scholarly journals Actor and Goal Representation in the Transitivity System of Undergraduate Theses and Journal Research Articles: an SFL Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Marsandi Manar ◽  
Siti Wachidah ◽  
Ratna Dewanti
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Lexical Resources ◽  
Material Process ◽  
Goal Representation ◽  
Experiential Meaning

AbstractThe current study scrutinizes the representation of actors and goals of transitivity system in the introduction sections of   theses (ISoT) composed by undergraduate students in reference to that of the introduction sections of research articles (ISoRA) considered as the target writings in the academic discourse of knowledge building. 738 English ranking clauses from 10 English-field ISoT and 694 from 10 ISoRA of TESOL Quarterly were analysed for their material processes as well as their participants and circumstances. The analysis was executed with the tables of analysis adapted from Halliday’s experiential meaning framework.  The analysis reveals that in the material processes of ISoRA previous studies and previous researchers instead of current studies and current researchers are more frequently employed as actors. Contrary, in their ISoT counterpart, the latter outnumber the former. The analysis also finds that goals in the material processes of ISoT in comparison with its ISoRA counterpart still lack previous findings. Overall, the representation of actors and goals in the material processes of ISoT still needs lexical resources that underpin the process of knowledge building. This has been confirmed by the tendency of actors and goals of ISoT to represent its study undertaken, compared with its ISoRA counterpart focusing more on previous related studiesKeywords: actors, goals, material process, transitivity system, ISoT, ISoRA

scholarly journals Transitivity Structure of Research Articles: Variations across Sections

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Xindi Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Meaning Construction ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Writing Courses ◽  
Experiential Meaning

This study investigates the transitivity structure of research articles and examines the variations of process types across sections, aiming to explore experiential meaning construction in academic discourse. The corpus for this study consists of ten applied linguistics research articles published from 2018 to 2020 in the top journals of the discipline. Features of the transitivity structure of the whole research articles are presented. The distribution of different process types is also examined in relation to the rhetorical purposes and stylistic features of the abstract, introduction, method, results and discussion, and conclusion sections. The findings reveal that transitivity structure could largely reflect the stylistic features of research articles, which are characterized as being informative and objective as well as interpersonal. Results also show that the distribution of process types may contribute to the regularity manifestation and purpose fulfillment of distinctive sections. This study has implications for both academic writers and academic writing courses.   

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>

scholarly journals A cross cultural analysis of conjuncts as indicators of the interaction and negotiation of meaning in research articles

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renata Povolná
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Negotiation Of Meaning ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Academic Communication

Abstract The role of English as a global lingua franca of academia has become indisputable in the on-going process of internationalization of all scholarship, even though the majority of writers and readers of academic texts are non-native speakers of English. Thus it is questionable whether there is any justification for imposing on international academic communication written in English the style conventions typical of the dominant Anglophone discourse community. Recommendations usually comprise qualities such as clarity, economy, linearity and precision in communication (cf. Bennett, 2015), which can be achieved, among other means, by certain overt guiding signals including conjuncts (Quirk et al., 1985). Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to reveal cross-cultural variation in the use of these important text-organizing means as it is believed that conjuncts can enhance the interaction and negotiation of meaning between the author and prospective readers of academic texts. The paper explores which semantic relations holding between parts of a text tend to be expressed overtly by conjuncts and which semantic classes, such as appositive, contrastive/concessive, listing and resultive conjuncts, contribute most to the interactive and dialogic nature of written academic discourse. The data are taken from research articles (RAs) selected from two journals, one representing academic discourse written by native speakers of English (Applied Linguistics) and the other representing academic texts written in English by Czech and Slovak scholars (Discourse and Interaction).

Statistics Used in Current Social Work Literature: Curricular Needs of Undergraduate Students

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-90
Author(s):  
Bushra Sabri ◽  
Mercedes Bern Klug
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Statistical Methods ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Undergraduate Research ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Social Work Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Curricular Needs

This study sought to identify the most commonly reported statistical methods in a section of the social work literature and demonstrate the need for including them in the statistical curricula for social work undergraduates. The authors reviewed 417 articles from Health & Social Work, Social Work, Social Work Research, and Children & Schools in 64 issues published from January 2005 to December 2008. The quantitative empirical research articles (47.9%; n=200) were then selected to ascertain the most frequently reported statistical methods, which were found to be correlation, regression, and chi procedures. This study's results may contribute to the knowledge of statistics usage in the social work literature and help to define vital emphases for undergraduate research courses in social work.

scholarly journals MEDICAL RESEARCH ARTICLE: NATIONAL INDICATORS IN THE UNIVERSAL GENRE OF ACADEMIC DISCOURSE

2020 ◽  
pp. 145-153
Author(s):  
Ирина Ивановна Торубарова ◽  
Анна Олеговна Стеблецова
Keyword(s):  
Medical Research ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Russian Speakers ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Comparative Description

Статья посвящена выявлению и анализу национальной специфики медицинских текстов академического дискурса. На материале текстов научной статьи, созданных русскоязычными авторами на русском и английском языках, авторы описывают проявления русского академического стиля в этом универсальном жанре. Выявленные лексические и синтаксические черты позволяют сделать выводы о проявлении национальной специфики в англоязычных медицинских текстах. The papers focuses on identification and analysis of national indicators in medical research articles. Using the method of comparative description, the authors examine Russian and English corpora of research texts written by Russian speakers to reveal the indicators of Russian academic style. The authors argue that identical lexical and syntactical features recorded in both corpora can be regarded as evidence of Russian academic stylistic markers transferred to the English research articles.

scholarly journals AUTHOR’S SELF-REPRESENTATION IN RESEARCH ARTICLES BY ANGLOPHONE AND SLOVAK LINGUISTS

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milada Walková
Keyword(s):  
Academic Culture ◽  
Cultural Background ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
The Other ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
The One ◽  
Communicative Exchange ◽  
The Given

The tension between the need to present oneself in academic discourse unobtrusively on the one hand and promotionally on the other hand results in a range of options of hiding and revealing authorial presence in the text. The choice from among these options is, among other factors, determined by cultural background. This paper explores how Anglophone writers and Slovak authors writing in Slovak and in non-native English position themselves in linguistic research papers as individuals or as part of a society, and as participants or non-participants of the given communicative exchange. The study concludes that English academic culture is largely individualistic while Slovak academic culture is largely collectivist, a trait that Slovak authors also transmit into their writing in English for a mainly local audience.

scholarly journals Pomp and Circumstances: From Research, in Practice, for Students

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-242
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Walsh Marr ◽  
Jodie L. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Multilingual Students ◽  
University Of British Columbia ◽  
Support Organization ◽  
Disciplinary Discourse ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Powerful Mechanism

Circumstances are powerful grammatical tools for representing precision and specificity in the clause, and they add contextual factors necessary for nuanced disciplinary discourse. This type of detail expressed through circumstances is significant in academic discourse, yet it is often neglected in favor of attention to participants and processes. Drawing on our experiences teaching embedded, discipline-specific EAP to multilingual students at Vantage College at the University of British Columbia, we demonstrate how circumstances, and more broadly circumstantiation, generate crucial insights for both comprehension of complex academic materials and generation of student texts. We also show how circumstances are useful grammatical concepts for working across the metafunctions and ranks in multiple ways: transitivity analyses of circumstance types within disciplinary texts, for example, highlight the relationship between their deployment and genre and stage variations. Probe questions provide a pedagogical lens to see detail and context in critical reading and writing. Circumstances support organization by building Theme patterns through the strategic use of marked topical Themes, and convey interpersonal evaluation in academically appropriate ways. Finally, connecting circumstances to broader circumstantial meanings provides a powerful mechanism for paraphrasing with grammatical metaphor. All through our analyses and materials, we illustrate how explicit instruction in circumstances adds to students’ linguistic and analytical repertoires and facilitates powerful insight for how circumstantial information contributes to academic discourse and knowledge-building.

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