Discourse style and theme–rheme progression in biomedical research article discussions

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian A. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Biomedical Research ◽  
English Language ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Main Claim ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Thematic Progression ◽  
Thematic Pattern

This paper examines the Discussions of Spanish medical research articles and Spanish translations of comparable English-language texts in order to determine how far their discourse and theme–rheme patterns differ. Quantitative analysis revealed two discourse patterns. Spanish authors preferred a progressive style characterized by considerable initial background information, and a commentary opening with a statement of result and ending with the main claim. In contrast, most translations exhibited a retrogressive style with little or no background information, and the main claim located early or at the start. The Spanish texts showed a highly cohesive thematic pattern, most within-paragraph links being with the immediately preceding theme or rheme, whereas the translations, influenced by the source texts, contained comparatively more distant links, thus creating thematic ‘jumps’. Thematic progression was independent of discourse pattern. Qualitative analysis identified a number of strategies that can help translators align their texts with the target language norm for theme–rheme progression.

Self-Reference in biomedical research article discussions

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 546-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian A. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Biomedical Research ◽  
English Language ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
First Person ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Multiple Voices ◽  
Person Reference ◽  
Disciplinary Diversity ◽  
Self Reference

The aim of this quantitative and qualitative study is to compare inclusive and exclusive self-reference in a bilingual English-Spanish corpus of biomedical research articles. The study combines corpus techniques with move analysis to determine where authors resort to first-person reference in Discussion sections. Quantitative analysis showed that Spanish writers selected between exclusive and mixed inclusive-exclusive perspectives equally whereas the exclusive perspective predominated in the English-language articles. Major differences between languages were observed for overall use and for statements of results, comparison of current and previous findings, and metatext. From a cross-disciplinary viewpoint, biomedical research articles exhibited less self-promotion than previously reported for biology. Qualitative analysis revealed that first-person verbs in English were frequently associated with self-promotion whereas English possessives and all exclusive use in Spanish served to attribute responsibility for statements and to harmonise the multiple voices in the polyphonic discourse of biomedical Discussions. The study provides further evidence for cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary diversity in academic and scientific discourse.

scholarly journals Move Structure of Research Article Abstracts on Management: Contrastive Study (the Case of English and Russian)

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Zanina
Keyword(s):  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Contrastive Study ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Academic Communication

Although a plethora of papers have proved a seminal role of move-based genre analysis in cross-linguistic research of academic communication and EAP/ESP teaching and learning, there is a lack of respective linguistic or pedagogically motivated studies of research articles (RAs) and their parts aimed at comparing English and Russian. Using Hyland’s (2000) 5-move model, the current research seeks to determine the most obvious cross-linguistic differences in the move structure of abstracts of research articles on management for these languages. Based on a move analysis of the English- and Russian-language corpora each comprising 20 unstructured RA abstracts, the research revealed conformity of most English-language abstracts to Hyland’s model, while the Russian abstracts principally displayed a three-move structure containing ‘purpose’, ‘method’ and ‘product’, and included the ‘introduction’ and ‘conclusion’ moves only occasionally. Other significant discrepancies comprised the English-language authors’ tendency to provide precise or detailed indication of research methods and results, in contrast to their brief indication or over-generalized mentioning by Russian writers, as well as greater length of the English-language abstracts and their stricter concordance to standard move sequence than those of the Russian abstracts. Though the research was conducted on relatively small corpora and was descriptive in nature, its findings might be of interest to genre analysts as well as to L2 theorists and practitioners.

scholarly journals A Discourse Analysis: Cohesion of the Introduction Section of Research Article

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Anis Firdatul Rochma ◽  
Sulis Triyono
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Semantic Meaning ◽  
Lexical Cohesion ◽  
Research Article ◽  
English Academic Writing ◽  
Writing Competence

<em>As an effort to give contribution to the existing knowledge, it is expected for the undergraduate students to compose an engaging research article in order to convince the readers about the importance of the research article. However, there is only a little attention given to the articles written by the undergraduate students although it is considered very critical to examine whether the exposure of English academic writing has significantly enhances the writing competence of the students. Furthermore, as it is also very crucial to build a meaningful semantic meaning among the sentences in order to disclose the worthiness of the research article, it is essential to analyze the cohesion of the research article written by the undergraduate students. Henceforth, the present research is projected to investigate the cohesion of the research articles written by the undergraduate students of English Language Teaching. As the introduction section of research article is likely to be an area to portray the logical explanation of the research, the present research solely focuses on examining the cohesion of the introduction section of research article. By adopting a qualitative design and involving several steps to analyze the introduction section, it is revealed that the grammatical cohesion is considered to be the most utilized type of cohesion in writing the introduction section. Still, the lexical cohesion is also necessary to build an eloquent semantic meaning about the topic as well the importance of the research article.</em>

A corpus-based study of the verb observar in English-Spanish translations of biomedical research articles

Target ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian A. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Spanish Language ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Translation Equivalent ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Contextual Study

This paper describes an empirical contextual study of the English verbs and syntactic resources translated by observar in an extensive corpus of biomedical research articles. Quantitative analysis showed that the frequency of observar was significantly higher in the Spanish translations than in the comparable Spanish language original articles (360 vs. 162 instances; P < 0·001). Qualitative analysis of the Spanish native texts provided a linguistic profile for the verb. This profile was then used in a contextual study to assess the appropriateness of the 360 instances found in the translated texts. The results indicate that observar is only a natural translation equivalent for ‘observe’. For other verbs, an awareness both of the rhetorical, syntactic and collocational restrictions and of the range of alternative choices will allow translators to select appropriate lexical items and avoid excessive repetition of observar, thus creating a more varied target text.

scholarly journals THE USE OF HEDGING DEVICES IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS ACADEMIC DISCOURSE: THE CASE OF READING IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING RESEARCH ARTICLES

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nguyen Tuan Anh
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Research Article ◽  
The Difference

Hedging enables academic writers be able to mitigate claims and minimize the impositions that may be found in such claims (Hyland, 1996). Although the literature has had vast research on hedging in research articles, not much has been known about the difference or similarity among journals in one field in the use of hedging devices. Using the document analysis method, the present study aims to make a comparative analysis of hedging in two linguistics research journals, namely Reading in a Foreign Language (RFL) and English Language Teaching (ELT), in order to investigate what hedging forms and functions are most frequently used in RFL and ELT, and how hedging forms and functions are distributed in the Introduction, Results, Discussions and Conclusions sections in the two journals. Based on the data analyzed, it was found that RFL and ELT research article writers tend to have the same preference for the use of different hedging forms for different equivalent purposes and functions. This similar hedging pattern is believed to be of value to those who are trained as academic writers in the field of linguistics.

scholarly journals Topical themes and thematic progression: the “picture” of research articles

2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leong Ping Alvin
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Development Pattern ◽  
Thematic Structure ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Related Research ◽  
Thematic Progression ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Thematic Pattern

AbstractAlthough much has been written about the features of academic writing, there is a lack of research attention on macro issues related to the development of ideas, particularly in the writing of research articles. A concept that is useful in investigating such issues is the Hallidayan notion of theme. However, the thematic structure of research articles has received only modest attention over the years. It is also rare for thematic diagrams to be used even though they can be helpful in clarifying the thematic structure of the text. In this exploratory study, the patterning of topical themes in research articles was investigated using a diagrammatic approach. Twenty biology-related research articles were divided into t-units and analyzed for topical themes. Thematic diagrams were generated for all the articles. The diagrams revealed a progressive thematic pattern in the introduction sections of all the articles. At the whole-text level, an anchored-development pattern was observed in the majority of the articles. These findings suggest that research articles at the macro level share similarities in their thematic structure. They also shed light on how authors achieve focus in the writing through the systematic use of clause-initial elements.

scholarly journals A genre analysis of research article ‘findings and discussion’ sections written by Indonesian undergraduate EFL students

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-72
Author(s):  
Didi Suherdi ◽  
Eri Kurniawan ◽  
Arif Husein Lubis
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Genre Analysis ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Analysis Tool ◽  
Rhetorical Patterns ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
State Educational

The quality of findings and discussion (FD) section in a research article is crucial to elucidate the results of a particular inquiry and to situate the significance of the results in the body of knowledge through publications in scientific journals. Previous academic genre analysis has generated several models to help novice writers develop the rhetorical moves of the FD sections across disciplines. However, the study on the quality of the rhetorical moves in the undergraduate EFL students’ research articles is still scarce. Hence, this study seeks to examine the manifestation of rhetorical moves in the findings and discussion sections written by Indonesian undergraduate EFL students. A total of 113 unpublished ELT research articles from a state educational university in Bandung was selected as the target corpus. AntMover 1.10 was employed as the analysis tool. The top-down approach was carried out to obtain the existing rhetorical structure using Ruiying and Allison’s (2003) framework as the guideline. The bottom-up approach was used to scrutinize the linguistic realizations of the rhetorical moves. The findings demonstrated that, in the move level, most of the students’ FD sections had manifested the four moves, i.e., providing background information, reporting results, summarizing results, and commenting on results. However, in the step level, a number of FD sections did not provide detailed information regarding the sequence of the findings presentation, the analysis procedure to obtain the findings, the explanation for the findings, and the highlight of the significance of the findings. The randomized rhetorical patterns were also dominant. It can downgrade the clarity and rigor of the FD sections. Despite that, the linguistic realizations of the moves, particularly the tense and sentence voice, mostly conformed to the norms. The findings may serve as a reference to develop the teaching materials of English for research publication purposes (ERPP).

Indonesian EFL Students’ Perception on Training in Writing Research Articles for Publication

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 859 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bambang Yudi Cahyono ◽  
Rosyi Amrina
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Writing Research ◽  
Language Writing ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Number Of Publications ◽  
High Level

Students in a high level of education must have been familiar with a great number of publications, including research articles. However, they might not have been experienced in writing and publishing their own research articles. This study reports the results of training 15 EFL students in the Doctorate Program in English Language Teaching (ELT) of an Indonesian university to carry out research and write the reports in the form of research articles. More particularly, it examined the students’ perception on the training in writing research articles for publication. The students attended 16-week course, Research on Second Language Writing, one of the courses offered in the university. The students were trained to understand the nature of research articles and practice in conducting research and writing their research articles. At the end of the course, they were requested to give responses to questions on whether or not they were assisted in writing research article abstracts; in developing the abstracts into research articles; and in developing sections of the research articles. The results showed that the students informed that they were assisted in writing research article abstracts, in developing abstracts into research articles, and in developing sections of the research articles.

scholarly journals AN ANALYSIS OF CROSS-DISCIPLINE RESEARCH ARTICLE INTRODUCTION STRUCTURES THROUGH A MODIFIED CREATE-A-RESEARCH-SPACE (CARS) MODEL

EFL Journal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suhaily Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Structural Pattern ◽  
Modified Model ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Emerging Patterns ◽  
General Guide

The main purpose of this study is to identify a standard structural pattern of introduction sections of two different disciplines, i.e. research articles from English Language Teaching (ELT) and Civil Engineering (CE) corpora. Twelve articles were randomly chosen from four established journals of both disciplines namely; Language Learning (LL), Foreign Language Annals (FLA), Transportation (T) and Structural Survey (SS). Content analysis was manually conducted by incorporating the modified CARS model of Anthony’s (1999) in identifying the introductions’ rhetorical moves in both disciplines. Besides move structures, the headings, length and paragraphing element were highlighted for the comparison purposes. As a result, the rhetorical move of the modified model is totally applicable in CE corpora but it slightly fit the presented structural patterns in ELT research articles. Thus, it is noticeable that relying on this modified model has only given the general guide for authors of both disciplines. The model could be further revised in allowing ‘emerging’ patterns of any discipline writing styles and these findings can also be added to existing literature of interdisciplinary RA introduction genre analyses.Keywords: modified CARS model; introductions; structural pattern; genre analysis

Searching Online for Methods of Suicide

Crisis ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Christian Ulrich Eriksen ◽  
Flemming Konradsen ◽  
Thilde Vildekilde
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
English Language ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Online Content ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Search Terms ◽  
Methods Of Suicide

Abstract. Background: Information on methods of suicide is available online, and access to information on methods of suicide appears to contribute to a small but significant proportion of suicides. There is limited documentation of how methods of suicide are being profiled, as well as what content exists in other languages than English. Aim: We aimed to analyze and compare how methods of suicide are profiled on Danish and English-language websites. Method: We applied a categorization and content analysis of websites describing methods of suicide. Sites were retrieved by applying widely used Danish and English-language search terms. Results: A total of 136 English-language websites and 106 Danish-language websites were included for analysis. Websites were more often categorized as prevention or support sites, academic or policy sites, and against suicide sites than dedicated suicide sites (i.e., pro-suicide sites), or information sites. However, information on methods of suicide was available, and 20.1% and 8.9% of the English and Danish-language sites, respectively, suggested that a particular method of suicide was quick, easy, painless, or certain to result in death. Limitations: Only one author coded and analyzed all websites. A further operationalization of the content analysis checklist is warranted to increase reliability. Conclusion: The websites primarily had a prevention or anti-suicide focus, but information on methods of suicide was available, requiring an increased focus on how to diminish the negative effects of harmful online content.

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