MDA analysis of translated and non-translated parliamentary discourse

Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovació

Cortes, V., & Csomay, E. (Eds.) (2015). Corpus-based Research in Applied Linguistics: Studies in Honor of Doug Biber

Book review: Cortes, V., & Csomay, E. (Eds.) (2015). Corpus-based Research in Applied Linguistics: Studies in Honor of Doug Biber. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjaminspostprin

Comparing research articles in pulmonology and other disciplines

There have been many arguments for research-informed pedagogy in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classes, including medical English classes. While there has been a wealth of research on writing in English for medical purposes, there has been little research on academic research articles (RAs) specifically in the pulmonology domain with very little empirical information about linguistic patterning useful in materials design for writing instruction. The extent to which writing in that branch of medicine is similar to writing in hard sciences in general is unknown. The present study analyzes the linguistic features in a specialized corpus of pulmonology research articles and a comparison corpus of research articles from other scientific disciplines using three of the functional dimensions established by Biber (1988) that are relevant to academic writing—the first, third, and fifth dimension. Results indicate that in comparison to research articles in other hard sciences, pulmonology research articles have more densely packed information and less abstract information. Pedagogical implications for academic writing teachers of respiratory therapy students in EFL and ESL contexts and future research directions are discussed

How complex is professional academic writing? A corpus-based analysis of research articles in 'hard' and 'soft' disciplines

This study focuses on the analysis of linguistic complexity in professional academic writing in light of the empirical evidence provided by a 1,597,000-word corpus of ‘hard’ (life and physical sciences) and ‘soft’ (arts and social) scientific research articles published in leading peer-review journals. Specifically, this investigation aims both to describe the complexity features of texts written by professional authors and to test the hypothesis that linguistic complexity varies across disciplines. Since previous studies have revealed that automatic complexity indices do not sufficiently succeed in providing a comprehensive description of complexity of texts, in this paper complexity has been measured in two ways: quantitatively through the indexes provided by Lu’s (2010) L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyser, and through the more qualitative analysis of a selection of metrics associated with clausal and phrasal complexity in seminal studies. The data show, first, that syntactic complexity indices (basically, strategies of coordination and subordination) are statistically relevant to the characterisation of specifically the soft-science disciplines; second, that there is a continuum across subdisciplines within the broad distinction of soft versus hard genres; and, third, that the soft genre demonstrates a more stable productivity of clausal-complexity strategies, while phrasal-complexity features are more pervasive in the hard-science subcorpus.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación | Ref. PID2020-117541GB-I00Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED431C 2021/5

A Multidimensional Analysis of Late Modern Englis Scientific Texts from the Coruña Corpus

Programa Oficial de Doutoramento en Estudos Ingleses Avanzados: Lingüística, Literatura e Cultura . 5018P01[Resumen] Los siglos XVIII y XIX constituyen un período crucial en el desarrollo del inglés como lengua de la ciencia y la conseguinte formación de un “inglés científico”. A lo largo de dicho período, cada disciplina científica y cada género utilizado para su transmisión en la escritura, tanto con fines profesionales como didácticos, desenvolvieron su propio registro, llegando a formar el hoy en día llamado “registro científico” que, a pesar de contener características comunes para todas las ciencias, presenta una importante variación interna. El objetivo principal de esta tesis doctoral es estudiar tanto la variación como el cambio lingüísticos en textos pertenecientes a tres disciplinas científicas (astronomía, filosofía y ciencias de la vida), publicados por autores anglohablantes entre 1700 y 1900, y que forman parte del Coruña Corpus of English Scientific Writing, el corpus electrónico recopilado por el grupo de investigación MuStE en la Universidad de A Coruña. La metodología utilizada en este estudio consiste, por un lado, en la utilización de programas de concordancia, tales como Coruña Corpus Tool y CQPWeb, para la recuperación de diversas categorías léxicas y gramaticales en el corpus y, tras una exhaustiva desambiguación manual, del recuento de sus frecuencias de aparición en cada uno de los textos; y, por otro lado, en el empleo de una técnica estadística multivariada, el análisis factorial, para poder observar dimensiones de variación de las distintas disciplinas científicas entre ellas y a lo largo del tiempo. Dicha metodología sigue el método utilizado en el análisis multidimensional (Multidimensional Analysis) de Biber (1988), que se utilizó en distintos estudios de variación intertextual a lo largo de los últimos veintisiete anos.[Resumo] Os séculos XVIII e XIX constitúen un periodo crucial no desenvolvemento do inglés como lingua da ciencia e a conseguinte formación dun “inglés científico”. Ó longo de dito periodo, cada disciplina científica e cada xénero utilizado para a súa transmisión na escritura, tanto con fins profesionais coma didácticos, desenvolveron o seu propio rexistro, chegando a formar o hoxe en día chamado “rexistro científico” que, a pesar de conter características comúns para todas as ciencias, presenta unha importante variación interna. O obxectivo principal desta tese de doutoramento é estudar tanto a variación como o cambio lingüísticos en textos pertencentes a tres disciplinas científicas (astronomía, filosofía e ciencias da vida), publicados por autores anglofalantes entre 1700 e 1900, e que forman parte do Coruña Corpus of English Scientific Writing, o corpus electrónico compilado polo grupo de investigación MuStE na Universidade da Coruña. A metodoloxía utilizada neste estudo consiste, por unha banda, na utilización de programas de concordancia, tales como Coruña Corpus Tool e CQPWeb, para a recuperación de diversas categorías léxicas e gramaticáis no corpus e, tras unha exhaustiva desambiguación manual, do reconto das súas frecuencias de aparición en cada un dos textos; e, por outra banda, no emprego dunha técnica estadística multivariada, a análise factorial, para poder observar dimensións de variación das distintas disciplinas científicas entre elas e ó longo do tempo. Dita metodoloxía segue o método utilizado na análise multidimensional (Multidimensional Analysis) de Biber (1988), que se empregou en distintos estudos de variación intertextual ó longo dos últimos vintesete anos.[Abstract] The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries constitute a key period in the development of English as the language of science and the consequent formation of a “scientific English”. Throughout this period each scientific discipline and each genre adopted for their transmission through writing, both with professional and didactic purposes, developed their own particular registers, evolving to the nowadays so-called “scientific register” which, despite presenting certain characteristics common to all sciences, also shows important internal variation. The main aim of this doctoral dissertation is the study of both linguistic variation and change in texts belonging to three scientific disciplines – astronomy, philosophy and life sciences – published by English-speaking authors between 1700 and 1900, and belonging to the Coruña Corpus of English Scientific Writing, an electronic corpus compiled by the MuStE Research Group at the University of A Coruña. The methodology used in this study consists, at a first stage, in the automated retrieval of various lexical and grammatical features from the corpus with the help of concordance programs such as the Coruña Corpus Tool or CQPWeb, and, after an exhaustive manual disambiguation, the recount of their frequencies of appearance in each text. After that, a multivariate statistical technique known as factor analysis is used in order to establish dimensions of variation among the three scientific disciplines and the different genres used within them, and across time. This methodology was first used by Biber (1988) and called Multidimensional Analysis, and has been used in a large number of textual variation studies along the past twenty-seven years

Seeking the unseen humanities macrostructures: The use of corpus- and genre-assisted research methodologies to analyze written norms in English and Spanish literary criticism articles

Descriptive studies of general and discipline-specific academic writing genre conventions have paved the way for pedagogical materials that build real-world skills for novice academic writers. To name some better-known cases, breakthroughs have taken place in this regard in the fields of psychology, engineering, and chemistry. However, attested scholarship on rhetorical patterns in humanities writing, such as published literary criticism (hereafter “LC”) is less common. This dearth of research affects scholars of literature produced by Spanish-speakers who write in both English and Spanish. Many L1 Spanish user scholars must often publish their research in English, rather than Spanish, to maintain institutional employment. Postsecondary Spanish majors in the U.S. must also demonstrate competence in literary criticism to gain credentials. To address the needs of these groups, the present study examines the potential of lexical bundles, qualitative content, and multidimensional analyses to help describe LC from a lexico-grammatical perspective. Such findings may facilitate an arrival at a comprehensive schematic of strategies used by expert-level literary scholars in Spanish and English. First, using multidimensional analysis, linguistic features characteristic of literary criticism writing are analyzed and interpreted in the context of prior multidimensional analyses to offer insight on ways in which the written norms of LC compare to those espoused in other genres previously analyzed. Next, the study examines the syntactic structures and functions of lexical bundles used in English and Spanish LC writing, with particular attention to quasi-equivalent and language-specific bundles. Finally, the study proposes a taxonomy of communicative strategies utilized by literary scholars in their arguments. Devised via qualitative content analysis, this taxonomy may extend the functional analysis of bundles in LC. These findings offer further insight into the macrostructures of literary criticism, as well as the sentence-level strategies that serve as building blocks for expert-level writing in the genre

A Multi-Dimensional Comparison of CSAT English Reading Passages before and after the Use of Criterion-Referenced Assessment

This study aims to compare register variation in the reading passages of the CSAT (College Scholastic Ability Test) English section before and after the use of criterion-referenced assessment by applying an additive multi-dimensional analysis based on Biber (1988). To this end, it compiled a corpus of the CSAT English reading passages of the 2013-2022 academic years, using the computer software MAT (Multidimensional Analysis Tagger, Version 1.3.2) (Nini, 2019) for analysis. The median dimension scores indicate that the passages were informational, non-narrative, and abstract. The passages did not tend to persuade their readers, and the referents were specified in an explicit manner. However, the wide range and distribution of the dimension scores suggest that various registers were used in the reading passages. Finally, there was no difference between the two assessment groups in all dimensions except for Dimension 3, implying that the consistency of the CSAT English reading passages has been relatively well maintained regarding register variation