scholarly journals Political scientists on the functions of personal pronouns in their writing: An interview-based study of ‘I’ and ‘we’

2007 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nigel Harwood
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
The Other ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Pronoun Use

AbstractIn contrast to the numerous corpus-based studies of pronouns in academic writing, this paper uses qualitative interviews in an attempt to account for academic writers' motivations for using the pronouns ‘I’ and ‘we’ and to describe the textual effects that each case of ‘I’ and ‘we’ helps to create. Five political scientists took part in the research, commenting upon their pronoun use in one of their own journal articles and also in the other informants' texts. Seven textual effects that ‘I’ and ‘we’ help to construct are identified and described. ‘I’ and ‘we’ are said to help (i) make the readership feel included and involved in the writers' argument; (ii) make the text more accessible; (iii) convey a tentative tone and hedge writers' claims; (iv) explicate the writers' logic or method regarding their arguments or procedures; (v) signal writers' intentions and arguments; (vi) indicate the contribution and newsworthiness of the research; and (vii) allow the writer to inject a personal tenor into the text. The insights and implications of the study are discussed and the paper closes by proposing that similar interview-based studies could be used for pedagogical purposes in English for academic purposes (EAP) contexts.

Understanding the use of mediational means in academic writing

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 378-407
Author(s):  
Peisha Wu ◽  
Shulin Yu
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Master Level ◽  
Mediational Means ◽  
Novice Writers ◽  
Present Case Study

Abstract While the majority of previous studies on EAP (English for academic purposes) writing have been devoted to professional or academic writing at a more advanced level (i.e., PhD students and scholars) in ESL contexts, little attention has been paid to the academic writing of master-level novice writers in EFL contexts. From a sociocultural perspective, the present case study examined the writing strategies of a master-level novice writer – Alice in Macau context. Non-structured, semi-structured and text-based interviews were used as the primary source of data, with document analysis used for triangulation. The study identified two major categories (i.e., artifacts and community) and five subcategories of mediational means (i.e., journal articles and theses, languages, online writing materials, peers and experts) as significant in the novice writer’s academic writing activities. It also unveiled double-edged features of mediational means and recognized their interplay with the writer’s goals and relatedness to her situated context.

scholarly journals To We or Not to We: Corpus-Based Research on First-Person Pronoun Use in Abstracts and Conclusions

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 215824402110088
Author(s):  
Shih-ping Wang ◽  
Wen-Ta Tseng ◽  
Robert Johanson
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
First Person ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
Integrated Framework ◽  
Person Pronoun ◽  
Pronoun Use ◽  
Present Tense

A growing trend exists for authors to employ a more informal writing style that uses “we” in academic writing to acknowledge one’s stance and engagement. However, few studies have compared the ways in which the first-person pronoun “we” is used in the abstracts and conclusions of empirical papers. To address this lacuna in the literature, this study conducted a systematic corpus analysis of the use of “we” in the abstracts and conclusions of 400 articles collected from eight leading electrical and electronic (EE) engineering journals. The abstracts and conclusions were extracted to form two subcorpora, and an integrated framework was applied to analyze and seek to explain how we-clusters and we-collocations were employed. Results revealed whether authors’ use of first-person pronouns partially depends on a journal policy. The trend of using “we” showed that a yearly increase occurred in the frequency of “we” in EE journal papers, as well as the existence of three “we-use” types in the article conclusions and abstracts: exclusive, inclusive, and ambiguous. Other possible “we-use” alternatives such as “I” and other personal pronouns were used very rarely—if at all—in either section. These findings also suggest that the present tense was used more in article abstracts, but the present perfect tense was the most preferred tense in article conclusions. Both research and pedagogical implications are proffered and critically discussed.

Når styringens ambitioner udfordres af praksis. Om at analysere rummet imellem styringens intentioner og situationel praksis

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Herup Nielsen ◽  
Niklas Andreas Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
The Other ◽  
Empirical Reality ◽  
Men I ◽  
Unemployment Policy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Local Employment

Studier, der analyserer det sociale med inspiration fra Foucaults tanker om governmentality, kritiseres i stigende omfang for at afskære sig fra at analysere de praktiske relationer, som politisk styring konkret indlejres i. I artiklen tager vi afsæt i denne kritik og viser, med et studie af forholdet mellem et kommunalt jobcenter og et lokalt beskæftigelsesråd, hvordan governmental magtanalyse kan indfange styringens uforudsigelige, mangefacetterede og immanente karakter ved at fokusere på styringsintentionernes møde med den praktiske virkelighed, der søges styret. Formelt er rådet nedsat til at overvåge og kontrollere jobcentret, men i den praktiske relation er det snarere jobcentret, som overvåger og kontrollerer rådet. Artiklen viser, hvordan dette er muligt ved at analysere jobcentrets arbejde med rådet ved hjælp af en række centrale begreber fra Foucaults forfatterskab. Empirisk trækker studiet foruden formelle myndighedsdokumenter, der beskriver rådets tiltænkte rolle, på praksisinformerende empiri i form af kvalitative interviews og mødereferater over en fire-årig periode. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Mathias Herup Nielsen and Niklas Andreas Andersen: When Praxis Challenges the Ambitions of Governing. Analyzing the Space between the Intentions of Governing and Situational Praxis Studies working with the Foucauldian concept of ”governmentality” are frequently criticized for their apparent disregard of empirical reality. This article takes this critique as its point of departure and demonstrates the application of the concept of governmentality in a concrete empirical case study in order to grasp the unpredictable and multifaceted nature of modern day power. The case investigated here is the relationship between a Danish Jobcentre and a so-called local employment council (LBR). The latter was created to ”control” and ”monitor” the former organization. However, in practice, it is rather the other way around – the Jobcentre is controlling and monitoring the members of the LBR. This article draws on a number of well-known Foucauldian concepts to show how this relation of power is practically structured. Empirically the article draws on documents from central authorities as well as on a number of qualitative interviews with the actors involved – hence, the article attempts to meet with the dominant overall critique of the governmentality perspective for disregarding empirical reality. Keywords: governmentality, Michel Foucault, unemployment policy, jobcentre.

scholarly journals Women write the rights of woman: the sexual politics of the personal pronoun in the 1790s

2007 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Hodson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Sexual Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Gender Expectations ◽  
Mary Hays ◽  
Analysis Programme ◽  
Political Pamphlets

This article investigates patterns of personal pronoun usage in four texts written by women about women's rights during the 1790s: Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Mary Hays' An Appeal to the Men of Great Britain (1798), Mary Robinson's Letter to the Women of England (1799) and Mary Anne Radcliffe's The Female Advocate (1799). I begin by showing that at the time these texts were written there was a widespread assumption that both writers and readers of political pamphlets were, by default, male. As such, I argue, writing to women as a woman was distinctly problematic, not least because these default assumptions meant that even apparently gender-neutral pronouns such as I, we and you were in fact covertly gendered. I use the textual analysis programme WordSmith to identify the personal pronouns in my four texts, and discuss my results both quantitatively and qualitatively. I find that while one of my texts does little to disturb gender expectations through its deployment of personal pronouns, the other three all use personal pronouns that disrupt eighteenth century expectations about default male authorship and readership.

scholarly journals (Re)production of Inequalities in Retirement Practices and Meanings Assigned to the Term ‘Retiree’ in the Post-Communist Context

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Urbaniak
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Productive Aging ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Wave ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
Life Course Transition

In the institutionalized life course transition from work to retirement is the transition that culturally defines the beginning of later life. However, there is no universal way of experiencing retirement or understanding retirees’ social roles. Especially in the context of the post-communist, liquid modern reality in Poland. The social role of the retiree, defined as a set of rules and expectations generated for individuals occupying particular positions in the social structure, is constructed at the intersection of what is culturally defined and individually negotiated. Therefore, the way in which individuals (re)define term “retiree” and “do retirement” reflects not only inequalities in individual resources and attitudes, but also in social structure in a given place and at a given time. In this contribution, I draw upon data from 68 qualitative interviews with retirees from Poland to analyze retirement practices and meanings assigned to the term “retiree.” Applying practice theory, I explore the inequalities they (re)produce, mirror and reinforce at the same time. Results show that there are four broad types of retirement practices: caregiving, working, exploring and disengaging. During analysis of meanings assigned by participants to the term “retiree,” two definitions emerged: one of a “new wave retiree” and the other of a “stagnant retiree.” Results suggest that in the post-communist context, retirement practices and meanings assigned to the term “retiree” are in the ongoing process of (re)negotiation and are influenced on the one hand by the activation demands resulting from discourses of active and productive aging, and on the other by habitus and imaginaries of retirement formed in the bygone communist era. Retirement practices and definitions of the term “retiree” that emerged from the data reflect structural and individual inequalities, highlighting intersection of gender, age and socioeconomic status in the (re)production of inequalities in retirement transition in the post-communist context.

scholarly journals What we talk about when we talk about writing: exploring how English for Academic Purposes teachers and learning developers conceptualise academic writing

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon McCulloch ◽  
Tania Horak
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Teacher Identity ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Academic Literacies ◽  
Professional Identities ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
Academic Writer ◽  
Sense Of Identity

Two main groups of staff currently provide writing support to students in British universities. These staff typically enter their roles from a range of professional backgrounds and, consequently, may hold different professional identities and understandings of what academic writing is. Although there is a body of research on teacher identity and on lecturers’ conceptualisations of writing, few studies have compared the views and identities of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teachers and learning developers. The current study set out to investigate whether these two groups perceive academic writing in similar or different ways, and why. We undertook a small-scale study, interviewing eight participants at two universities, half from a post-1992 institution and the others from a research-intensive, high-ranking university. While participants varied in their definitions of writing, common themes emerged, lying on a spectrum from an autonomous, text-based, to an academic literacies perspective on writing. To establish the influences on these perspectives, we investigated the participants’ sense of identity as an academic writer, how they learned writing themselves and any influences on them from theory. Neither the EAP teachers nor the learning developers identified strongly as academic writers, despite all holding postgraduate qualifications and some having published their writing. Most reported little to no training in how to write academically themselves, and few mentioned any theoretical stance in their approach to helping students. Although some clustering around particular conceptualisations of writing was observed, we did not find strong evidence that the participants belong to two different ‘tribes’.

scholarly journals The Patient’s Perspective on Institutional Logics in Russian Maternity Care

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-452
Author(s):  
Екатерина Александровна Бороздина ◽  
Анастасия Андреевна Новкунская
Keyword(s):  
Maternity Care ◽  
Institutional Environment ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Healthcare Providers ◽  
Institutional Logics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Institutional Dynamics ◽  
Healthcare Facilities ◽  
Expectant Mothers ◽  
Institutional Actors

The interplay between different institutional logics is a vital topic in contemporary institutional analyses of healthcare. In this paper, we consider relations between professional, bureaucratic, market, and informal logics in the volatile and ever-transforming context of post-Soviet maternity care. We approach this issue from an unconventional angle and study how various logics are interpreted, enacted and manipulated by women-patients. Neo-institutional scholars commonly enlist patients as institutional actors that are involved both in maintaining and changing the institutional order. However, current research neglects the patients’ perspective instead focusing on the practices of healthcare providers. In order to fill this gap, we investigate how expectant mothers make sense of and navigate the complex institutional environment of Russian maternity care. In our analysis we rely on empirical data from fifty-nine qualitative interviews with recent mothers conducted in St. Petersburg in 2015–2017. This data allows us to conclude that the institutional dynamics of maternity care are powered mostly by the rivalry of two logics – one bureaucratic, the other market-driven. The professional logic, meanwhile, remains underrepresented and dominated by the other two. Unlike healthcare practitioners, women perceive the bureaucratic logic as chaotic and unpredictable, while wealthy clients employ a repertoire of actions offered by the market logic to exercise more control of their hospital routine. Different institutional logics compete for dominance, leaving areas of uncertainty in regard to institutional rules. In some cases, patients use informality to manage such ambivalence and challenge the formal order of healthcare facilities. The common character of this strategy prompts us to suggest that informality forms a distinctive fourth logic that frames some actions and interactions within Russian maternity care.

scholarly journals The Politics of Masculinity in Tony Gould’s Imperial Warriors: Britain and the Gurkhas

2021 ◽  
pp. 34-42
Author(s):  
Ram Prasad Rai
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Research Work ◽  
The Other ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Related Area ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Second World

The main concern of this paper is to study on masculinity and more importantly the hyper masculinity of the Gurkhas in Imperial Warriors: Britain and the Gurkhas by Tony Gould. The writer describes the courage with discipline and dedication, the Gurkhas had while fighting for Nepal, their homeland during the Anglo-Nepal War (1814-1816) and for Britain in the First and Second World Wars, following the other wars and confrontations in many parts of the world. Despite a lot of hardships and pain in wars, they never showed their back to the enemies, but kept Britain’s imperial image always high with victories. They received Victoria Crosses along with other bravery medals. As a masculinity, the hegemonic masculinity is obviously present in the book since the high ranked British Officers are in the position to lead the Gurkha soldiers. However, the masculinity here is associated with the extreme level of bravery and that is the hyper-masculinity of the Gurkhas. Since this is a qualitative research work, the researcher has consulted various books, reviews and journal articles related to the Gurkhas. It is a new concept in the study of the Gurkhas in the particular book by Gould. So, it will certainly be a new insight for the future researchers in the related area.

scholarly journals Enhancing Performance of Teachers through Peer Observation

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-78
Author(s):  
Ashim Kumar Paul
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Data ◽  
Quality Education ◽  
The Other ◽  
Teaching Performance ◽  
Peer Observation ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Constructive Feedback ◽  
Practical Tool ◽  
Students Success

The research purpose of achieving quality education is that enhancing teachers' performance is a must since it determines students' learning and academic achievement. On the other hand, peer observation (PO) is a practical tool used in a classroom where two peers work together and observe each other's teaching, and accordingly, the observer gives constructive feedback to the observed teacher, helping bring about positive changes in the instruction. Therefore, this paper seeks to explore the effectiveness of peer observation and formulate a framework for its implementation for improving the teaching performance of Bangladeshi college teachers. In this regard, the researcher used a secondary data analysis method in which around 75 papers, including journal articles, conference proceedings, and research reports of different authors and organizations, were studied, analyzed, and discussed in this paper. Besides, two more case studies in international contexts were elaborate to review. After analyzing the documents, the researcher divided the issue into several themes and sub-themes. The result found that the PO's implementation would enhance the teachers' performance, and consequently, the students' success would be augmented. Later, deliberating on different PO models, an implementation plan for PO in Bangladeshi colleges context was devised and developed.

scholarly journals An Explorative Study of Men’s Masculinity Constructions and Proximity to Violence against Women.

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 284
Author(s):  
Peter Martin Jansson ◽  
Christian Kullberg
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
The Other ◽  
Violent Crimes ◽  
Explorative Study

This explorative study aimed to develop an understanding of how a sample of two groups of men, considered to be situated at different ends of Connell’s masculinity continuum, construct their masculinity, and how these constructions relate to their proximity to violence against women (VAW). One group consisted of five men incarcerated for violent crimes (MIVC) that had previously used VAW. The other included five participants in the pro-feminist group Men Against Violence (MAV), without prior VAW. An abductive approach, using qualitative interviews, was employed. Results show that the MIVC participants appeared ambivalent, unreflective, and inconsistent in their masculinity constructions, and used VAW as part of their problem-solving repertoire. The MAV participants appeared to have a reflexive stance towards gender equality and consistently adopted inclusive ways of enacting masculinity and preventing VAW. The study can only provide some support to the postulated relationship between men’s masculinity positions and their attitudes toward VAW.

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