Grammar in Academic Writing

Abstract

Academic texts use the grammar of the general language but the frequency and functions of some features are different, depending partly on the genre (such as article, textbook, student essay) and partly on the discipline (such as philosophy, history, biology, physics). Generally academic texts, and particularly research articles, in many languages are characterized by a nominal style with relatively few finite verbs. They have relatively simple clause structure but highly complex noun phrase structure. They use a narrow range of tenses and modals in specialized ways. Personal agency is often backgrounded so that disciplinary concepts and entities appear in thematized positions, for example as subjects, and this leads in English to frequent use of the passive voice. This style has been called synoptic in contrast to the “dynamic” style of conversation, with many dependent clauses and fairly simply noun phrases. As student writing becomes more mature it adopts more of these synoptic characteristics. Academic syntax was first studied in several languages on the basis of typical texts, often research articles in the natural sciences. The rise of the concept of genre led to interest in syntactic features with particular functions in particular parts of the genre, such as pronoun use, forms of reference, and cohesion markers. More recently, use of statistical approaches drawing on corpus material has allowed more systematic quantitative descriptions of the occurrence of different features in particular (sub)genres and disciplines. It appears that the classic synoptic characteristics are most typical of quantitative research articles in the natural sciences.