scholarly journals ATTITUDES: AUTHORIAL STANCE IN THE REVIEW GENRE OF TAIWANESE MA GRADUATES

2019 ◽  
pp. 171
Author(s):  
Cheng-hua Hsiao
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Master's Students ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
The Status

Evaluation is a central linguistic feature that expresses a writer’s critical stance and plays a prominent role in academic discourse. By using Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal framework, particularly regarding attitude, this study conducted a textual analysis of literature review chapters in master’s theses written by Taiwanese graduates. Attitude can be regarded as a manner of behavior caused by feelings and opinions. The review genre was selected for study because that is where the writer’s position toward the status of knowledge is displayed. Furthermore, studies have explored various types of linguistic features, and the data sources were mainly journal articles. Few studies have yet studied the review genre in master’s theses in applied linguistics written by master’s students. The results of the study will render additional understanding of advanced EFL Taiwanese learners’ evaluation in the literature review genre and offer advice for instructors in academic writing.

scholarly journals Challenges of Nigerian Accounting Postgraduate Students in Taking up Stance in Ph.D. Theses in Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 175
Author(s):  
Sani Yantandu Uba ◽  
Julius Irudayasamy ◽  
Carmel Antonette Hankins
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
English For Specific Purposes ◽  
Traditional Practices ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Contextual Data ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
Nigerian University

This paper investigates the use of stance linguistic features in accounting Ph.D. theses in a Nigerian university. We adopted a mixed-methods approach by combining a textual analysis of the theses and explored the context of writing of the participants similar to Swale’s textography approach. We compiled three corpora: Bayero University corpus of six accounting Ph.D. theses (BUK corpus); a United Kingdom corpus of six accounting PhD theses (UK corpus) and a corpus of eleven journal articles of accounting (JAA corpus). The results of textual analysis indicate that there is a higher frequency of hedges in all the three corpora than other stance features, followed by boosters, then attitudinal markers, and explicit self-mention features. One striking finding from the BUK corpus is that the authors are rarely used self-mention features compared to authors from other two corpora. However, the result of the chi-square indicates that the differences among the three corpora’s use of stance features are insignificant. The contextual data suggests that non-teaching of English for specific purposes and the traditional practices of Bayero University might be some of the possible factors that constrained authors’ use of stance linguistic features. We recommend introduction of teaching English for specific purposes on postgraduate programmes in Nigerian universities.

scholarly journals Expressions of Criticality in Expert and Student Writing: A Corpus Contrastive Analysis of Literature Reviews

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Muna Liyana Binti Mohamad Tarmizi ◽  
Anealka Aziz Hussin
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Student Writers ◽  
Research Journal ◽  
Literature Reviews ◽  
Integral Role

Literature review in academic writing plays an integral role in demonstrating writers’ knowledge about a field of study as well as in informing the writers of influential researchers and research groups in the field. More importantly, writers are expected to critically analyze previous studies related to their topic. Despite its importance to the academic text, student writers find it challenging to establish a critical stance and to provide evaluative judgment when reviewing the literature. This paper presents a contrastive analysis of student and expert writers’ expressions of criticality in literature review sections of 8 applied linguistics master theses from UiTM (a Malaysian public university) and 62 literature reviews of research journal articles from a similar field (i.e., Language and Communication, English for Academic Purposes and Applied Linguistics). Corpus techniques are used to identify the most common expressions of criticality used by these two groups of writers. The corpus was analyzed using detailed consistency analysis and concordance software from WordSmith Tools (Scott, 2012). Findings revealed that student writers prefer to use hedges and boosters to express criticality and the evaluations they make tend to sound more reporting rather than analyzing and synthesizing the resources critically. Results from this study are beneficial for constructing pedagogical instructions and guidelines for student writers in their critical analysis of the literature review.

Rhetorical Style Across Cultures: An Analysis of Metadiscourse Markers in Academic Writing of Thai and Malaysian Students

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Faridah Hayisama ◽  
Mohamed Ismail Ahamad Shah ◽  
Wan Nur Asyura Wan Adnan
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Master's Students ◽  
Rhetorical Style ◽  
Instructional Focus ◽  
Style Of Writing ◽  
Style Preferences ◽  
Malaysian Students

It is believed that students from different societies and cultural background have their own preferred rhetorical style of interaction. In writing, such distinctive preference is usually exhibited through the use of linguistic features, of which metadiscourse (MD) markers are considered as one of the signposts to the interpretation of writing style preferences. This study aims to investigate the use of interactional metadiscourse (MD) features and its relevance to the rhetorical style preferences in academic writing of Thai and Malaysian master’s students. Using Hyland’s (2005) taxonomy, their thesis discussions were manually analysed in terms of interactional MD markers to determine their frequency of occurrence and to relate the results to the rhetorical styles of writing preferred by each group of students. The analysis revealed that of all five types of interactional MD features, hedges were the most frequently used device followed respectively by boosters, attitude markers, engagement marker and self-mention. In terms of the rhetorical style of writing, the frequency of MD features suggests that tentative and indirect statements, reader-responsibility, distant-relationship between writer and readers, and less writer-involvement in the texts were the preferred rhetorical styles of interaction of both Thai and Malaysian students. The writing conventions and rhetorical styles of the students can be explained from a sociocultural point of view that they are relevant to the oriental style of interaction from which both groups of students originated. The study draws attention to the pedagogical implications that students in Thai and Malaysia should be given more instructional focus on how to utilize MD features in making academic writing more persuasive and interactive. 

Academic writing essentials: A guide for postgraduate students

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Azlina Murad Sani
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Review Paper ◽  
First Language ◽  
Case Analysis ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Postgraduate Level ◽  
Organizational Features

Academic Writing Essentials is a writing reference for masters and doctoral students whose first language is not English.This book will assist you in adjusting to the expectations of writing in English for a higher degree.It offers guidance on strategies and conventions that apply in most forms of postgraduate-level writing. Features: Planning writing, Developing ideas, Integrating sources,Documenting sources, Synthesizing literature, Writing analytically Highlights: Research proposal, Article review, Case analysis report, Literature review paper. Academic Writing Essentials is designed to facilitate self-study.Annotated examples from journal articles, writing frames and simple explanations help you to understand language, style and organizational features, and to apply the knowledge directly in your own writing.

A Contrastive Study of the Passive Voice in Journal Articles in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-478
Author(s):  
Lu Lu
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Special Treatment ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Passive Voice ◽  
Contrastive Study ◽  
Different Types

Abstract The passive voice is an important construction for packaging information. Many textbooks, style manuals or academic papers, however, offer different or even contradictory advice on the use of passives. Previous findings show that passives exhibit disciplinary variation, thus special treatment should be given to different disciplines. However, even within the same discipline, such as linguistics, there are different types of academic writing, namely theoretical articles versus empirical ones. To test whether a difference in the use of passives exists between these two sub-disciplines, the passives in articles sampled from Language and Applied Linguistics are counted and compared. The results show that applied linguistics articles demonstrate a significantly higher (Sig. = .000, p < .001) occurrence of passives than theoretical ones.

What’s in a name

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Gladkova ◽  
Chrysanne DiMarco ◽  
Randy Allen Harris
Keyword(s):  
Complex System ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Research Trends ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Scholarly Research ◽  
Environmental Scan ◽  
Binary Oppositions ◽  
The Status ◽  
Professional Research

We survey the disciplinary status and the research trends of argumentation studies. Our investigation combines the methods of a literature review and environmental scan. The latter consists in analysis of the linguistic features of journal titles, which we approach as a type of metacommunication. The results of our environmental scan suggest that the authors contributing to argumentation research envision it as a well-integrated field with a complex system of relations among the communities, agendas, methods, and venues involved in it. Yet we also found that the field is often seen as divided along the lines of binary oppositions between theory and its applications, as well as between theoretical and empirical research. We found that the field is increasingly turning to empirical, applied, and professional research, while the status of scholarly research is declining. Our analysis suggests that argumentation studies is developing a more sophisticated and tractable theory and methodology

scholarly journals One and the Same? A Systematic Literature Review of Residential Property Investor Types

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Özogul ◽  
Tuna Tasan-Kok
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Residential Property ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Property Market ◽  
Urban And Regional Planning ◽  
Investor Heterogeneity ◽  
The Status ◽  
Investment Object

This article presents a systematic literature review on residential property investor types in selected social science disciplines and critically evaluates the status quo of academic engagement within this diverse group of property market actors. A recurring critique in recent years has been the minimal acknowledgment of investor heterogeneity particularly in relation to urban development and the financialization of housing. Yet, to date, there is no systematic evidence supporting these contentions. Therefore, we conducted an exhaustive literature review of residential investment landscapes through the Web of Science citation database in the following fields: Urban and regional planning, geography, sociology, urban studies, public administration, and economics. Subsequently, we methodically searched for the types of investors addressed, and investor categories employed, in journal articles published between 2000 and 2019. Following a meta-categorization of the results, we demonstrate how existing literature differentiates investors in terms of their spatial scale of operation, size and social composition, investment object and finance, or investment and social behavior. Additionally, we highlight the key topics and issues addressed in the reviewed literature within each meta-category. We propose to turn the four meta-categories into a multidimensional analytical framework as a point of departure for a more nuanced and in-depth understanding of investor differentiations, a tool that is urgently needed in Planning Studies and related disciplines. Furthermore, we argue that mixed method approaches combining hard and quantifiable with soft behavioral investor characteristics, as well as institutional analyses combining structural considerations with actors’ agency, are indispensable to disentangle contemporary residential property market dynamics.

scholarly journals Functional Analyses of Metadiscourse Markers in L2 Students’ Academic Writing

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nayef Jomaa Jomaa ◽  
Mohammad M. Alia
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Public Universities ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistics ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Modal Operators ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Functional Analyses

Stance in general and metadiscourse markers, in particular, have attracted the interest of several studies. Therefore, this study explores the use of metadiscourse in the second language (L2) academic writing by English as a foreign language (EFL) postgraduates in one of the Malaysian public universities. We analyzed the frequency and wordings of modality within the citations of the literature review chapters of 20 Ph.D. theses employing the Systemic Functional Linguistics. Data were analyzed manually utilizing the technique of quantifying the findings to highlight the similarities and differences in using metadiscourse markers. The findings revealed the dominance of full declarative clauses in both Applied Linguistics and Information Technology. Besides the Finite Modal Operators, Mood Adjuncts and Comment Adjuncts were also used to demonstrate modality with a variety in their stance, degrees, and frequencies. Pedagogically, these findings could help supervisors in identifying the implications of their students’ writings. In addition, students can be directed towards reading EAP textbooks and materials that are dedicated to areas of academic writing, metadiscourse markers, and citations.

scholarly journals Exploring process ‘verbs’ in EFL postgraduates’ citations: A Systemic Functional Linguistics approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nayef Jomaa Jomaa ◽  
Siti Jamilah Bidin
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistics ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Functional Theory ◽  
Functional Linguistics ◽  
Phd Theses

Due to their significance in establishing a research background, citations have been under focus by several researchers. However, limited studies have applied the Functional Theory in analysing reporting verbs in citations. Hence, this study identifies citations in the literature review chapters of 20 PhD theses in Information Technology and Applied Linguistics by EFL postgraduates within the ESL context. These PhD theses were selected purposefully. This study explores qualitatively the processes based on the ideational metafunction of the Systemic Functional Linguistics. The findings show that the material processes were used dominantly, followed by relational, verbal, and mental processes, whereas the behavioural  processes were less used. The use of processes ‘verbs’ is influenced by field and tenor as register variables. Thus, the findings imply that EFL postgraduates are unaware of using processes; therefore, they should receive discipline-specific instructions. Pedagogical textbooks for academic writing could be also developed based on the outputs of the present study.

scholarly journals SUBJECT IT-EXTRAPOSITION IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS RESEARCH ARTICLES: SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-46
Author(s):  
Seyed Foad Ebrahimi ◽  
Reza Moghaddam
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Syntactic Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Writing Research ◽  
The Common ◽  
Novice Writers

During the last two decades, numerous studies have focused on linguistic features of academic writing. One of these features, which appears frequently in academic writing and which writers need to improve their use of, is the it-extraposition construction. The existing literature on subject it-extraposition has focused on syntactic analysis (types and patterns) of this construction and little attention has been paid to semantic analysis (meanings); thus, this study aims to explore the types, patterns and meanings of subject it-extraposition used in Applied Linguistics research articles. The study was run on a corpus of 57 Applied Linguistics research articles, wherein the common extraposed subject clauses were the that-clause followed by the infinitive to-clause. It was also evident that minimal attention was devoted to the use of the wh-clause and the -ing participle clause. Concerning patterns of it-extraposition subject clause, subject + predicate and subject + predicate + complement were the most commonly utilised in Applied Linguistics research articles. The findings showed that Applied Linguistics writers were more concerned with expressing and evaluating their opinions and claims semantically. This study could help novice writers, especially novice non-native writers, to increase their awareness regarding how such construction is used syntactically and semantically by expert writers in writing research articles.

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