A CORPUS ANALYSIS OF ARGUMENTATIVE STRUCTURES IN ESP WRITING

One of the challenges in ESP classrooms is teaching writing genres, especially to students who come from fields that are taught in L1. This is presumably “not only because different languages seem to have different ways of organizing ideas and structuring arguments but because students’ prior writing experiences in the home, school or elsewhere do not prepare them for the literacy expectations of their university or professional workplace” (Hyland, 2013, p. 95). In our study, we analyze 36 argumentative essays written by students of Political Science and International Relations in an English for Social Sciences course taught at the West University of Timisoara in Romania. The essays are written in English and the students’ L1 is Romanian. The aim of the study is to find out to what extent argumentative structures in English are influenced by Romanian academic writing genre norms. For our analysis, we use corpus linguistics methods, looking at frequencies and phraseology patterns as well as prominent rhetoric features related to argumentation. We argue that translations of Romanian structures feature prominently when descriptive moves (description, definition, enumeration) are employed

Contrastive Genre Mapping in Academic Contexts: an Intercultural Approach

This paper presents a comparison of genre use at three Swiss universities from different language regions. The methodology is one of contrastive genre mapping in which we connect two lines of re-search usually seen as distinct approaches. The aim of the study is to find ways of comparing the writing cultures of different languages by collecting and comparing the genres used for teaching. Data about genres were gathered through questionnaires in which students and faculty members were asked to describe writing assignments and student texts. From the answers to these questionnaires, genre inventories were constructed and then re-checked with insiders in faculty discussions or inter-views. As results, lists of genres from the individual universities are presented, as are the patterns of genre families into which the genres were classified. It turned out that genre use shows strong similar-ities across the three universities. The main genre families are presented and differences between universities are discussed.  

The European Writing Survey (EUWRIT): Background, Structure, Implementation, and Some Results

The European Writing Survey (EUWRIT), both the student and faculty versions, reflects the need to systematically gather data on student writing in various institutional and disciplinary contexts. The final version of the survey (status January 2015) includes questions on: personal and demographic data, general questions on writing in the study programme, writing process and feedback, text genres and writing practices, self-evaluation (students) and appreciation (faculty) of the writing skills, conceptions of “good writing”, study competences and writing support. EUWRIT is the result of a long testing and implementation process, which started in 2006. The range of projects in which the survey has been im-plemented is broad and includes assessment of writing skills in study programmes (Environmental Sciences at ETH Zurich; Economics, Journalism and Health at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences), investigations of different stages of student development (Translation Studies at Zurich University of Ap-plied Sciences); comparisons of writing cultures (universities of teacher education in the French, German, and Italian parts of Switzerland); assessments of writing cultures in certain disciplines at different universities (Spain); studies of the writing cultures of a single university (University of Constance, Germany); and comparisons of the genres in different Eastern Europe countries (Macedonia, Romania, Ukraine). The report gives a synthesis of the construction principles of the EUWRIT questionnaire and presents some of the results from the aforementioned studies.Das European Writing Survey (EUWRIT), in seinen beiden Versionen für Studierende und Lehrende, ist aus der Notwendigkeit zu einer systematischen Sammlung von Daten über studentisches Schreiben in verschiedenen institutionellen und disziplinären Kontexten entstanden. Die letzte Version (Stand Januar 2015) enthält Fragen zu persönlichen und demographischen Variablen, Schreibpraktiken im Studum, Schreibprozess und Feedback, Textgenres, Selbsteinschätzungen (Studierende) und Bedeutsamkeit (Lehrende) studentischer Schreibkompetenz, Vorstellungen von «gutem Schreiben», Selbsteinschätzung (Studierende) von und Bedeutung (Lehrende) allgemeiner Studienkompetenzen, und Bedarf an Unterstützung für das Schreiben. EUWRIT ist Resultat eines langen Test- und Implementierungsprozesses, der im Jahr 2006 begann. Die Spannweite der Projekte, in denen EURWRIT implementiert wurde, ist breit und schliesst ein: Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung von Schreibkompetenzen in Studiengängen (Environmental Sciences, ETH Zurich, Übersetzen und Dolmetschen, ZHAW Winterthur), Vergleich von Studiengängen an einer Hochschule (ZHAW, Studiengänge Management and Law, Journalismus und Gesundheitswissenschaften); Vergleich von Schreibkulturen in unterschiedlichen Sprachregionen (Schreibkulturen an Pädagogischen Hochschulen der französischen, deutschen und italienischen Schweiz); Vergleiche von Schreibkulturen an bestimmten Fakultäten in mehreren Universitäten des Landes (Spanien), Totalerhebungen an einzelnen Hochschulen (Universität Konstanz), und Vergleich von Genrekonzeptionen in geisteswissenschaftlichen Fakultäten osteuropäische Länder (Mazedonien, Rumänien, Ukraine). Der Bericht gibt eine Synthese der Konstruktionsprinzipien des Fragebogens und präsentiert einige zentrale Ergebnisse aus den angesprochenen Studien.The European Writing Survey (EUWRIT), both the student and faculty versions, reflects the need to systematically gather data on student writing in various institutional and disciplinary contexts. The final version of the survey (status January 2015) includes questions on: personal and demographic data, general questions on writing in the study programme, writing process and feedback, text genres and writing practices, self-evaluation (students) and appreciation (faculty) of the writing skills, conceptions of “good writing”, study competences and writing support. EUWRIT is the result of a long testing and implementation process, which started in 2006. The range of projects in which the survey has been implemented is broad and includes assessment of writing skills in study programmes (Environmental Sciences at ETH Zurich; Economics, Journalism and Health at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences), investigations of different stages of student development (Translation Studies at Zurich University of Applied Sciences); comparisons of writing cultures (universities of teacher education in the French, German, and Italian parts of Switzerland); assessments of writing cultures in certain disciplines at different universities (Spain); studies of the writing cultures of a single university (University of Constance, Germany); and comparisons of the genres in different Eastern Europe countries (Macedonia, Romania, Ukraine). The report gives a synthesis of the construction principles of the EUWRIT questionnaire and presents some of the results from the aforementioned studies

Contrastive genre mapping in academic contexts: an intercultural approach

This paper presents a comparison of genre use at three Swiss universities from different language regions. The methodology is one of contrastive genre mapping in which we connect two lines of research usually seen as distinct approaches. The aim of the study is to find ways of comparing the writing cultures of different languages by collecting and comparing the genres used for teaching. Data about genres were gathered through questionnaires in which students and faculty members were asked to describe writing assignments and student texts. From the answers to these questionnaires, genre inventories were constructed and then re-checked with insiders in faculty discussions or inter-views. As results, lists of genres from the individual universities are presented, as are the patterns of genre families into which the genres were classified. It turned out that genre use shows strong similar-ities across the three universities. The main genre families are presented and differences between universities are discussed

Korpora in der beruflichen Bildung : Grundlage einer bedürfnisorientierten Förderung der Schreibkompetenz

Die Förderung der sprachlich-kommunikativen Kompetenzen im allgemeinbildenden Unterricht (ABU) an Berufsfachschulen erfordert – aufgrund der verschiedenen Sprachbiographien und heterogenen sprachlichen Kompetenzen der Lernenden – nicht nur eine systematische Erfassung der demographischen, migrations- und sprachbiographischen Merkmale der Lernenden, sondern auch eine differenzierte Analyse ihrer sprachlichen Fähigkeiten. Der hier vorliegende Beitrag zeigt, wie anhand eines Korpus von Lernendentexten mit korpuslinguistischen Methoden die sprachlichen Merkmale von Lernendentexten analysiert und beschrieben werden. Texte mit ähnlichen Merkmalen werden in Verbindung mit den demographischen, migrations- und sprachbezogenen Variablen gebracht. Dadurch können die sprachlich-kommunikativen Fähigkeiten der Lernenden erfasst und der Förderbedarf im Bereich (schrift-)sprachlich-kommunikativer Kompetenzen gezielt ermittelt werden. Die Ergebnisse sollen eine empirisch gesicherte Grundlage zur Förderung der Grundkompetenzen bilden, hier insbesondere des Schreibens in der Berufsbildung, die der sprachlichen Heterogenität der Lernenden mit und ohne linguistischen Migrationshintergrund gerecht wird

Corpus-supported academic writing : how can technology help?

Phraseology has long been used in L2 teaching of academic writing, and corpus linguistics has played a major role in the compilation and assessment of academic phrases. However, there are only a few interactive academic writing tools in which corpus methodology is implemented in a real-time design to support formulation processes. In this paper, we describe several corpus-related methods that we have developed and implemented as part of an interactive thesis-writing tool, "Thesis Writer," designed and constructed jointly by the Language Competence Centre and the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland. "Thesis Writer" (TW) hosts several linguistic-support tools and is designed in its first pilot version to support thesis writing in economics with the help of two self-compiled corpora in English and German. Students can access the corpora directly via the IMS Open Corpus Workbench or via a pre-selected collection of central rhetorical elements through the phrase book. Several search options and tutorials have been tested and included into the TW platform: the corpus simple search tool, the corpus syntactic search tool, and the academic phrasebook. In the case of the latter, a new methodology led to the identification of lists of phrases distributed in research-cycle sections of the thesis

Finding the right words : language technologies to support formulation

This chapter explores the ability of digital technologies to provide language support for writers. With such ability, technologies directly intervene into the productive act of language creation, which we refer to by the traditional term formulation. Formulation here is defined as the kind of thinking that happens when a writer tries to linearize thought by using language. In written communication, formulation happens during interaction with an inscription tool and is strongly influenced by the kind of technology used. In this chapter, we look into some of the changes in formulation and language crafting that followed the introduction of digital technologies. We attempt to estimate where the developments are heading by addressing four issues: (1) support for the preparation of formulation, (2) real-time support during inscription, (3) support for the choice of words and collocations, and (4) support for language use at the revision stage by automated feedback and intelligent tutoring. The contribution concludes with some thoughts about future directions

Exploring European Writing Cultures : Country Reports on Genres, Writing Practices and Languages Used in European Higher Education

At European universities, writing is a traditional way of learning, assessment, and independent study, but it is handled in an implicit, tradition-based way that has only recently been contrasted with and supported by a more explicit writing ped-agogy. Still, little systematic knowledge is available about the pedagogical ap-proaches to writing, writing practices, and genres across Europe and much of it is codified in the national languages without correlation to internationally accept-ed terminology and theories. This book explores the writing cultures of Europe, nation by nation, and reports the idiosyncrasies for each respective country. The reports are based on a 17-item topic list used by the authors to collect data be-fore synthesizing the results. Next to writing practices and genres, a high level of emphasis was placed on the structure of educational systems, the languages in use, and the kind of support provided for student writers. Note: This research project has been conducted within the framework of COST Action IS0703 “European Research Network on Learning to Write Effectively”, funded by the European Union. We are also thankful to Christiane Donahue, Eliza Kitis, Charles Bazerman, Helmut Gruber, and David Russell for their cooperation and support in this project.Wissenschaftliches Schreiben an europäischen Hochschulen ist eine herkömmliche Form des Lernens, Prüfens und autonomen Studierens, auch wenn es in einer impliziten, eher auf Tradition denn auf bewusster Didaktik beruhenden Weise eingesetzt wird. Wenig auf systematische Weise erhobenes vergleichendes Wissen gibt es bislang über Schreibpraktiken, Genres und schreibdidaktische Ansätze in Europa und das, was an Wissen existiert ist oft in den nationalen Sprachen verfasst, die nicht mit internationalen Terminologien und Theorien der Schreibwissenschaft verbunden sind. Der vorliegende Band untersucht Schreibkulturen in Europa Land für Land und berichtet was jeweils hervorsticht. Die Berichte basieren auf einer 17-Item Themenliste, nach der die Autorenteams Daten über ihr jeweiliges Land sammelten, bevor sie es zu einem Bericht synthetisierten. Neben Schreibpraktiken und Genres werden dabei die Struktur des jeweiligen Bildungssystems, die verwendeten Sprachen und die besondere Schreibdidaktik hervorgehoben. Anmerkung: Das Projekt wurde im Rahmen der COST Aktion IS0703 “European Research Network on Learning to Write Effectively” durchgeführt, das von der EU finanziert wird. Wir bedanken uns bei Christiane Donahue, Eliza Kitis, Charles Bazerman, Helmut Gruber und David Russell für ihre Unterstützung und Mitwirkung in diesem Projekt.At European universities, writing is a traditional way of learning, assessment, and independent study, but it is handled in an implicit, tradition-based way that has only recently been contrasted with and supported by a more explicit writing ped-agogy. Still, little systematic knowledge is available about the pedagogical ap-proaches to writing, writing practices, and genres across Europe and much of it is codified in the national languages without correlation to internationally accept-ed terminology and theories. This book explores the writing cultures of Europe, nation by nation, and reports the idiosyncrasies for each respective country. The reports are based on a 17-item topic list used by the authors to collect data be-fore synthesizing the results. Next to writing practices and genres, a high level of emphasis was placed on the structure of educational systems, the languages in use, and the kind of support provided for student writers. Note: This research project has been conducted within the framework of COST Action IS0703 “European Research Network on Learning to Write Effectively”, funded by the European Union. We are also thankful to Christiane Donahue, Eliza Kitis, Charles Bazerman, Helmut Gruber, and David Russell for their cooperation and support in this project

Corpus of Romanian Academic Genres ROGER

The corpus contains academic papers from eight disciplines, written by the Romanian students in native Romanian and English L2. The corpus was collected over a three-year period (2018-2021) with the help of 27 collaborators from nine Romanian universities. The corpus is available for online querying through a dedicated platform developed at the CODHUS research centre from the West University of Timisoara