Academic Genres Research Articles

Tendências e tensões no discurso acadêmico: uma análise de trabalhos comparativos de pós-graduação sobre literaturas francófonas

This article aims to understand the discursive construction of graduate theses and dissertations from universities from the State of Rio de Janeiro that establish a comparison between French-language literature and some cultural, political or social issue in Brazil. From a documental research, centered in the enunciative discourse analysis, the study discusses structures of domination in the sphere of academic discourse and highlight two points: the transgressions and maintenance of elements pertaining to academic genres, as well as the presence, suppression or mitigation of controversy in the argumentative construction of the texts (Negroni; Gelbes, 2005). In the second part, two theses are analyzed in detail, in an attempt to highlight different types of development of the comparative perspective in the context of the world domains of the literary field (Casanova, 2002), and to discuss whether such relations focus critically on the impact of French cultural hegemony on Brazil, or follow a neutralizing or mitigating tendency, characteristic of traditional literary criticism. We identified that the works mitigate or ignore important tensions that could subvert the assuaging pattern of the traditional academic discourse and maintain a comparativist approachcentered on the debate of mutual influences between countries, without evidencing the cultural dominations in course on the literary field.

Does academic writing coaching with genre pedagogy work with teachers? A case study of public school teachers in West Kalimantan, Indonesia

Recent studies in academic writing have used coaching to develop specific skills and affective variables. There are limited studies on coaching academic writing using genre pedagogy (GP) with adult learners, specifically Indonesian EFL teachers. This study investigated how academic writing coaching activities (AWCA) that implement GP could help develop the writing skills of public school teachers in Ketapang Regency, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. This qualitative case study involved fifty-seven participants who attended the coaching. Data obtained from participant observations and open-ended questionnaires were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis, and the participants’ texts were analyzed using genre analysis. The analysis results were triangulated to obtain valid findings. The results show that scaffolding, explicit teaching, and customized teaching stages could help develop the participants' writing skills. Then, the participants’ texts followed the schematic structure of the academic genre and implemented relevant linguistic features. These findings provide insight into how genre-based academic writing activities could enhance public school teachers' writing skills who are adult learners, an area with scant research. Furthermore, it is proposed that this methodology be applied across different regions and abroad to better assess its effects on the professional growth of teachers.

Examining longitudinal changes in citation practices

Abstract While previous research has revealed the form and function features of citations across diverse disciplines, writer groups of varying expertise, and academic genres, limited attention has been given to the developmental trajectories in citation practices among novice academic writers. To address this issue, we conducted a corpus-based, discipline-specific analysis of the citation practices of L2 English novice academic writers over time. Using a multi-perspective analytical approach, we examined citation types and functions, along with reporting verbs and reporting structures in 39 linguistics course papers written by 13 L2 English undergraduate students across three semesters. Overall, we observed an increase in citation density, with more diverse citation forms and functions, as well as an expanding usage of reporting verbs and structures. Our results shed light on the developmental trajectory of citation practices and the persistent challenges for novice academic writers. Implications for English for Academic Purposes pedagogy are discussed.

Бытовая живопись и портрет: на границе жанров

The article highlights a trend in Russian and Western painting concerning the boundaries between genre and portraiture. In the article the author refers to such pieces of art as a mixed ‘everyday genre with portraiture’, though some other definitions are also taken into account. The article contains a historical survey of this mixed genre encompassing times from the Late Middle Ages to the 19th century. The author focuses on the 19th century realism as a sum of the earlier European pictorial art manifesting to be the Protorealistic tendency. A special subject matter of the article is the psychological and social identity of the depicted characters. Another issue discussed is a fate of the ‘everyday genre with portraiture’ mix in the context of the terminal stage of the academic genre system and the widening stylistic range in the 19th-century fine art.

Knowledge structures for knowledge communication: Dominant semantic frames in research articles

Taking Frame Semantics as its theoretical framework, this corpus-based study addresses a lack of research on semantic knowledge in research articles at the genre level, as opposed to the discipline level, by identifying the dominant Semantic Frames in the academic portion of the Corpus of Contemporary American English. Semantic Frames in the corpus were first automatically identified with a pre-trained large language model fine-tuned with data from FrameNet, a large database built on the principles of Frame Semantics. Subsequently, 84 dominant Semantic Frames in research articles were extracted based on the frequency distributions of identified semantic frames, constituting a Research Article-specific Semantic Frame List. Based on their definitions and detailed analyses of typical example sentences, these 84 Research Article-specific Semantic Frames were classified into three groups: Academic Activity Frames, which describe typical activities for creating knowledge, Academic Communication Frames, which relate to typical ways for disseminating knowledge, and Academic Interest Frames, which include typical entities or attributes that interest researchers across disciplines. The Research Article-specific Semantic Frame List sheds light on the semantic knowledge that is characteristic of the research article genre and shared across disciplines, thereby paving the way for compiling a research article-specific framenet. Further research is encouraged to explore the Frame Element distribution patterns of Research Article-specific Semantic Frames and Semantic Frames specific to other academic genres.

Academic Genre Instruction and Its Influence on University Writing Proficiency

The ongoing debate in language education revolves around the effectiveness of pedagogical approaches in teaching writing skills, particularly the merits of Genre-Based Pedagogy versus Isolated Skill-Focused Conventional Methods, which focus on practicing individual writing skills separately. This study investigated the impact of Genre-Based Pedagogy on 16 purposively selected fourth-semester students from the English Education Department at Harapan Bangsa University. Using an experimental design, participants were divided into experimental (8 students from class A) and control (8 students from class B) groups, with pre-test and post-test assessments over eight weeks. Results showed a significant improvement in the experimental group's writing skills, with a mean post-test score of 78.75 compared to 62.25 in the control group (t = 8.12). These findings suggest that Genre-Based Pedagogy, emphasizing contextualized learning and immersion in diverse text genres, significantly enhances writing proficiency compared to conventional methods, enabling students to effectively integrate grammar, vocabulary, content development, and organizational skills tailored to specific genres.

A corpus-based study of live grammatical metaphor in English academic writing

ABSTRACT Nominalization is an important resource for creating grammatical metaphor (GM). Previous research shows that nominalization is characteristic of academic writing but does not demonstrate discipline sensitivity within the academic genre. The reason might be that some nominalizations have developed into dead GM. This study aims to identify nominalizations that create live GM and explore the discipline sensitivity of live GMs based on a corpus of academic article abstracts across three discipline groups. The findings indicate that a clause construes an event or a status, which is either conveyed by the verbal group or a nominal group functioning as a participant of the verbal group. Verb nominalizations construing events and adjective nominalizations construing statuses are the key factors in identifying live GM. Notably, nominalizations not cooccurring with verbalizations are not necessarily dead GMs. The corpus-based research shows that both verb and adjective nominalizations exhibit discipline sensitivity. Verb nominalizations are more prevalent in natural science texts, whereas adjective nominalizations are more prevalent in the humanities and social science texts. However, live GMs are not inherently discipline sensitive; rather, it is those GMs contributing to the lexical density of the text that are discipline sensitive.

Exploring Iranian ESP teachers’ language-related critical incidents

English for specific purposes (ESP) practitioners who are content experts experience different types of critical incident (CI). Although CIs can influence the success or failure of ESP courses and impact on ESP practitioners’ professional lives significantly, they have received only scanty attention in the ESP literature. This study investigates language-related CIs experienced by ESP instructors who are content experts. Twenty-seven CIs were identified via narrative frames (n = 17) and interviews with Iranian ESP instructors (n = 10). Of them, the ten language-related CIs were analyzed in terms of their nature, the strategies and tactics that the ESP practitioners utilized to tackle them, and the lessons that they learned from them. The language-related CIs centered on pronunciation difficulty, weak grammar, insufficient skills in teaching reading and writing, low competence in language testing, and unfamiliarity with research on academic genres. In their response to the CIs, the ESP instructors deployed three types of coping strategy: admitting ignorance, avoidance, and risk-taking. They utilized different tactics to manage their CIs and reported different lessons learned. These findings have important implications for ESP teachers’ professional development and ESP teacher education.

Negation in Research Articles Conclusions: Rhetorical Functions and Move Analysis

Extensive studies have been conducted in various sections of research articles, including the abstract, introduction, discussion, and other segments. Remarkably, the conclusion, a component of this academic genre, has received relatively scant attention in genre analysis. Conclusions, serving as the concluding segment, play a crucial role in recalling the previously addressed issues, highlighting key research findings, acknowledging limitations, and suggesting implications for further research. In light of this, authors employ an array of interactive resources to engage with their readership effectively. As an essential part of interactive resources, negation is used to be neglected in discourse analysis. Hence, this study aims to explore the relation between negation and moves in research conclusions. Furthermore, this study seeks to examine how negation contributes to rhetorical persuasion with a focus on its functions and distribution across disciplines. This study shows the rhetorical functions of negation and describes the distribution of negation across disciplines and moves. The findings not only indicate that authors from distinct disciplines exhibit varying preferences in the utilization of negation in their research article conclusions, but also provide some pedagogical implications.

Navigating Disciplinary Dialogues: An Exploratory Analysis of Dialogic Stance

A number of studies have focused on the analyses of theses, articles, and book reviews as academic genres, yet there are also other genres that have recently appeared in academic journals and need to be analyzed. One of these genres is the so-called “disciplinary dialogues,” which are relatively short academic texts written by experts to discuss a specific issue rather than reporting research. This study focuses on authors’ interaction in disciplinary dialogues. The data for the study is a specialized corpus comprised of 37 disciplinary dialogues published in a journal in the Applied Linguistics field. Discourse analysis was employed. The findings illuminate a rich array of writing strategies employed by authors to establish a dialogic stance, such as referring to other scholars/studies, asking rhetorical questions, explicitly showing disagreement/agreement, using hedging devices, using evaluative and reflective language, and suggesting future research ideas. The paper ends with the pedagogical and research implications of the findings.

The “Contrasts” Sonata by G. I. Firtich: the Appeal to the Genetic Memory of the Genre

The article is devoted to the iconic work by G. I. Firtich, that is fi rmly established in the concert repertoire, but hardly represented in the scientifi c literature. The work indicates the avant-garde composer’s commitment to the traditional academic genre of chamber instrumental music. The author identifi es a complex of historically developed semantic features, which are uniquely implemented in the work under consideration. The article points out the most signifi cant features: the appeal to one of the variants of the classical ensemble composition, the concerto-like nature and, most importantly, the programme in which the most essential basic attributive feature of this genre is outlined – antitheticality, fulfi lled in the principles of contrast and dialogue, covering all levels of the musical composition. In conclusion, the author of the work emphasises that it is the contrast that generates the concept of the composition, becoming the main motive power and determining the features of the content, form, and all parameters of the musical language.

A comparative study of lexical bundles in linguistics and biology Ph.D. dissertations

Lexical bundles are considered as one of the main rhetorical features in academic genres. The appropriate use of these features adds to the coherence and naturalness of the texts. Recently, genre analysis studies tend to investigate the similarities and differences across different academic disciplines and the effects of the first language of writers on the employment of these linguistic features. There are limited studies, however, in the field with a mere focus on the use of lexical bundles in PhD dissertations and the similarities and differences on the employment of these features among native and non-native English writers. In this regard, the current study, following a comparative corpus-based approach, investigated the use of lexical bundles in English PhD dissertations written by native English-speaking and nonnative Kurdish-speaking writers across the two disciplines of biology and linguistics. All the compiled dissertations were selected from the ones published between 2010 to 2020 in British universities to keep the compiled corpora comparable. In the next phase, the distribution, linguistic structures, and functions of bundles used in introduction and literature review sections of the compiled dissertations were analyzed using WordSmith 6th edition concordancing software. The analysis provides a list of the most frequently used lexical bundles in each scientific field and among the two groups of writers. The structural analysis showed that noun phrases and prepositional phrases were the most frequently used bundles between both groups of writers and of disciplines. It was also found that passive structures were commonly used in biology dissertations. The functional analysis revealed that non-native Kurdish writers tended to use more research-oriented and text-oriented bundles in comparison with their native counterparts. It was suggested that the rhetorical differences and similarities between the two groups of writers and the disciplines could be attributed to the experience or proficiency levels of writers and the conventions, knowledge construction principles and research approaches of each academic discourse community. Pedagogically speaking, it is discussed that teaching discursive features and including language teaching tasks drawn from authentic texts such as text analysis tasks, focused tasks, extended writing tasks enable EAP learners to learn how to employ these linguistic features effectively to improve the flow of information, coherence and fluency in their academic texts.

The Use of Interactional Metadiscourse Markers in the Discussion Section of Master’s Theses Written in English by Algerian Students: An Investigation of Gender Variation

Metadiscourse analysis plays an important role in exploring the rhetorical structure of different academic genres including master’s theses. Gender differences in writing the discussion section within this genre has been unexplored in the Algerian setting. Therefore, this study employs Hyland’s framework of metadiscourse (2005) to investigate gender variation in Algerian master’s theses discussion sections written in English within the field of applied linguistics. It seeks to examine possible similarities and differences in the use of interactional resources across the two gender groups. A mixed-methods approach was opted for to study the frequency and functions of these resources. The findings revealed a higher frequency of occurrence of interactional markers among female writers. Attitude markers were the most preferred interactional resources for both groups of writers with more diversity of lexical choices noticed within the female sub-corpus. Hedges were also significantly frequent among females while males exhibited more preference for using boosters. Self-mentions and engagement markers were found to be the least used interactional categories among both genders. This study also revealed that interactional metadiscourse markers perform different rhetorical functions in the discussion of master’s theses. Keywords: Applied linguistics, Discussion sections, Gender differences, Interactional resources, Metadiscourse

Хеджинг-стратегия в оценочном научном дискурсе: междисциплинарное исследование

The article presents the research into hedges and hedging strategy realization in evaluative academic genres viewed from a transdisciplinary perspective. To this end, 64 dissertation reviews written by Russian male and female scholars in humanities (linguistics, literature studies, history) and sciences (physics, chemistry, medicine) were analyzed. Hedging is understood as a system of linguistic means, which perform a mitigating function associated with expressing vagueness, uncertainty, skepticism and doubt. Perlocutionary effects of hedging are connected with reducing the illocutionary strength of the writer's claims or risks of opposition, face saving, positive and negative politeness. The following classification of hedges is proposed: self-mentions, mitigation hedges, hedged performatives, evaluations of propositions and vagueness hedges. The results of the comparative quantitative and qualitative analyses reveal that hedging strategy is determined by a number of discursive and personal factors such as sphere of communication, speech genre, gender and professional experience of the writer. In dissertation reviews hedges show high frequency of occurrence, which can be explained by the public nature of reviews, their potential traumatic effect on the reader, the existing requirements for scientific data presentation in a tentative and indeterminate way, as well as high academic competence of reviewers. The research proves that in humanities hedges demonstrate a higher frequency rate than in sciences. At the same time, male reviewers reveal higher hedging frequency than female reviewers.

Move analysis of Hungarian English majors’ academic oral presentations

The academic oral presentation (AOP) is an important aspect of English majors’ academic training. Besides a sound knowledge of the field, the AOP requires complex linguistic, sociocultural, pragmatic and discourse competences in the foreign language, of which the present study focuses on discourse competences comprising the ability to create coherent texts complying with the discourse community’s genre-specific expectations. While the discourse structure of written academic genres has been widely researched based on Swales’s (1990) Move Structure Theory, interest in oral academic genres including the AOP, an important educational tool to foster the disciplinary socialisation of university students, has been more modest. The present study aims to contribute to this field by mapping out the move structure of the Introduction and Conclusion macrostructure components of Hungarian English majors’ AOPs. The analytical framework of the investigation is Chang and Huang’s (2015) move structure model, adapted for the investigation of TED talks, so it also provides an opportunity to compare the discourse structure of TED talks and that of AOPs. The results suggest that the Introduction components of the AOPs and TED talks tend to be similar both in terms of their move structure and the proportion of text devoted to them. However, the characteristic moves of the Conclusion and the implementation of moves both in the Introduction and Conclusion demonstrate several differences deriving from the differing context of the two lecture types and experience of speakers, which the study will discuss in detail.

Developing genre awareness in collaborative academic reading: A case study of novice academic learners

Genre awareness, the conscious knowledge of how genre features function in reading and writing (Tardy et al., 2020), plays a facilitating role in reading academic texts. However, there is limited empirical research focusing on novice academic learners' genre awareness acquisition and development in collaborative reading contexts, despite the great benefits associated with such collaborative designs (Johns, 2008; Ye, 2020). Therefore, the current study, employing a qualitative case study approach, investigated how Chinese first-year university students acquired and developed genre awareness in collaborative academic reading. Data from multiple sources were collected, including classroom recordings, students’ written products, and semi-structured interviews, from two focal groups in a university English for Academic Purposes (EAP) reading course with a pedagogical design aimed at collaborative reading of research reports. Drawing on relevant genre and metacognition theories, data analyses revealed that these two groups of Chinese freshmen developed awareness of text structure, academic language, and academic norms, and that the development of the three types of metacognitive genre awareness followed different trajectories over a semester of collaborative academic reading. These findings contribute to our understanding of how novice academic learners become aware of an academic genre and learn it through a collaborative approach.

Climate action and creative climate justice

The answer to SDG 13 Climate action in this special issue takes the form of a contribution that breaks with the academic genre and bypasses the established academic or artistic formats of the journal. Instead, this contribution opens the door to the climate activist movement, shining a light on the urgency of the hour and the issues that are paramount in the hearts of climate-engaged artists, educators and cultural workers. Klimakultur, a non-profit organization supporting and strengthening the climate and environmental ambitions of the arts and culture sector in Norway, has together with Rosendal Teater in Trondheim released what they call a Creative Climate Justice Guide. This publication serves as inspirational tool for climate action. Cover image: Photo by Rosendal Teater and Klimakultur SA

Supervisory feedback and doctoral students’ academic literacy development: the case of writing for publication

ABSTRACT This study examines how supervisory feedback facilitates doctoral students’ academic literacy development in their situated practice of writing for publication (WFP). Multiple-sourced data collected from one supervisor and his four doctoral students were analyzed, including drafts with written comments added, feedback dialogues around text development through instant messaging, and student interviews. Findings show that supervisory feedback unpacks the hidden knowledge about WFP and contributes to students’ academic literacy development in three ways, namely, familiarizing them with the conventions of the academic genre, inducting them to the social relations embedded in scholarly communication, and encouraging them to make and claim original contributions. Overall, the supervisory feedback characterized by dialogic interactions creates a productive site for students to internalize the tacit and discipline-specific knowledge in the social practice of WFP and develop as reflexive and independent scholarly writers. The findings have implications for academic writing pedagogy and feedback giving at doctoral level.

Rhythmic Complexity of Graduate Students’ Written Assignments: An Analysis of Their Thematic Choices

The majority of the work on academic writing has focused on methods to analyse students' views of and attitudes towards writing. However, research on students' perceptions of the impact of their choices on the clarity and quality of their texts remains scant. This study used a content analysis approach to analyse graduate students’ written assignments across academic genres to understand their thematic choices, and the choices’ rhythmic effects and communicative functions. Further, it employed a grounded theory approach to examine students’ perception of the effect of their thematic choices on their assignments’ rhythmic complexity. Inspired by Martin and Rose’s (2007) semantic approach to Systematic Functional Linguistics, the study analysed 108 written assignments and conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 students. According to the findings, the assignments commonly included topical and unmarked themes, and students used different types of themes to control the rhythmic complexity and structure of the texts. Additionally, students used different thematic structures to achieve different communicative objectives, which in turn motivated them to use complex thematic patterns. Finally, students' perceptions were affected by their writing proficiency, academic and genre knowledge, linguistic background, stylistic preferences, and learning experiences.

Церковь как институт. Полемика в католических журналах «Concilium» и «Communio»

The article analyses the polemics on the institutional and authoritative aspects of life of the Catholic Church in the international Catholic journals “Concilium” and “Communio”, created in the first few years following the Second Vatican Council. The former welcomed reforms and sought to extend the conciliar innovations to various spheres of Catholic Church life; the latter was represented mainly by conservative authors. These journals, which numbered among their authors the most prominent theologians of their time, express different views on the post-conciliar development of Catholicism, illustrate the long-standing conflict between modernism and traditionalism, reveal the specific make-up of the modern Catholic academic community as well as a new phase in the development of Catholic mass-media. The author concludes that the institutional aspect of the life of the Catholic Church constituted an important part of the discussion in these journals, especially in the 1970-ies - the early 1980-ies. Whereas the authors of “Concilium” advocated for democratization of Church life, the limitation of authoritative powers of the bearers of the Church office and the distribution of authority in the Catholic Church, “Communio” attempted to protect the authority of Catholic magisterium, warn against a hasty reinterpretation of the institutional power and emphasize its inextricable connection with the nature of the Church itself. At the same time, “Communio” took care to meet the requirements of the academic genre, while “Concilium” expressed a high degree of critical anti-institutional pathos, which the declared intention to accept Church reform does not directly imply. The texts published in the journals demonstrate a deep-rooted conflict, which dates back to the period of fighting modernism, and, being still unresolved, continues to determine the life of the Catholic Church. The contrasting editorial policies reflect, on the one hand, the intensifying polarization and the pluralistic character of Catholic theology after the Second Vatican Council, on the other hand – a close interaction between the religious and the socio-political life spheres of modern Catholics, which renders the analysis of religious communication even more relevant.