Genres in the forefront, languages in the background: the scope of genre analysis in language-related scenarios

Drawing on bibliometric methods (citation analysis and content analysis) and literature review, this paper offers some critical reflections of how genre analysis has been used, applied, expanded and refined to address the challenges of a culturally and linguistically diverse academic and research community. The first reflection opens with a brief review of the privileged status of English as the international language of academic and research communication to discuss contrasting scholarly positions that regard ‘Englishization’ as either ‘help’ or ‘hindrance’. The second reflection focuses on rhetorical move analysis, an aspect of genre theory that to date has been little considered outside ESP/EAP traditions of genre analysis. It discusses how move analysis, in cross-fertilization with various theoretical/analytical frameworks, can add to our understanding of the way L2 academic English writers accomplish meso- and micro-rhetorical manoeuvres. The final reflection touches upon the impact of internationalization and research assessment policies on the current knowledge exchange, dissemination and publication practices to emphasize the value of the Swalesian task-based approach and advocate a multiliterate rhetorical consciousness-raising pedagogy. The paper concludes with some suggestions for future genre research and proposes ways of articulating cogent language instructional intervention to empower members of bi-/multiliterate academic and research communities professionally

The Effect of System-Nested, Genre-Oriented, Structurally-Mediated Model (SGSM) of Writing Instruction, and Swalesian Model (SM) upon Iranian Learners’ Writing Performance: A Comparative Study

The purpose of the present study was first to offer a tentative solution to the problems observed in writing pedagogy in Iran by devising a more comprehensive approach to genre-based writing instruction. In the second phase, a quasi-experimental research design was adopted to determine how effective the model was in writing instruction, compared with the traditional, product-oriented approach, as well as Swales’ genre-based approach. The participants were selected randomly and then divided into three groups: A control group (CG) (N=8) that received product-oriented instruction, Swales’ model (SM) group (N=8), and the system-nested, genre-oriented, structurally mediated model (SGSM) group (N=7). The results obtained through One-way ANOVA revealed that the SM group outperformed the CG group on the posttest of writing. Moreover, the SGSM group outperformed the other two groups on the posttest of writing. The pedagogical and theoretical findings of the study were then discussed.Keywords: writing, genre-based instruction, system-nested, genre-oriented, structurally-mediated mode

Trialing project-based learning in a new EAP ESP course: A collaborative reflective practice of three college English teachers

Currently in many Chinese universities, the traditional College English course is facing the risk of being ‘marginalized’, replaced or even removed, and many hours previously allocated to the course are now being taken by EAP or ESP. At X University in northern China, a curriculum reform as such is taking place, as a result of which a new course has been created called ‘xue ke’ English. Despite the fact that ‘xue ke’ means subject literally, the course designer has made it clear that subject content is not the target, nor is the course the same as EAP or ESP. This curriculum initiative, while possibly having been justified with a rationale of some kind (e.g. to meet with changing social and/or academic needs of students and/or institutions), this is posing a great challenge for, as well as considerable pressure on, a number of College English teachers who have taught this single course for almost their entire teaching career. In such a context, three teachers formed a peer support group in Semester One this year, to work collaboratively co-tackling the challenge, and they chose Project-Based Learning (PBL) for the new course. This presentation will report on the implementation of this project, including the overall designing, operational procedure, and the teachers’ reflections. Based on discussion, pre-agreement was reached on the purpose and manner of collaboration as offering peer support for more effective teaching and learning and fulfilling and pleasant professional development. A WeChat group was set up as the chief platform for messaging, idea-sharing, and resource-exchanging. Physical meetings were supplementary, with sound agenda but flexible time, and venues. Mosoteach cloud class (lan mo yun ban ke) was established as a tool for virtual learning, employed both in and after class. Discussions were held at the beginning of the semester which determined only brief outlines for PBL implementation and allowed space for everyone to autonomously explore in their own way. Constant further discussions followed, which generated a great deal of opportunities for peer learning and lesson plan modifications. A reflective journal, in a greater or lesser detailed manner, was also kept by each teacher to record the journey of the collaboration. At the end of the semester, it was commonly recognized that, although challenges existed, the collaboration was overall a success and they were all willing to continue with it and endeavor to refine it to be a more professional and productive approach

Certainty and doubt in academic discourse : epistemic modality markers in English and Polish linguistics articles

Przedmiotem pracy są językowe wykładniki stopnia pewności sądów w artykułach naukowych z dziedziny językoznawstwa w języku angielskim i polskim. Punktem wyjścia podjętych badań jest przekonanie, że różne tradycje intelektualne, w jakich kształtowała się polska i angielska komunikacja akademicka – tradycje odmiennie postrzegające status wiedzy naukowej i proces jej tworzenia, relację między autorem i czytelnikiem, czy wreszcie sam akt pisania i stopień dialogowości tekstu naukowego – mogą znajdować odzwierciedlenie w różnych przeświadczeniach dotyczących tego, czym jest fakt naukowy, a co pozostaje w sferze hipotez, założeń i propozycji oczekujących na potwierdzenie i akceptację środowiska akademickiego. Różnice te z kolei sugerowałyby, iż autorzy wywodzący się z tych dwóch kręgów kulturowych mogą przywiązywać różną wagę do wyraźnego oznaczania treści hipotetycznych oraz sądów, którym towarzyszy wysoki stopień pewności, oznaczać je w różny sposób, z różną częstotliwością i w różnych miejscach wywodu. Niniejsza praca podejmuje próbę ustalenia, czy różnice takie istnieją i, jeśli tak, których wykładników modalności epistemicznej dotyczą i jak przebiegają. Praca zbudowana jest z czterech rozdziałów, z których pierwszy dotyczy badań nad dyskursem akademickim i jego retoryką, drugi poświęcony jest modalności językowej, trzeci opisuje cel pracy, materiał badawczy oraz sposób jego analizowania, czwarty zaś przedstawia i omawia wyniki badania dla trzech wartości modalnych w obu językach. Pracę zamyka zwięzłe podsumowanie. Angielskojęzyczną część materiału badawczego stanowi 200 artykułów opublikowanych w latach 2001–2006 w naukowych czasopismach językoznawczych o zasięgu międzynarodowym: Journal of Pragmatics, Language and Communication, Language Sciences, Lingua i Linguistics and Philosophy. Polskojęzyczną część analizy oparto na danych zaczerpniętych z 200 artykułów opublikowanych w tym samym przedziale czasowym w polskich czasopismach językoznawczych, których tytuły znalazły się na liście czasopism punktowanych, opublikowanej w roku 2003 przez Komitet Badań Naukowych: Acta Baltico-Slavica, Biuletyn Polskiego Towarzystwa Językoznawczego, Etnolingwistyka, Język a Kultura, Onomastica, Poradnik Językowy, Slavia Meridionalis oraz Studia z Filologii Polskiej i Słowiańskiej. Obie części składają się na korpus o wielkości ok. trzech milionów słów. Analizę przeprowadzono na materiale zdygitalizowanym i oznaczonym (otagowanym) pod względem segmentów tekstu przy pomocy programu Oxford WordSmith Tools 5 jako narzędzia wspomagającego. W badaniu wzięto pod uwagę następujące kategorie wykładników: epistemiczne użycia czasowników modalnych (wraz z epistemicznymi użyciami czasu przyszłego w języku polskim), przysłówki epistemiczne, przymiotniki i rzeczowniki, które niosą znaczenia epistemiczne i wprowadzają zdania podrzędne, oraz epistemiczne czasowniki leksykalne. Najistotniejsze wyniki badania można streścić w następujących punktach: — Artykuły anglojęzyczne zawierają prawie dwukrotnie więcej wykładników modalności epistemicznej niż artykuły polskojęzyczne; w tekstach angielskich ponad dwukrotnie częściej spotyka się orientację subiektywną niż obiektywną, w tekstach polskich zaś przeważa orientacja obiektywna. — W tekstach anglojęzycznych najczęściej spotyka się niskie wartości modalne, drugą pod względem częstości występowania grupę stanowią wartości wysokie, wartości średnie występują zaś najrzadziej. W tekstach polskich autorów najczęściej wyrażane są średnie wartości modalne, najrzadziej natomiast spotyka się wartości wysokie. — Pod względem kategorii wykładników modalności epistemicznej, w anglojęzycznej części korpusu przeważają czasowniki modalne, w polskiej zaś przysłówki epistemiczne. — W obu grupach tekstów wykładniki sądów epistemicznych występują częściej w zakończeniu niż w innych segmentach; obserwacja ta dotyczy wszystkich wartości modalnych w języku angielskim oraz niskich i średnich wartości modalnych w języku polskim; wysoki stopień pewności odnotowywany jest w języku polskim z równą (niską) częstotliwością we wstępie i w zakończeniu. Praca może stanowić głos w dyskusji nad różnicami w stylach argumentacji akademickiej charakterystycznych dla poszczególnych kultur i dyscyplin, wnieść dane do badań porównawczych nad znaczeniami epistemicznymi i ich funkcją w różnych typach dyskursu oraz być punktem odniesienia dla dalszych analiz uwzględniających inne języki, gatunki i dyscypliny

A comparative study of EFL/ESL academic writing among Mandarin Chinese speakers on coherence in discourse: Cross-cultural and language development effects

This thesis investigates the effectiveness of a teaching intervention that aims to raise L1 Chinese students’ awareness regarding cross-cultural and language impacts on the construction of (British) English academic discourse, and equipping them with skills that they may independently apply to their academic writing. Two groups of Chinese students, separated by their IELTS written test scores (n=76) were recruited, and taught in a three-month teaching intervention at two British universities, over two consecutive years. This pedagogical practice is based on a syllabus designed by me and focuses on three domains that contribute to global and local discourse coherence: topical development at the discourse level (global coherence), the development of topic sentence at the paragraph level (local coherence), and the application of logical connectors at the sentence level (local coherence). Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from pre- and post-intervention essays, questionnaires and after-study interviews. This study reveals that the explicit teaching of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic factors is beneficial to both groups of L1 Chinese speakers’ academic English writing. The findings are that the learners with lower English proficiency benefited more from the linguistic features at the sentence level, compared with their counterparts’ evident attainment in both sentences and discourses. Both groups found a positive effect on their grammar in terms of subject-verb agreement when establishing the topical development of a discourse. The group with higher English proficiency also demonstrated a better self-reflection ability by transferring what they had learned into reading strategies. There was a mixed result in the development of topic sentence within paragraphs by both groups. This study offers the option of integrating a pedagogical practice into the current British and Chinese HE teaching systems. A replication of this syllabus in a Chinese university suggests that the current findings could be applied in a wider context

Error in the learning and teaching of english as a second language at higher education level

Linguistic error has proven to be a recurrent area of interest for researchers. There exist several types of approaches to error; some studies have focused on specific errors, such as grammatical errors, others on more general or exogenous issues, such as the perception of error of the group object of study, etc. From the point of view of methodology, some have been dedicated to the definition and description of error, while others have studied the identification of erroneous uses of language. Several proposals for error categorisation have also been propounded. In the case of error production in languages foreign to the speaker, the learning factor must also be included. Some authors have focused on the underlying reasons, questioning if the cause for errors rests upon an inadequate teaching method, or the actual teacher, or even if the cause is intrinsic to any learnt language, as opposed to the Mother Tongue. From the principle that it is possible to improve the language proficiency level of students by looking at the errors produced, this doctoral dissertation studies pragmatic error in the production of written English. In addition, it includes pedagogic perspectives that introduce a Second Language to potential speakers and the European Framework of Reference. The thesis is structured as follows: the first part is dedicated to a theoretical justification of the research, with an introduction to Pragmatics, Error Analysis, Contrastive Analysis, Second Language Acquisition -in particular the Communicative Approach- and the European Framework for Languages. The third chapter is dedicated to the objectives. Chapter 4 explains the methodology used for data processing and analysis. The results are explained in chapter 5 and chapter 6 presents the conclusions derived from these. To begin with, a proposal for error analysis and identification is presented. This takes into account error distribution and classification and language levels proposed in the Common Europea Framework of Reference for Languages as an open tool for the analysis of errors investigated.Mestre I Mestre, EM. (2011). Error in the learning and teaching of english as a second language at higher education level [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/11277Palanci

Textual deviation and coherence problems in the writings of Arab students at the University of Bahrain: sources and solutions

The present study compares the writings of a group of Arab students at the University of Bahrain in both Arabic and English. The main purpose is to investigate possible sources and solutions to the problem of textual incoherence and deviation. To this end, four hundred and sixty composition papers have been reviewed and thirty texts were analyzed in both languages to discover possible interference at the linguistic, cultural and rhetorical levels. The study investigates a variety of opinions on coherence from different perspectives such as cohesion, recoverability, continuity, development of topics, role of lexis, text structure and organization. For the analysis of texts, the researcher proposes and applies a new measurement for text coherence and topic development. The cultural, rhetorical and linguistic background of Arabic is presented as variables affecting students' performance in writing in both Arabic and English. The analysis of texts reveals that repetition, parallelism, sentence length, lack of variation and misuse of certain cohesive devices are major sources of incoherence and textual deviation in students' writing. The study is supplemented by the views of the Arabic Department staff on the quality of students' performance in Arabic. Interpretation of and solutions to various problems are suggested. The major conclusion is that there should be more concentration on the preservation of topic unity in teaching writing. A proposed plan for teaching writing based on the findings of this study is also suggested

응용언어학 분야 영어 학술 작문에 나타난 작가태도어: 한국 대학원생의 석사논문과 학술게재논문에 대한 코퍼스 기반 분석

학위논문 (석사)-- 서울대학교 대학원 : 외국어교육과 영어전공, 2016. 8. 오선영.Based on the widely accepted view that acknowledges the interactive function of written language, the concept of metadiscourse has been investigated in terms of its pragmatic role to express the writer's communicative intent in a proposition. In this regard, previous studies indicated that the role of metadiscourse in the domain of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing is one of the foremost ways to successful writing. Stance, as a category of metadiscourse, involves more writer-oriented dimension in which writers express a textual voice to convey their judgments and commitments to potential readers (Hyland, 2005b). The ultimate goal of academic writing is to persuade readers of their arguments, for which effective employment of stance markers in a text is crucial. Despite the relatively rich previous literature on stance markers in different terms, however, these existing studies primarily focused on non-native undergraduate student writings and only revealed quantitative differences. Further, according to genre analysis, it has been acknowledged that each IMRD section of research articles demands different kinds of rhetoric (Swales, 1990). However, there has been not many studies that focused on stance resources employed in different sections of research articles thoroughly. Based on this research gap, the present study investigates stance resources in EAP writing, by comparing masters theses written by Korean graduate students and published research articles. Focusing on the specific discipline of applied linguistics, the current study first compares the frequency and range of stance resources in four sub-categories: hedge, booster, attitude marker, and self-mention. This study then investigates any difference of frequencies depending on different sections of research articles. As for qualitative analysis, individual instances of stance resources are carefully examined within their extended context to find any meaningful variations of rhetorical functions. The findings showed that Korean novice writers employ significantly fewer stance resources compared to expert writers. In terms of sub-categories, expert writers employed significantly more hedges and self-mentions whereas boosters were more heavily employed by Korean novice writers. Attitude markers presented no significant difference. When it comes to comparison across different sections, Korean novice writers used stance resources more frequently in Introduction and Result section and expert writers in Discussion section. Qualitative analysis revealed more meaningful findings. First, Korean novice writers showed some inappropriate combinations of hedges and boosters in Result section and also a limited range of collocational patterns compared to expert writers. It did not contribute to the writers attempts to make an effective appeal to members since it fails to balance between objectivity and subjectivity of arguments. Further, in terms of self-mentions, expert writers not only referred to themselves in a text more frequently, but realized a unique rhetorical function in Method section to newly introduce and rationalize their methodology. It is worth discussing since Korean novice writers tended to employ self-mentions only to explain the general procedure in a chronological order with no attempt to emphasize their originality of the method. These findings provide some pedagogical implications for Korean EAP writing. The present study first suggests the importance of genre knowledge of research articles to be aware of various rhetorical dynamics required for each section. Also, Korean novice writers should take more confidential status as an academic researcher to effectively address and emphasize their academic contributions. In this way, they can enhance the persuasiveness of their argumentation with more tactful strategies in employing stance resources.CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Purpose of the Study 1 1.2 Research Questions 8 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 10 2.1 Theoretical Background of Metadiscourse in Writing 10 2.1.1 Metadiscourse in Writing 11 2.1.2 Stance and its Subcategories 16 2.2 Previous Studies of Stance Resources 20 2.2.1 Stances in NNS Writers Writing 20 2.2.2 Stances in Academic Writing 26 CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY 30 3.1 Materials 30 3.2 Data Analysis 35 CHAPTER 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 39 4.1 Frequency and Range of Stance Resources 39 4.1.1 Frequency of Overall Stance Resources 39 4.1.2 Frequency of Stance Resources in Sub-categories 42 4.1.3 Range of Stance Resources in Sub-categories 48 4.2 Frequency of Stance Resources in Different Sections 57 4.3 Qualitative Analysis on Stance Resources 64 4.3.1 Hedges and Boosters 64 4.3.2 Self-mentions 73 CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION 88 5.1 Summary of the Findings 88 5.2 Pedagogical Implications 91 5.3 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research 94 REFERENCE 97 APPENDIX 107 국문 초록 111Maste

A rhetorical analysis of examination essays in three disciplines: The case of Ghanaian undergraduate students

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH