Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings / John M. Swales
01 Jan 1991-Vol. 1991, Iss: 1991, pp 1-99
About: The article was published on 1991-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 5640 citations till now.
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01 Jan 2001
34 citations
Dissertation•
01 Oct 2016
TL;DR: In this article, a survey of all members of the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children (ENOC) to get a broad picture of how they understood their impact, and to recruit participants for phase 2; and case studies in two institutions.
Abstract: Most European countries now have independent children’s rights institutions, but there has been little attempt to systematically evaluate their impact. This study attempts to fill this gap by exploring the kinds of impact institutions make, and how this could be evaluated. Critical realism, case study and appreciative inquiry were the approaches to the research questions. The research had two phases: a survey of all members of the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children (ENOC) to get a broad picture of how they understood their impact; and to recruit participants for phase 2; and case studies in two institutions.
67% of ENOC members responded to the survey, which was designed to shed light on the context in which IHRICs are working, mechanisms and their outcomes. It showed that contextual factors helping members are their staff, mandate and independence, frameworks and networks, especially NGOs. Impact was sought in terms of full implementation of the UNCRC, influencing law and policy, and raising awareness of children’s rights. As a result, the main focus of the case studies was on evaluating the organisations’ impact on law and policy, and how this was informed by children’s perspectives.
The second phase of the research involved talking to staff of the two institutions and a range of stakeholders, and reviewing relevant documents. This revealed that key contextual factors were: powers and remits, staff, political independence and background of the Ombudsman and Commissioner. Participants mainly pointed to the greater visibility and priority of children’s issues in policy-making, greater participation, and raised awareness of children’s rights as impacts of the two institutions.
The research showed that the impact of children’s rights institutions can be substantial but variable, that evaluation has to be highly contextual, and that generalised indicators have limited value. It produced a template for contextual evaluation, to help ICRIs and IHRICs show the evidence of their impact and reflect on what works well for them. The study also suggested that institutions can act as interlocutors between children and the State by empowering both to engage in more effective dialogue, and so enable children to have real impact on policy.
34 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined the differences between Canadian and American cultures as they manifest themselves in business discourse and found that Canadian identity affects genres such as the direct marketing letter because the genre depends on shared understandings between writers and readers; these understandings in turn depend upon cultural values.
Abstract: This essay examines the differences between Canadian and American cultures as they manifest themselves in business discourse. Studies of Canadian identity note the complexity inherent in a multicultural society such as Canada, but they also identify some of the common characteristics — a concern for and tolerance of others, awareness of class distinctions, concern for the collective over the indi vidual. This distinct Canadian identity affects genres such as the direct market ing letter because the genre depends on shared understandings between writers and readers; these understandings in turn depend upon cultural values. The essay then examines direct mail letters addressed to both Canadian and Ameri can addresses using concepts from cross-cultural communication: power dis tance, directness, and individualism. Two pairs of letters — one written for Canadians, one for Americans — that have similar goals are then examined to identify the differences between their approaches to each audience. Business commu...
34 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: This paper investigated patterns of rhetorical convergence and divergence in pairs of RA abstracts (English-Spanish and Spanish-English) published in the journal Iberica and found broad cross-linguistic convergence in the expressions used and the degree to which the text is given agency, while the abstracts in Spanish were found to include greater degree of epistemic commitment, more amplified expressions of attitude, more self-mention, particularly in the plural first person and periphrastic equivalents.
Abstract: This paper investigates patterns of rhetorical convergence and divergence in pairs of RA abstracts (English-Spanish and Spanish-English) published in the journal Iberica. To that end, a total of 84 pairs of author-translated RA abstracts were analyzed. Based on the results of a pilot study, the following rhetorical patterns were analyzed in the corpus: text-referring expressions, degree of epistemic commitment, amplified attitude, self-mention, and periphrastic (e.g. multi-word) expressions. In addition, selected authorial input was requested to seek further explanations about the variation across these two languages. For text-referring expressions, broad cross-linguistic convergence was found in the expressions used and the degree to which the text is given agency. By contrast, the abstracts in Spanish were found to include greater degree of epistemic commitment, more amplified expressions of attitude, more self-mention, particularly in the plural first person, and periphrastic equivalents. Authorial input indicated that some of these diverging patterns were due to collocational differences but they were also influenced by beliefs about what is more natural in Spanish. Our results suggest that there may be specific lexical bundles performing intensifying functions in Spanish that deserve further investigation. These findings may have implications for ESP pedagogy and translation studies.
34 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a multi-dimensional analysis was conducted using dimensions extracted by Hardy and Romer (2013) using the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP) and found that the MICUSP paper types were found to pattern similarly across all four dimensions, with the more personal genres (e.g., creative writing, critiques/evaluations, response papers) consistently averaging dimension scores on opposing ends of the poles.
34 citations