Register in English for Academic Purposes and English for Specific Purposes

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 168-198
Author(s):  
Susan Conrad
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Civil Engineering ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
English For Specific Purposes ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
Workplace Writing ◽  
Writing Project ◽  
Register Variation ◽  
English Grammar

Abstract Susan Conrad, Professor of Applied Linguistics at Portland State University (USA), contributes this article on the applications of register research to English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Her research focuses on topics including academic register variation, discipline-specific language, student and workplace writing, and grammar and writing pedagogy. Since the 1990s, her work has advocated for and exemplified the ways in which register-based descriptions can facilitate language teaching, including building awareness of register variation in learners and novice writers themselves. This focus is illustrated in her book Real Grammar: A Corpus-Based Approach to English (Conrad & Biber 2009, Pearson Longman), which takes many of the major register-based patterns of variation in English grammar (described in the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, Biber et al. 1999) and translates them into practical grammar lessons for language learners, making explicit how grammar use is mediated by register. Her applied focus is also evident in her work as Principal Investigator for the Civil Engineering Writing Project <http://www.cewriting.org/>. The project, funded by the National Science Foundation, addresses the writing needs of Civil Engineering students through corpus-based register comparisons (of university student writing, practitioner workplace writing, and published academic writing), applying the results to the development and evaluation of pedagogical materials that improve students’ preparation for writing in the workplace.

Register variation in L1 and L2 student writing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larissa Goulart
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
First Year ◽  
Five Dimensions ◽  
Register Variation ◽  
Linguistic Resources ◽  
Brazilian Students ◽  
The Uk ◽  
L1 And L2

Abstract While there have been many studies describing L2 academic writing, most of these studies have used corpora of first year or assessment writing (Crosthwaite 2016; Weigle & Friginal 2014). The present study seeks to describe linguistic variation in L2 writing for content classes and to compare these linguistic patterns to those found in L1 writing. A multi-dimensional (MD) analysis was conducted in two corpora, BAWE and BrAWE, extracting five dimensions. The L2 corpus contained 379 texts written by Brazilian students doing part of their undergrad in the UK and the L1 corpus contained 395 texts from BAWE. The results of this study indicate that L1 and L2 writers use similar linguistic resources to convey the purpose of university registers, with the exception of case studies, designs, exercises and research reports. This linguistic variation between L1 and L2 writers might be explained by students’ interpretation of these registers’ communicative purposes.

The use of general and specialized corpora as reference sources for academic English writing: A case study

ReCALL ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Yeon Chang
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Discourse Community ◽  
Academic Experience ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Training Corpus ◽  
English Writing ◽  
English Speaking

AbstractCorpora have been suggested as valuable sources for teaching English for academic purposes (EAP). Since previous studies have mainly focused on corpus use in classroom settings, more research is needed to reveal how students react to using corpora on their own and what should be provided to help them become autonomous corpus users, considering that their ultimate goal is to be independent scholars and writers. In the present study, conducted in an engineering lab at a Korean university over 22 weeks, data on students’ experiences and evaluations of consulting general and specialized corpora for academic writing were collected and analyzed. The findings show that, while both corpora served the participants well as reference sources, the specialized corpus was particularly valued for its direct help in academic writing because, as non-native English-speaking graduate engineering students, the participants wanted to follow the writing conventions of their discourse community. The participants also showed disparate attitudes toward the time taken for corpus consultation due to differences in factors such as academic experience, search purposes, and writing tasks. The article concludes with several suggestions for better corpus use with EAP students regarding the compilation of a corpus, corpus training, corpus competence, and academic writing.

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.

scholarly journals WIKIPEDIA PROJECT TO TEACH ACADEMIC WRITING IN AN EAP UNIVERSITY COURSE

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 406
Author(s):  
Joseph Jack Horgan
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Negative Attitude ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
First Year ◽  
Writing Project ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
University Course

The introduction of modern information and communication technologies (ICT) into the classroom has led to a number of challenges and opportunities for instructors across the field of education. Wikipedia, a collaborative encyclopedia, has proven to be one of the most controversial online platforms throughout academia, with many higher education instructors banning its use outright. Despite the prevailing negative attitude, there has been a recent shift in thought among some in the field regarding its utilization as a teaching tool in a number of applications. One popular use is as the centre of a writing project, most commonly the creation of a new article or the improvement of a pre-existing one.This paper outlines a case study conducted at the Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies in the autumn semester of 2019, in which first year international veterinarian medicine students wrote Wikipedia articles as part of a semester-long project in an English for academic purposes course in order to improve academic writing skills such as researching, analysing, summarizing, and editing. Analysis of two questionnaires and the students’ work suggest that despite some challenges, a Wikipedia article writing project can serve as an engaging, rewarding, and effective method to teach academic writing skills. 

scholarly journals Challenges of Integrating Academic Sources in Assessed Assignments: A Case of Arab EFL Learners

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arab World English Journal ◽  
Samia Naqvi
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Academic Literacies ◽  
Undergraduate Level ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
Student Focus ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Support Students ◽  
Linguistic Backgrounds

Integration of academic sources is an essential component of academic writing. It adds authenticity to the work, indicates that the student has read extensively, and upholds academic integrity of the written piece. However, according to the author’s experience of teaching undergraduate level English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students, using academic sources and citing references effectively is one of the most daunting features of academic writing. Therefore, this study investigates the challenges faced by students in citing academic sources while composing research based reports and, by the same token, the reasons behind them. It also considers teachers’ observations about these challenges and the strategies that can be adopted to support students. A mixed method approach was used where data were collected through student questionnaires, student focus groups, interviews with faculty members, and students’ assignment reports. The participants included 97 undergraduate-level Engineering students enrolled in three sessions of an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course called Communication Skills. The paper reports on the details of the research-based assignment and the measures used by the author to support students in integrating sources in the report. It was observed that the students found integration of academic sources as the most problematic requirements and features of the assignment. The data revealed that these challenges are direct consequences of students’ linguistic backgrounds; lack of appropriate writing skills; difficulty in comprehending articles due to the technical jargon used; and high word count of the academic papers. In response to that, the author strongly recommends the incorporation of academic literacies in the curricula of specialist courses as well as prompt, closer collaboration between language instructors and subject specialists. Though this study was limited to the students of a specific course, it is hoped that the findings will help other EFL and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) instructors apprehend the crux of the issue and devise effective strategies to overcome the above-mentioned challenge.

scholarly journals The Use of Passives and Impersonal Style in Civil Engineering Writing

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Conrad
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Civil Engineering ◽  
Technical Writing ◽  
Multidimensional Analysis ◽  
Engineering Practice ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Workplace Writing ◽  
Student Reports

Claims abound about passives and the impersonal style they create. Few studies, however, check the claims with a large, systematic analysis of texts from either academia or industry. Motivated by the need to teach effective workplace writing skills to undergraduate engineering students, this study investigates the use of passives and associated impersonal style features in 170 practitioner reports, journal articles, and student reports from civil engineering. Using multidimensional analysis (a technique from corpus linguistics) and interviews of practitioners, students, and faculty, the study found that, as expected, engineering texts, compared to nontechnical texts, have a frequent use of impersonal style features; however, they use passives for a wider range of functions than is typically described in technical writing literature. Furthermore, compared to the journal articles and student reports, the practitioner reports use significantly fewer features of impersonal style. The findings inform teaching materials that present a more realistically complex picture of the language structures and functions important for civil engineering practice.

scholarly journals Academic literacies twenty years on: a community-sourced literature review

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hilsdon ◽  
Cathy Malone ◽  
Alicja Syska
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
Academic Literacies ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Learning Development ◽  
Professional Fields

In 1998, the paper ‘Student writing in higher education: an academic literacies approach’ by Mary Lea and Brian Street reinvigorated debate concerning ‘what it means to be academically literate’ (1998, p.158). It proposed a new way of examining how students learn at university and introduced the term ‘academic literacies’. Subsequently, a body of literature has emerged reflecting the significant theoretical and practical impact Lea and Street’s paper has had on a range of academic and professional fields. This literature review covers articles selected by colleagues in our professional communities of the Association for Learning Development in Higher Education (ALDinHE), the association for lecturers in English for Academic Purposes (BALEAP), and the European Association of Teachers of Academic Writing (EATAW). As a community-sourced literature review, this text brings together reviews of wide range of texts and a diverse range of voices reflecting a multiplicity of perspectives and understandings of academic literacies. We have organised the material according to the themes: Modality, Identity, Focus on text, Implications for research, and Implications for practice. We conclude with observations relevant to these themes, which we hope will stimulate further debate, research and professional collaborations between our members and subscribers.

scholarly journals Genre-Based Approach to the Analysis of Introductions in Doctoral Seminars of the Department of English, Unizik, Awka

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Chinwe Ezeifeka
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Academic Culture ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
English For Specific Purposes ◽  
University Of Southern California ◽  
Generic Structure ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
The University

This paper analyses selected research article introductions of doctoral seminars in the Department of English Language and Literature, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, to determine how these academic writings follow specific formats characteristic of such genres. Specifically the work looks at the staged cognitive organisation of the selected samples in line with the requisite schematic or generic structure postulated in Bhatia (1993) and adopted by the University of Southern California (USC). Every genre is characterized by culture-bound unique structuring and communicative purposes that give it generic coherence. Research article introduction is an academic sub-genre with specified conventions characterising genres from the academic culture/community. A total of eighteen samples of research introductions were analysed, the aim being to determine whether the cognitive move structures in the samples conform with, or depart from, the conventionalized patterns of this academic sub-genre and how the pattern used in the samples enabled or militated against the writers’ achievement of the desired communicative purposes. A critical reading of doctoral seminars in the Department shows lack of knowledge of the unique formatting of introductions, making this work to be anchored on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) with particular emphasis on English for Academic Purposes (EAP). The baseline of the findings is to discover the present proficiency of these group of learners, enlighten budding academics on the move structure of article introductions in order to achieve generic coherence as well as target proficiency in that sub-genre of academic writing.

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