Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings / John M. Swales

Second language acquisition

Abstract: 1. Introduction Usage-based approaches hold that we learn linguistic constructions while engaging in communication, the " interpersonal communicative and cognitive processes that everywhere and always shape language " (Slobin 1997). Constructions are form-meaning mappings, conventionalized in the speech community, and entrenched as language knowledge in the learner's mind. They are the symbolic units of language relating the defining properties of their morphological, syntactic, and lexical form with particular semantic, pragmatic, and discourse 2008). Broadly, Construction Grammar argues that all grammatical phenomena can be understood as learned pairings of form (from morphemes, words, and idioms, to partially lexically filled and fully general phrasal patterns) and their associated semantic or discourse functions. Such beliefs, increasingly influential in the study of child language acquisition, have turned upside down generative assumptions of innate language acquisition devices, the continuity hypothesis, and top-down, rule-governed, processing, bringing back data-driven, emergent accounts of linguistic systematicities. Constructionist theories of child first language acquisition (L1A) use dense longitudinal corpora to chart the emergence of creative linguistic competence from children's analyses of the utterances in their usage history and from their Second language (L2) learners share the goal of understanding language and how it works. Since they achieve this based upon their experience of language usage, there are many Second Language Acquisition p. 1 commonalities between first and second language acquisition that can be understood from corpus analyses of input and from cognitive-and psycho-linguistic analyses of construction acquisition following associative and cognitive principles of learning and categorization. Therefore Usage-based approaches, Cognitive Linguistics, and Corpus Linguistics are increasingly influential in and Ellis 2009), albeit with the twist that since they have previously devoted considerable resources to the estimation of the characteristics of another language-the native tongue in which they have considerable fluency-L2 learners' computations and inductions are often affected by transfer, with L1-tuned expectations and selective attention (Ellis 2006c; Ellis and Sagarra, 2010a) blinding the acquisition system to aspects of the L2 sample, thus biasing their estimation from naturalistic usage and producing the limited attainment that is typical of adult second language acquisition (L2A). Thus L2A is different from L1A in that it involves processes of construction and reconstruction. The organization of the remainder of chapter is as follows. Section 2 provides evidence for the psychological reality of constructions in L2. Section 3 presents a psychological analysis of the effects of form, function, frequency, and contingency that are common to both L1 …

Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing

Abstract: Why do engineers "report" while philosophers "argue" and biologists "describe"? In the Michigan Classics Edition of "Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic" "Writing," Ken Hyland examines the relationships between the cultures of academic communities and their unique discourses. Drawing on discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, and the voices of professional insiders, Ken Hyland explores how academics use language to organize their professional lives, carry out intellectual tasks, and reach agreement on what will count as knowledge. In addition, "Disciplinary Discourses" presents a useful framework for understanding the interactions between writers and their readers in published academic writing. From this framework, Hyland provides practical teaching suggestions and points out opportunities for further research within the subject area. As issues of linguistic and rhetorical expression of disciplinary conventions are becoming more central to teachers, students, and researchers, the careful analysis and straightforward style of "Disciplinary Discourses" make it a remarkable asset. The Michigan Classics Edition features a new preface by the author and a new foreword by John M. Swales.

Why research on women entrepreneurs needs new directions

Abstract: Research articles on women's entrepreneurship reveal, in spite of intentions to the contrary and in spite of inconclusive research results, a tendency to recreate the idea of women as being secondary to men and of women's businesses being of less significance or, at best, as being a complement. Based on a discourse analysis, this article discusses what research practices cause these results. It suggests new research directions that do not reproduce women's subordination but capture more and richer aspects of women's entrepreneurship.

Stance and engagement: a model of interaction in academic discourse

Abstract: A great deal of research has now established that written texts embody interactions between writers and readers. A range of linguistic features have been identified as contributing to the writer's ...

Metadiscourse in academic writing: A reappraisal

Abstract: Metadiscourse is self-reflective linguistic material referring to the evolving text and to the writer and imagined reader of that text. It is based on a view of writing as social engagement and in academic contexts reveals the ways that writers project themselves into their discourse to signal their attitude towards both the propositional content and the audience of the text. Despite considerable interest in metadiscourse by teachers and applied linguists, however, it has failed to achieve its explanatory potential due to a lack of theoretical rigour and empirical confusion. Based on an analysis of 240 L2 postgraduate dissertations totalling 4 million words, we offer a reassessment of metadiscourse, propose what we hope is a more robust model, and use this to explore how these students used metadiscourse. Essentially our argument is that metadiscourse offers a way of understanding the interpersonal resources writers use to present propositional material and therefore a means of uncovering something of the rhetorical and social distinctiveness of disciplinary communities.