The pragmatics of text facilitation : the study of academic English of native and non-native writers

Abstract

In this paper I describe the discursive strategies related to the writer&ndash;reader textual reciprocity. I focus on one way of achieving such reciprocity -- the employment by the writer of facilitative schematic structures and metalanguage where one text segment signposts information conveyed in the segment that follows. I refer to these facilitative schematic structures as &quot;organising relational schemata&quot;. I see organising relations as the most explicit components of the rhetorical structure of texts: they illuminate the main message and aid the reader\u27s cognitive processes in the orientation of how information is conveyed by text.This paper discusses the way the choices of organising relations and associated metalanguage by the writers in different cultures and different discourse communities contribute to the communicative homeostasis in the world of text. It shows how the influence of a native culture and intellectual style together with the forces operating within the writer\u27s international disciplinary community interact in the authorial guidance in the scholarly prose.I introduce and exemplify three types of organising relational structures: Advance Organisers, Introducers and Enumerators. I trace the utilisation of these three types of relations in sociology research papers written in English and produced in &quot;Anglo&quot; and Polish academic discourse comunities by native English speaking and native Polish speaking scholars. The relational typology adopted is based on a study by Golebiowski (2002), which proposed a theoretical framework for the examination of discoursal structure of research papers, referred to as FARS &ndash; Framework for the Analysis of the Rhetorical Structure of Texts. FARS entails a relational taxonomy which displays a pattern of rhetorical relations utilised by the writer to achieve textual coherence.I describe intertextual differences in the frequency of occurrence of organising relations, their degree of explicitness and their positioning in the hierarchical structure of texts. Differences in the mode of employment of textual organisers suggest that the rhetorical structure of English research prose produced by non-native speakers cannot escape being shaped by the characteristics and conventions of the authors&rsquo; first language. They are also attributed to cultural norms and conventions as well as educational systems prevailing within the discourse communities which constitute the social contexts of texts.<br /