scholarly journals Referential Coherence of Academic Texts: A Corpus-Based Analysis of L2 Research Papers in Management

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 112-127
Author(s):  
Elizaveta A. Smirnova
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Reference Corpus ◽  
Professional Writers

This paper focuses on referential coherence, which is seen as a crucial attribute of effective academic writing. Findings are reported from a corpus study of Russian students’ research proposals. The learners’ use of anaphoric expressions is compared with a reference corpus, which comprises research articles published in peer-reviewed journals. It was hypothesised that learners use anaphora less frequently than professional writers and face some difficulties when using anaphoric expressions. The results of the analysis partly confirmed the hypothesis and allowed the identification of particular problems connected with the students’ use of anaphoric expressions, which were then classified into several groups. Examples of exercises aimed at dealing with the identified problems are also provided. It is hoped that the reported findings, as well as the author’s suggested reasons for the problems and possible ways of dealing with them, will be useful for EAP practitioners, researchers, and students writing their research papers in English.

The language of quoting in academic writing

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lieke Verheijen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Lexical Items

Because quotation is a fundamental aspect of academic texts, this corpus study examines the language of quoting in (L2) academic writing. To find out whether there are subtle linguistic differences in the use of quotation by learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) and professional academics who are native speakers of English (NSE), I compare two corpora of scholarly writings: one by upper intermediate and advanced EFL students and one by NSE experts. 1201 Quotes were extracted from the writings and examined for a broad range of lexico-grammatical features relevant to using quotes, including introductions to quotes, lexical items in introducing quotes, ‘special’ quotes, and punctuation surrounding quotes. The findings make clear that EFL students and NSE experts differ significantly on various points in their language of quoting. Making students aware of these differences could make their academic writing more professional, native-like, and sophisticated.

scholarly journals Translation as a Paradigm Shift: A Corpus Study of Academic Writing

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnes Pisanski Peterlin
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Electronic Publishing ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Academic Communication ◽  
Entire Text

In recent decades the increasing reliance on computer technology and the emergence of electronic publishing have precipitated changes in both the production and reception of academic writing. At the same time, the dominance of English as the medium of academic communication has been asserted in all fields of study. While many scholars write their own texts in English, it is not exceptional for others to have their papers translated into English. It is interesting, however, that translation of academic discourse has received relatively little research attention so far. In the study presented here, the question how translated academic texts differ from comparable original English academic texts is addressed. To explore this question, a 700,000-word corpus comprising 104 research articles (Slovene-English translations and comparable English originals) is analyzed in terms of references to the entire text itself. The results show considerable differences between the translated texts and the comparable English-language originals.

scholarly journals A Comparative Analysis of Reporting Verbs in Research Papers authored by Pakistani and Native Writers

2020 ◽  
Vol V (I) ◽  
pp. 57-66
Author(s):  
Tayyabba Yasmin ◽  
Intzar Hussain Butt ◽  
Muhammad Naeem Sarwar
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Fundamental Component ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Selection Of

Decorous exploitation of reporting verbs is a fundamental component of academic writing. It facilitates in constructing authors’ assertions as well as situating those assertions with the previously published literature in the field (Bloch, 2010). This study has been carried out to examine the phenomena of reporting verbs in the research articles of Education and English written by Pakistani and native speakers of English. A corpus-based approach has been adopted in this study. The corpus of the study comprises of 152 research articles, authored by native and Pakistani researchers in the fields of Education and English. The findings of the study exhibited dissimilarities in the ways the authors accredit the other sources in their work and demonstrate the reported statements in Pakistani and native corpora. This study will assist the research scholars to enhance their awareness regarding an appropriate selection of reporting verbs in their academic writings.

Agentivity as a determinant of lexico-grammatical variation in L2 academic writing

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Callies
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
First Person ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Grammatical Variation ◽  
Novice Writers

This paper examines novice writers’ strategies in the (non-)representation of authorship in academic writing drawing on data from the Corpus of Academic Learner English and a native-speaker control corpus. The analysis focuses on the quantitative and qualitative use of pronouns, subject placeholders, as well as verbs and inanimate nouns that frequently occur in academic writing. The findings indicate that even advanced learners are insecure about the (non-)representation of authorship in academic texts, but lack the resources to report events and findings without mentioning an author-agent. The learner data evidence a significant overrepresentation of first person pronouns and subject placeholders as default strategies to suppress the author-agent. This imbalanced clustering is argued to be due to a significant underrepresentation of constructions with inanimate nouns as subjects that are preferred reporting devices in abstracts and research articles in the humanities. The paper concludes by addressing implications for language teaching, testing and assessment.

scholarly journals Lexical Bundles Ending in that in Academic Writing by Czech Learners and Native Speakers of English

2021 ◽  
pp. 33-69
Author(s):  
Gabriela Brůhová ◽  
Kateřina Vašků
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Academic Journals ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Novice Writers ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Professional Writers ◽  
Shell Nouns

The aim of this paper is to explore how Czech learners of English use lexical bundles ending in that in their academic texts in comparison with novice and professional L1 authors. The analysis is based on three corpora (VESPA-CZ, BAWE and our own cor- pus of papers published in academic journals). The results suggest that Czech learners of English do not use a more limited repertoire of lexical bundles ending in that than pro- fessional writers. However, there are differences between the groups studied, especially in the range of various shell nouns used in nominal bundles. Novice writers, both L1 and L2, use bundles ending in that to express stance more frequently than professional writers.

scholarly journals Academic Words in the English Research Article Abstracts: the Coverage and Frequency

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Fransiskus Jemadi ◽  
Fatmawati . ◽  
Priska Filomena Iku
Keyword(s):  
Word List ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Academic Vocabulary ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Word Families ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Lexical Items

<p>The present study aimed at exploring the abstracts of research articles written by non-native English researchers to uncover the specific characteristics of academic vocabulary employed in the English research articles abstracts.It focuses on frequency and coverage distribution of the words from the Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000) in the abstracts of research articles. The source of data for this corpus study was gathered from 97 abstracts written by the EFL researchers and published by the <em>Journal Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Missio</em> at STKIP St. Paulus Ruteng from 2015 until 2018. The results of this study revealed that the coverage of K1, the first most frequent 1000 English words, is the most dominant lexical items applied by the researchers. It covered 71.33% of the texts. The representation of lexical items that belong to K2, the second most frequent 1000 English words, covered 5.44% of all the words used by the writers in their abstracts. Moreover, the presence of Academic Word List, which refers to a list of 570 word families that are commonly found in academic texts and Off-list, which refers to the words that do not belong to K1 or K2 because it is related to certain field, has slight difference over all of the texts where the former covers 11.95% and the later covers 11.26%. As far as the findings of the present study are concerned, the room for some improvements on academic words applied in the abstracts need to pay attention.</p>

Hedges in Russian EAP writing: A corpus-based study of research papers in management

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-101
Author(s):  
Elizaveta Smirnova ◽  
Svetlana Strinyuk
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Writing Pedagogy ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Academic Communication ◽  
Professional Writers

AbstractThe fact that English has become a lingua franca of academic communication has led to increased attention to teaching English for academic purposes (EAP) at the academia. Academic discourse markers, such as hedges, have been an important topic in academic writing research whose prime aim is helping non-Anglophone researchers to present their research findings in English for international publication. This study investigates the use of the most frequent hedging devices in a corpus of 58 works written by Russian university students and compares it to a corpus of articles published in peer-reviewed journals in business and management. The analysis of learner corpus data has provided evidence of how Russian ELF speakers use the language, showing significant differences between the use of hedges by the students and professional writers. The research has also highlighted a number of challenges which non-native learners face when writing academic texts. The study may contribute to a higher level of L2 academic writing in ELF contexts and have implications for creating EAP courses, research of second language acquisition and writing pedagogy.

scholarly journals Analysing Academic Texts with Computational Linguistics Tools

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (7) ◽  
pp. 89-103
Author(s):  
E. I. Shpit ◽  
V. N. Kurovskii
Keyword(s):  
Computational Linguistics ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Text Processing ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Reference Corpus ◽  
Quantitative Results ◽  
Processing Mechanisms ◽  
International English

Writing academic texts in English introduces certain difficulties associated with translating Russian sentences with pronounced stylistic peculiarities, especially for young researchers who are just starting their publication activity. It seems impossible to study any genre without analysing examples of the discourse, which highlights the use of computational linguistics as it allows automating a lot of language and text processing mechanisms and generates relatively accurate quantitative results. The present study considers the application of AntConc and Coh-Metrix toolkits for analyzing master students’ abstracts to research papers written for international English-language journals or conference proceedings (Learner Corpus) in comparison with international researchers’ abstracts published in high-impact journals (Reference Corpus). The analysis conducted in the above-mentioned software tools revealed the drawbacks and strengths of master students’ texts, allowed characterizing them on the words, sentence and discourse levels, as well as outlined the potentials of their use in teaching academic writing skills.

scholarly journals Genre Analysis of Iranian TEFL Students’ Master Theses

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Shadi Shirani ◽  
Azizeh Chalak
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Genre Analysis ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
Academic Genres ◽  
Rhetorical Structures ◽  
Theses And Dissertations

Genre analysis dealing with the study of situated language in a particular context is regarded as a crucial component in every communication in general and academic writing texts in particular. Furthermore, recently it has been set as a requirement for the graduated students to pursue a shared rhetorical pattern for generating an academic text. Several researchers have recommended detailed explanations for rhetorical structures of various parts of academic texts, and an extensive literature is dedicated to investigate different academic genres such as research articles, theses, and dissertations in English. But, there are not enough studies that work on the thesis as a whole product and analyze all sections together and not separately. Therefore, 40 M.A. theses produced by Iranian TEFL students at Islamic Azad University (IAU), Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch were collected and analyzed for the rhetorical structures of the Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion (IMRD) sections in order to accomplish the objectives of the study. Through calculating the frequencies and percentages of data, it was revealed that a number of moves in different sections was absent in the theses.

scholarly journals Authorial Stance In Counseling Research Articles

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham Cazares-Cervantes ◽  
April LaGue ◽  
Cass Dykeman
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Counselor Educators ◽  
Random Selection ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Use Of Self ◽  
Reference Corpus ◽  
Selection Of

A popular notion is that authors in academic research articles merely convey propositional information. However, as Hyland has shown, authors in academic writing also use a range of devices to organize their texts, engage readers, and signal their attitudes to both their material and their readers (Hyland &amp; Tse, 2004). In the present study, three counselor educators examined the use of the devices of Self-Mentions, Boosters, Attitude Markers, and Hedges within a stratified random selection of research articles from 24 peer-reviewed counseling journals. Compared to a reference corpus of social science articles, counseling journals contained a greater use of self-mentions, attitude markers, and hedges. Implications for writers submitting their research to peer-reviewed counseling journals were presented.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document