scholarly journals Towards an analysis of academic weblogs

2006 ◽  
pp. 387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Stuart
Keyword(s):  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Tertiary Level ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Initial Analysis ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Initial Hypothesis ◽  
Academic Genres

This paper analyses both the communicative purposes and formal linguistic features of academic weblogs. An initial analysis of 496 weblogs in use within tertiary level institutions was reduced to an in-depth analysis of 39 academic weblogs (a corpus of 16 million words). The objective was to see how much variation there might be between traditional academic genres and academic weblogs. The initial hypothesis is that academic weblogs are far less formal and would favour greater use of lexico-grammatical realisations belonging to the interpersonal function of language. In order to quantify this possible variation between traditional academic genres and academic weblogs, some well-known linguistic features which have been considered to be typical of academic discourse such as the agentless passive and nominalisations were investigated.

scholarly journals Discipline, Level, Genre: Integrating Situational Perspectives in a New MD Analysis of University Student Writing

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 646-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheena Gardner ◽  
Hilary Nesi ◽  
Douglas Biber
Keyword(s):  
Academic Discourse ◽  
University Student ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Situational Variables ◽  
Procedural Information ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Academic Genres

Abstract While there have been many investigations of academic genres, and of the linguistic features of academic discourse, few studies have explored how these interact across a range of university student writing situations. To counter misconceptions that have arisen regarding student writing, this article aims to provide comprehensive linguistic descriptions of a wide range of university assignment genres in relation to multiple situational variables. Our new multidimensional (MD) analysis of the British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus identifies clusters of linguistic features along four dimensions, onto which academic disciplines, disciplinary groups, levels of study, and genre families are mapped. The dimensions are interpreted through text extracts as: (i) Compressed Procedural Information versus Stance towards the Work of Others; (ii) Personal Stance; (iii) Possible Events versus Completed Events; and (iv) Informational Density. Clusters of linguistic features from the comprehensive set of situational perspectives found across this framework can be selected to inform the teaching of a ‘common academic core’, and to inform the design of programmes tailored to the needs of specific disciplines.

The Logical and Compositional Organization of the Lecture (Based on a Lecture from M. Mamardashvili’s Course “Lectures on Proust”)

2020 ◽  
pp. 72-81
Author(s):  
Aleksandra A. Talanina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Basic Function ◽  
Literary Language ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Specific Nature ◽  
Teaching Process ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Spatiotemporal Coordination ◽  
Different Levels

Functional and stylistic studies give us an idea of linguistic features of speech products, thus enabling style identification. These specific features become most recognizable when comparing styles. Discourse studies, on the contrary, are mainly focused on understanding and describing basic factors of creating a form of a literary language (style) and factors that determine the characteristics of speech products in individual situations within a socially significant sphere. This article presents an analysis of the logical and compositional organization of the lecture as a genre of academic discourse, taking a university lecture from M. Mamardashvili’s course on M. Proust as an example. The specific nature of the lecture genre in academic discourse is determined by its basic function in the teaching process implemented in direct dialogue with the audience. The research is based on the thesis that a lecture is an event that can be analysed using the concept of chronotope. The use of this concept beyond the analysis of fiction is relevant since spatiotemporal coordination is mandatory for any speech product, regardless of the sphere it is created in or the functions it performs. The main feature of the lecture chronotope is multi-level organization, since a lecture has its own internal spatiotemporal coordinates. The lecture chronotope is explicated at different levels of the text (compositional, lexical and grammatical), which are interconnected. Considering this, two interconnected frameworks of the lecture – structural and semantic – are singled out; they provide the logical and compositional organization of the material, which is important to ensure students’ understanding.

Markers of identification in Indigenous academic writing: A case study of genre innovation

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shurli Makmillen ◽  
Michelle Riedlinger
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Rhetorical Genre ◽  
Academic Genres

AbstractThis study contributes to research into genre innovation and scholarship exploring how Indigenous epistemes are disrupting dominant discourses of the academy. Using a case study approach, we investigated 31 research articles produced by Mäori scholars and published in the journal AlterNative between 2006 and 2018. We looked for linguistic features associated with self-positioning and self-identification. We found heightened ambiguous uses of “we”; a prevalence of verbs associated with personal (as opposed to discursive) uses of “I/we”; personal storytelling; and a privileging of Elders’ contributions to the existing state of knowledge. We argue these features reflect and reinforce Indigenous scholars’ social relations with particular communities of practice within and outside of the academy. They are also in keeping with Indigenous knowledge-making practices, protocols, and languages, and signal sites of negotiation and innovation in the research article. We present the implications for rhetorical genre studies and for teaching academic genres.

scholarly journals The Linguistic Features of Acronyms in Arabic

SAGE Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 215824401774671
Author(s):  
Abdel Rahman Mitib Altakhaineh
Keyword(s):  
Formation Process ◽  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Contextual Effects ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Radio Stations ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
The Media ◽  
Processing Effort ◽  
Over Time

This study investigates the phonological, semantic, and pragmatic features of acronyms in Arabic. Acronyms in Arabic have appeared quite recently as a result of globalization and exposure to or contact with, mainly, English via radio stations and TV channels, which are broadcasting in English and in some countries, for example, Morocco in both English and French. Through in-depth analysis, it has been observed that acronyms in Arabic are subject to different restrictions: (a) The phonological combinations are formed on the basis of Arabic templates; hence, should be compatible with Arabic phonotactics, for example, consonant clusters should be broken up by vowels; (b) the connotation of the acronyms should not be negative; and (c) in conformity with relevance theory, when the acronyms are homophonous to existing words, the former maximize contextual effects with minimum processing effort. The fact that they appear in certain contexts also reduces the processing effort. It has also become evident that the period between the establishment of the movement or party and the first use of the acronym decreases over time, provided that the acronyms are frequently mentioned in the media. The examination of acronyms in different languages shows that acronymization is quite pervasive cross-linguistically; this may suggest that not any word-formation process can easily spread; it needs to be prevalent and potentially universal.

scholarly journals Interdisciplinary Pedagogical Actions to Optimize Engineering Undergraduate Written Production

10.29007/6434 ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alicia Noceti
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Time Window ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Generic Structure ◽  
Food Engineering ◽  
Final Project ◽  
Written Production ◽  
Academic Genres ◽  
Audience Awareness

Writing is extremely challenging for engineering students. Navarro (2012) asserts that academic literacy in the mother tongue is similar to learning a foreign language as it involves immersion in a new culture. Food Engineering undergraduates (School of Food Science, University of Entre Ríos) face this difficulty when they have to write their Final Project. As a consequence, interdisciplinary actions were implemented by engineers and linguists (both in English and Spanish) in order to raise students´ awareness of this genre characteristics, to facilitate its production and to write relevant titles and abstracts. The importance of both title and abstract is paramount once the Final Projects are uploaded to the university website in order to attract readers. The objective of this study was to explore whether interdisciplinary actions could optimize undergraduates´ written production. All titles produced since the first Food Engineer graduated were collected. This corpus analysis revealed that titles were extremely short and provided very little information. Consequently, pedagogical activities were designed and implemented as from 2012. An exploration of antecedent or prior genre knowledge (Artemeva, N. & Fox., J., 2010) was carried out in different workshops. Generic structure, audience awareness, rhetorical functions and linguistic features studied in the English courses were activated. Writing seminars in Spanish were implemented in 5º year. In addition, undergraduates attended tutorials with the engineers and then and then interviews with the linguists. In several meetings students discussed titles and abstracts (in Spanish and English), designed their slides for the oral defense and rehearsed their oral presentations. The analysis of the corpus including all projects´ titles defended within the time window that included our actions indicated that students had activated their previous generic knowledge. Feedback from students, after graduation, demonstrated that interdisciplinary activities included language as an across the curriculum content and contributed to the adequate production of academic genres. Results may affect curricular design and decisions at the macro level since implementation of writing seminars along undergraduates´ trajectories has been positioned as a top priority.

scholarly journals Collaborative teaching and learning of interactive multimodal spoken academic genres for doctoral students

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-82
Author(s):  
Inmaculada Fortanet-Gómez ◽  
Mercedes Querol-Julián
Keyword(s):  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Education System ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Collaborative Teaching ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Discussion Session ◽  
Learning Stage ◽  
Academic Genres ◽  
Doctoral Programmes ◽  
Teaching Learning

The last teaching-learning stage in the education system is the doctoral programmes, which turn graduatestudents into researchers. This evolution involves writing a dissertation, but also being able to discuss research.However, training on spoken genres has not received much attention, and the interest has been mainly onmonologic prepared speeches. This paper focuses on a genre of interactive speech, the discussion session (DS)that follows the paper presentation, which is particularly challenging for novice researchers. We present alearner-led pedagogy for the teaching-learning of this genre that fosters thinking-based learning and multimodal awareness. It was implemented in a course of academic discourse for doctoral students in order to prove its effectiveness. We propose a process of active and collaborative deconstruction and construction of DSs to identify verbal and non-verbal resources and their interpersonal functions, so that novel researchers reflect on and integrate them in their repertoire.

scholarly journals Expressing Lesser Relevance in Academic Conference Presentations

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-146
Author(s):  
Diana Yankova ◽  
Irena Vassileva
Keyword(s):  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Under Five ◽  
Academic Conference ◽  
Conference Presentations ◽  
Academic Genres ◽  
Ultimate Objective ◽  
Linguistic Backgrounds ◽  
The Way

While marking importance and relevance in academic discourse has been a widely researched topic, markers of lesser significance have so far been understudied. The article therefore focuses on some of the discoursal means of expressing lesser importance in conference presentations. The corpus of the study comprises recordings of 20 presentations in English at international linguistics conferences by speakers of various cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The methodology follows Deroey and Taverniers’s (2012) study of lecture discourse, whereby depending on the way lesser importance is expressed, the markers are grouped under five categories. Their methodology is checked against the data provided by the transcriptions of the conference recordings to ascertain the extent to which it is applicable to other spoken academic genres. The ultimate objective is to provide steppingstones for interpreting information and distinguishing between what is important and relevant and less so in conference presentations, as well as for the identification of presenters’ motivation for employing this type of metadiscourse.

Learning from Shortcomings, Moving Forward with New Methods

2018 ◽  
pp. 218-264
Author(s):  
Daniel Maria Klimek
Keyword(s):  
Multidisciplinary Approach ◽  
Academic Culture ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
New Method ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Naturalistic Approach ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Mystical Experiences

The chapter considers the ideological biases that have formed in academic culture against taking mystical experiences and similar phenomena seriously. An in-depth analysis of Ann Taves’s “naturalistic” approach to religious experiences shows how seemingly “neutral” secular approaches, while criticizing metaphysical hermeneutics, are not free of their own metaphysical and philosophical assumptions. The work of several scholars from various fields, theologian John Milbank, historian Brad Gregory, religion scholar Robert Orsi, psychiatrist Bruce Greyson, is considered in articulating how one worldview, a philosophy of secular naturalism, guides academic discourse across disciplines at the expense of another worldview, an ontology of the supernatural. The myth of “secular neutrality” is exposed by these scholars. The chapter concludes with the call for cultivating a new method for the study of religious experiences, an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach that considers the potential integrity of extraordinary religious experiences and a more holistic understanding of knowledge.

Entrapment and Terrorism on the Left

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse J. Norris
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Domestic Terrorism ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Initial Analysis ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Undercover Agent ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Main Factors

Previous literature has analyzed entrapment in post-9/11 jihadi terrorism cases, but has neglected similarly compelling entrapment claims among left-wing terrorism defendants. The Article bridges this gap through an in-depth analysis of the four post-9/11 left-wing terrorism cases involving an informant or undercover agent. Based on a review of these cases, the Article concludes that at least three of the four cases had strong entrapment claims, and that realistically, none of the defendants in the four cases would have committed any terrorist offense without government prompting. A comparative analysis of different types of domestic terrorism finds broad similarities in the characteristics of entrapment claims in jihadi, left-wing, and right-wing terrorism cases. However, jihadi entrapment cases are far more numerous, left-wing and jihadi entrapment claims are considerably stronger and more prevalent than right-wing claims, and left-wing terrorism cases feature certain informant tactics rarely if ever found in other cases. The Article situates the left-wing entrapment claims in the context of wider government attempts to target left-wing activists, and provides an initial analysis of the main factors leading to questionable sting operations in left-wing terrorism cases.

scholarly journals Academic discourse: Dissociating standardized and conversational measures of language proficiency in bilingual kindergarteners

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 437-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHLEEN F. PEETS ◽  
ELLEN BIALYSTOK
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Standardized Tests ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Second Language Proficiency ◽  
Standardized Measures ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTThis study examined the relationship between performance on standardized measures of language proficiency and conversational measures of the same features used in academic discourse among 24 monolingual and 25 bilingual kindergarteners. Academic discourse performance was considered for both its linguistic and its genre features in two discourse forms: narrative and explanation. Bilinguals performed more poorly than monolinguals on standardized measures of language proficiency, yet they performed similarly to monolinguals in the discourse-based linguistic and genre features. Moreover, genre features were more strongly related to linguistic features assessed through discourse than to standardized tests of these same features. These findings indicate that standardized measures of language proficiency underrepresent the abilities of bilingual children and that children's second language proficiency may be more accurately reflected in conversation.

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