specifically to a methodology that is used to analyze texts in terms of the functional/communicative structures that typically make up texts in a genre: move analysis. The resulting corpus-based approach for conducting a move analysis significantly enhances the value of this often used (and misused) methodology, while at the same time providing badly needed guidelines for a methodology that lacks them. A corpus of ‘birthmother letters’ is used to illustrate the approach

    Evaluative adjectives in academic writing in the humanities and social sciences

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    International audienceThis study deals with evaluative adjectives in French academic writing in the field of humanities and social sciences (linguistics and economics) through a corpus study of various kinds of texts (research articles, theses, course books). Although not as much attention has been paid to adjectives in French as to other parts of speech, I believe that this category plays a prominent role in argumentation and persuasion and can shed light on the rhetorical strategies used by an author. Following Kerbrat-Orecchioni's (1980) typology of subjective adjectives, I performed a corpus study on evaluative adjectives referring to scientific nouns such as scientific artifacts, scientific observables, relations, and qualities in order to study disciplinary variation and to identify the most common patterns. The results show that axiological evaluation is not very common, in contrast to more "neutral" evaluative types such as novelty, importance, time, comparison and complexity. Firstly, in order to convince the reader, authors seem to avoid very subjective evaluation in scientific writing. Secondly, recurrent associations are often cross-disciplinary and exhibit strong selectional preferences between nouns and evaluative adjectives: for example, temporal adjectives generally refer to scientific artifacts while axiological adjectives mainly refer to results. Thirdly, contrary to my expectations, evaluative adjectives of all semantic types are more numerous in economics than in linguistics, and especially those expressing importance and novelty, something that seems to highlight the importance of authorial self-promotion in this discipline. Finally, the use of evaluative adjectives seems closely linked to rhetorical strategies: they are especially numerous in introductions (and in conclusions in economics), where they are used mainly to justify and promote the author's work

    Applying the bundle-move connection approach to the development of an online writing support tool for research articles

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    With advances in information and computer technology, genre-based writing pedagogy has developed greatly in recent years. In order to further this growth in technology-enhanced genre writing pedagogy, the current study developed a data-driven and theory-based practical writing support tool for research articles (RAs). This web-based, innovative tool, powered by the combination of rhetorical moves and lexical bundles, has an auto-complete feature that suggests the most frequent lexical bundles in a move within an RA section. It was developed based on the proof-of-concept of the bundle-move connection approach. Preliminary user feedback was positive was overall, and it was found that the writing support tool brought about beneficial effects that genre writing pedagogy explicitly aims to achieve. In light of these findings, the pedagogical implications of the developed tool are discussed, with particular focus on the potential role that it could play in the teaching and learning of technology-enhanced genre writing.The study was funded by the 2015-2016 Kansai University Outlay for Establishing Research Centers and JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 17H02369 and 15K02717

    Move two: establishing a niche

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    The significant purpose of the author in the Introduction of a research article is to convince the reader about the importance of the work to be presented. To achieve this end, a convincing “niche” needs to be built by evaluating, rejecting or indicating gaps in previous related work. The purpose of “establishing a niche” is to emphasize the current research project presented by the author. The present paper investigates how Computer scientists use this obligatory step of “Create a Research Space” (CARS) model (Swales & Feak, 1994 & 2004) to highlight their own research work. This paper not only compares the results with other similar studies but also presents an in-depth analysis of various types of gap statements used in Computer Science research article Introductions. The issue of cyclicity of this step and the linguistic indicators used for the establishment of “niche” (the gap statements) are both discussed
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