Generic and rhetorical structures of texts : two sides of the same coin?

Two major approaches to textual macro-structures have been developed during the last decades: Register & Genre Theory (R&GT) and Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST). Both stress that textual structures co-occur with contextual relations involving social action and subject matter, role structure and symbolic organization. The approaches, however, significantly differ in their conceptions of textual organization. Whereas R&GT conceives of texts as goal-oriented staged (i.e. linearly progressing, while still allowing for prosodic and recursive realizations of stages) interactions, RST conceptualises them as hierarchically structured entities in which certain elements are foregrounded (nuclei) and others are backgrounded (satellites); Based on empirical analyses of Viennese university students' essays, we will discuss in what ways generic and rhetorical organizations of texts relate to each other and what advances a combination of these two approaches may offer for text analysis and text linguistics. Through such a combinatory approach to analyzing texts, it becomes possible to identify systematic patterns of textual features in context (using R&GT) and culturally influenced, semantic coherence relations (using RST). Central to our discussion are issues involving the relation between hierarchical versus linear perspectives on text organization and the relation between cohesion and coherence

Das Signalisieren von Kohärenzstrukturen in deutschsprachigen wissenschaftlichen Texten

This paper discusses the relation between newer approaches of intercultural rhetoric research (and specifically its distinction between “big” and “small” cultures) and the academic literacies approach which assumes that local institutional and individual biographic factors influence decisively the development of an individual academic writing competence. Based on this discussion it claims that the “research article” does not constitute a single genre but rather a genre colony consisting of members (genres) which differ according to linguistic, disciplinary, institutional and individual affiliations and status of writers and which are connected through a system of family resemblances. This claim is exemplified through a qualitative case study of two German academic texts, a “professional” published paper and a students’ seminar paper. By applying a multi-level text analysis combining genre analysis and rhetorical structure analysis, it is shown that although the two texts exhibit several similarities in terms of their genre structure, their rhetorical macro- and micro-structures differ significantly. These results are interpreted as a corollary of the different institutional and hierarchical positions of the authors and as a single-case support for the initial claim of the paper

Studentisches Schreiben erforschen und lehren: Grundlagenforschung und ihre Umsetzung in ein Kursprogramm

In diesem Beitrag werden drei Forschungsprojekte zum Schreiben von Studierenden im universitären Feld vorgestellt. Die beiden ersten Projekte untersuchten das studentische Schreiben in drei sozialwissenschaftlichen Studien. Im dritten Projekt wurden die Ergebnisse in ein Schreibprogramm für Studierende umgesetzt, das zu einem schreibdidaktischen Ansatz erweitert wurde, in dem Studierenden verschiedener Studien im Rahmen desselben Kurses disziplinunabhängige und fachspezifische Grundlagen des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens vermittelt werden. 09.05.2016 | Helmut Gruber (Wien) & Birgit Huemer (Luxemburg

Functional Correction of Type VII Collagen Expression in Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa

Functional defects in type VII collagen, caused by premature termination codons on both alleles of the COL7A1 gene, are responsible for the severe autosomal recessive types of the skin blistering disease, recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (RDEB). The full-length COL7A1 complementary DNA (cDNA) is about 9kb, a size that is hardly accommodated by therapeutically used retroviral vectors. Although there have been successful attempts to produce functional type VII collagen protein in model systems of RDEB, the risk of genetic rearrangements of the large repetitive cDNA sequence may hamper the clinical application of full-length COL7A1 cDNA in the human system. Therefore, we used trans-splicing to reduce the size of the COL7A1 transcript. Retroviral transduction of RDEB keratinocytes with a 3′ pre-trans-splicing molecule resulted in correction of full-length type VII collagen expression. Unlike parental RDEB keratinocytes, transduced cells displayed normal morphology and reduced invasive capacity. Moreover, transduced cells showed normal localization of type VII collagen at the basement membrane zone in skin equivalents, where it assembled into anchoring fibril-like structures. Thus, using trans-splicing we achieved correction of an RDEB phenotype in vitro, which marks an important step toward its application in gene therapy in vivo.JID JOURNAL CLUB ARTICLE: For questions, answers, and open discussion about this article, please go to http://www.nature.com/jid/journalclu

Virtuelle Realität für Radargeräte in Autos

Car manufacturers spend quite a lot on the development of driver assistance systems and subsequently on autonomous driving functionality. To ensure the safety and reliability of these functions meet industrial standards it is necessary to verify and validate their functionality. While tests on the road are still the ultimate evidence of correct operation they are associated with huge efforts and risks. Therefore, they have to be complemented by other means like simulations and tests on specialised testbeds. For the latter the car’s sensors have to be stimulated in a way that they perceive a desired – but only virtual – environment. An important type of sensor in cars is the radar due to its various advantages. This article describes the development of a stimulator generating virtual radar targets in order to enable the testing of autonomous driving functions. Document type: Articl