Elaboration, compression and explicitness across sub-registers of popular and academic writing in Hong Kong English

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-305
Author(s):  
Elena Seoane ◽  
Cristina Suárez-Gómez
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Register Variation ◽  
Popular Writing ◽  
Hong Kong English ◽  
Opposite Tendency

Abstract In this study we examine elaboration, compression and explicitness in academic and popular writing in an Outer Circle variety of English, that of Hong-Kong, as represented in the International Corpus of English corpus. As Biber and Gray (2016) show, contemporary academic discourse is structurally compressed at NP level (rather than elaborated) and inexplicit in the expression of meaning. The linguistic features selected for analysis are short passives, which are compressed and inexplicit, and adnominal relative clauses, which represent the opposite tendency, that towards elaboration and explicitness. We focus on register variation through analyzing, first, differences between academic and popular writing, and second, interdisciplinary variation in four sub-registers: humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and technology.

scholarly journals Preposition Pied Piping and Stranding in Academic and Popular Nigerian English Writing

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Roseline Abonego Adejare
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Systemic Theory ◽  
Popular Writing ◽  
Relevant Component

This paper examined preposition pied piping and stranding in academic and popular Nigerian English writing with a view to determining their pattern of occurrence. Preposition placement has not been studied in Nigerian English and in specific genres. The 160 246-word relevant component of ICE-Nigeria was the sub-corpus used, and the Systemic Theory guided the study. Analysed using a multi-layered qualitative approach, the data comprised 112 cases of pied piping, 64 of stranding and 4 of doubling. Pied piping was dominant over stranding in Academic Writing (78 percent v 22 percent), and stranding was 1.7 times more frequent in Popular Writing than in Academic Writing. Though evenly distributed in Popular Writing (44 each), pied piping was about twice as frequent as stranding in Popular Natural Sciences while stranding was virtually non-existent in Academic Natural Sciences. Whereas to-infinitive and passive clauses were stranding favourite sites (21 and 15 respectively), only in wh-relative clauses did pied piping operate and in which was the prominent sequence. In Academic Writing prepositions were pied-piped and stranded at an average of 3.83 and 1.82 per form respectively, but the rates were 3.31 and 3.1 in Popular Writing. Whereas in was the most pied-piped preposition and was 5.2 times more likely to be pied-piped than stranded, up was the most stranded form and its stranding relative to pied piping was infinitely more. Subtle differences in the genres’ degree of formality explain the disparities in the distribution of pied piping and stranding in the sub-corpus analysed.

scholarly journals How is information content distributed in RA introductions across disciplines? An entropy-based approach

2022 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-83
Author(s):  
Wei Xiao ◽  
Jin Liu ◽  
Li Li
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Information Content ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Based Instruction ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
Interest In Research

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in research article (RA thereafter) introductions. Most previous studies focused on the macro structures, rhetorical functions and linguistic realizations of RA introductions, but few intended to investigate the information content distribution from the perspective of information theory. The current study conducted an entropy-based study on the distributional patterns of information content in RA introductions and their variations across disciplines (humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences). Three indices, that is, one-, two-, and three-gram entropies, were used to analyze 120 RA introductions (40 introductions from each disciplinary area). The results reveal that, first, in RA introductions, the information content is unevenly distributed, with the information content of Move 1 being the highest, followed in sequence by Move 3 and Move 2; second, the three entropy indices may reflect different linguistic features of RA introductions; and, third, disciplinary variations of information content were found. In Move 1, the RA introductions of natural sciences are more informative than those of the other two disciplines, and in Move 3 the RA introductions of social sciences are more informative as well. This study has implications for genre-based instruction in the pedagogy of academic writing, as well as the broadening of the applications of quantitative corpus linguistic methods into less touched fields.

Relative clauses in Hong Kong English

2000 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolas Gisborne
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Hong Kong English

Was late Modern English scientific writing impersonal?

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 499-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leida Maria Monaco
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Scientific Writing ◽  
Multidimensional Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Register Variation ◽  
Scientific Disciplines ◽  
Late Modern

This paper focuses on the use of certain linguistic features conveying impersonal style in late Modern English scientific prose (1700–1900). Samples are taken from two subcorpora of the Coruña Corpus of English Scientific Writing, one from the humanities (Philosophy) and the other from natural sciences (Life Sciences). The methodology applied is based on Biber’s (1988) Multidimensional Analysis, consisting of a study of register variation as manifested through sets of co-occurring linguistic features with a shared discursive function. The aim of the present study is to detect variation across scientific disciplines, genres, and subject matter. Findings are compared to those found in both diachronic and contemporary reference corpora.

scholarly journals Teaching Hong Kong English before Teaching Academic English: The Gateway to Effective Learning of College Writing

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernie Chun Nam MAK
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Professional Communication ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Standard English ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
Relevant Topic ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Hong Kong English

Owing to the negative view of Hong Kong English (HKE) in popular discourse, few English lecturers in Hong Kong universities directly acknowledge or discuss the variety in a non-linguistic course. This paper illustrates an action research study of how HKE may play a role in an academic writing course of a sub-degree program in Hong Kong. Focusing on 8 representatives from an academic writing course with 100 students, it employed the qualitative experiment method to examine whether students who had possessed basic linguistic knowledge of HKE from an additional tutorial would perceive HKE and academic writing differently from those who had not. Student representatives from each group were invited to a focus group to explore ideas about the two subjects discussed in class. Their conversations suggested that prior knowledge of the syntactic features of HKE might raise students’ awareness of the grammatical differences between the variety and the standard. The analysis also suggested that introducing the linguistic view of HKE to students might render them optimistic about their variety, helping them identify the situations where the variety would be tolerant of and settings where Standard English would be expected. The study suggested that such an intervention might facilitate students’ learning of Standard English for academic purposes and practices of English in actual professional communication. Upon the improvement or advancement, they will position themselves more powerfully in the dichotomy between the standard and non-standard. More formal research on a similar or relevant topic is required to validate the impact of understanding HKE on learning academic writing.

Religion in the Age of the Anthropocene

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arianne F. Conty
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Risks And Benefits ◽  
Human Exceptionalism ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
Forms Of Life

Though responses to the Anthropocene have largely come from the natural and social sciences, religious responses to the Anthropocene have also been gaining momentum and many scholars have been calling for a religious response to complement scientific responses to climate change. Yet because Genesis 1:28 does indeed tell human beings to ‘subdue the earth’ monotheistic religions have often been understood as complicit in the human exceptionalism that is thought to have created the conditions for the Anthropocene. In distinction to such Biblical traditions, indigenous animistic cultures have typically respected all forms of life as ‘persons’ and such traditions have thus become a source of inspiration for ecological movements. After discussing contemporary Christian efforts to integrate the natural sciences and the environment into their responses to the Anthropocene, this article will turn to animism and seek to evaluate the risks and benefits that could ensue from a postmodern form of animism that could provide a necessary postsecular response to the Anthropocene.

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