Academic Discourse Community Research Articles

Structures and functions of lexical bundles in FinTech discourse

Lexical bundles perform a wide range of functions, and present disciplinary variation in written academic prose. However, little is known about the characteristics of lexical bundles used in interdisciplinary domains. Therefore, this study investigates the use of lexical bundles in the field of FinTech, an amalgam of finance and technology, by building a 127 472-word corpus of 114 published research articles related to FinTech. A total of 180 four-word lexical bundles are identified and thereafter analysed in accordance with the taxonomy of structures and functions devised by Biber et al. (1999). The results reveal that (1) the proportion of bundle ending with nouns is twice that of bundles ending with verbs, (2) these identified lexical bundles are dominated by VP-based expressions, and (3) referential bundles account for almost 50% of the 180 instances. The existence of disciplinary variation is once again confirmed in this study, and the discipline specific multi-word combinations may deserve attention in the instruction of EAP writing as they can help students to be more articulate in their academic discourse communities.

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.

Not “Just” an Undergrad: Undergraduate Journals as a Portal to Participating in Academic Discourse Communities

This essay examines a case study that investigated how students learned and how they applied their writing skills as they pursued publication in an undergraduate scientific journal at a Canadian university. As we conducted a genre analysis of student drafts submitted to the journal and interviewed students who published in the journal’s inaugural year, we noted the desire and eagerness that students had to publish at the undergraduate level. We also noticed certain barriers to students fully participating in research for their discourse communities, including challenges accessing publication opportunities and revising their work for new audiences and contexts. Undergraduate journals offer a tremendous space for them to hone a variety of skills in a supportive environment while also taking the first steps to fully participating in scholarly practice.

Dissertation Acknowledgements in Cameroon English: A Semantic Analysis

The acknowledgement section of a thesis is a genre within the academic discourse community. It gives the graduate student an opportunity to express their gratitude toward a number of addressees after the completion of a rather tedious research process. This genre has attracted a lot of interest in research in academic writing in English in the Outer Circle. Some of these studies have focused on their generic structure (Al-Ali, 2010, Hyland 2004), their expressions of gratitude (Hyland and Tse 2004) or their semantic structures (Cheng 2012). These features have, however, been conspicuously neglected in the literature in Cameroon English. Given that genre is the study of language use in a given sociocultural or academic context, this study examines 200 dissertation acknowledgements (herein after DAs) collected from six major disciplines in three renowned state universities in Cameroon. Our objective here was to do an in-depth analysis of all the thanking acts of the various texts that constituted our corpus in order to bring out the dominant semantic features that were used in expressing thanks. As far as semantic categories are concerned, our data revealed about 1494 thanking acts with seven categories of thanking, 1308 of which were explicit and 186 of which were implicit. These thanking strategies, however, varied greatly from one discipline to another. For the purpose of this study, the strategies were simply identified as strategy 1 to strategy 7 according to how they were semantically structured and strategy 8 comprises implicit thanking acts. The different semantic strategies were classified following Cheng’s 2010 coding scheme though with modifications depending on what our analysis revealed.

Shared Language: Linguistic Similarity in an Algebra Discussion Forum

Academic discourse communities and learning circles are characterized by collaboration, sharing commonalities in terms of social interactions and language. The discourse of these communities is composed of jargon, common terminologies, and similarities in how they construe and communicate meaning. This study examines the extent to which discourse reveals “shared language” among its participants that can promote inclusion or affinity. Shared language is characterized in terms of linguistic features and lexical, syntactical, and semantic similarities. We leverage a multi-method approach, including (1) feature engineering using state-of-the-art natural language processing techniques to select the most appropriate features, (2) the bag-of-words classification model to predict linguistic similarity, (3) explainable AI using the local interpretable model-agnostic explanations to explain the model, and (4) a two-step cluster analysis to extract innate groupings between linguistic similarity and emotion. We found that linguistic similarity within and between the threaded discussions was significantly varied, revealing the dynamic and unconstrained nature of the discourse. Further, word choice moderately predicted linguistic similarity between posts within threaded discussions (accuracy = 0.73; F1-score = 0.67), revealing that discourse participants’ lexical choices effectively discriminate between posts in terms of similarity. Lastly, cluster analysis reveals profiles that are distinctly characterized in terms of linguistic similarity, trust, and affect. Our findings demonstrate the potential role of linguistic similarity in supporting social cohesion and affinity within online discourse communities.

외국인 대학원 신입생 대상 학문 목적 쓰기 진단평가 도입에 관한 고찰 - 해외 평가 시행 현황 조사를 중심으로 -

This study aimed to examine the overall necessity and importance of developing and introducing a Korean language writing diagnostic assessment tool for new foreign graduate students in Korea and explored the various issues related to introducing it. First, it discusses how language diagnosis evaluation can be conceptualized in Korean language education for academic purposes. Second, the status of overseas implementation of Post-Entry Language Assessments(PELA), a representative diagnostic assessment used for academic purposes, was investigated. Specifically, MASUS, BELA, TALPS, DELNA, HDR PELA, and PELA ST were analyzed, and assessment tools developed by individual institutions, such as Password tests and ELSA, were briefly examined. Third, three issues were discussed with regard to the introduction of Korean academic writing diagnostic assessment for foreign graduate students. First, the suitability of the writing area for target candidates was verified, and the potential difficulties in implementation were reviewed. The writing area for graduate students is fairly appropriate, but overseas cases have confirmed that it is challenging to maintain and manage it as it is resource-intensive when long writing is conducted in reality. In addition, for the diagnostic assessment task, language/writing experts and experts in each major field should be able to collaborate to reflect the needs of each major's academic discourse community or major knowledge community. Finally, support for subsequent academic literacy development is a crucial aspect that must be linked from the stage of developing the academic writing diagnostic assessment. The purpose of the introduction of this assessment tool is to continuously support international students to develop language skills and provide academic literacy to students in need.

Chinese international students’ identity (re)construction mediated by teacher feedback: Through the lens of academic discourse socialisation

While feedback has been found to serve multiple functions, how feedback socialises master's students into the academic discourse community remains under-investigated. The current study aims to enrich this discussion by focusing on the self-reported, feedback-related experiences of two Chinese MA TESOL students at a UK university. Multiple-sourced data were analysed to investigate (a) the identity categories into which teacher feedback (written and oral) attempted to socialise the focal students; (b) if positioned into undesirable identity categories, how the students reacted to such challenges; and (c) how their reactions to identity challenges affected their investment in feedback-related academic literacy practice. Teacher feedback was found to socialise the students into three identity categories with differential legitimacy in the academic discourse communities. Both students encountered identity challenges, which prompted them to reconfigure power relations, claim more powerful identities, and adjust investment in feedback-related academic literacy practice accordingly. However, they took different approaches to reframing power relations, and their reconstructed identities also differed in terms of congruence. The findings call for more research on the sociocultural and sociopolitical dimension of teacher and student feedback literacy, and suggest the necessity for teachers to provide identity-empowering feedback to facilitate students' academic discourse socialisation.

A Case Study －Korean University Students’ Experience with and Perceptions of an Academic English Writing Class

The purpose of this case study is to examine Korean university students’ perceptions about the academic English writing class they took during the Spring semester of 2022. More specifically, this study aims to understand how satisfied students were with their learning experiences in the academic English writing class, and how they perceived its appropriateness as a mandatory English general education offered in the Korean higher education context.A survey questionnaire consisting of Likert-scale, multiple choice, and open-ended questions was the main source of the data, and a total of 65 freshmen taking the course responded. To triangulate, in-depth interviews were also conducted with three focal participants via email or Zoom upon their choice. Descriptive statistics were calculated to analyze the responses to the Likert-scale and the multiple-choice questions, and the content analysis method was applied for open-ended survey questions and interviews.Analysis of data showed that students viewed their academic English writing experiences positively due to the content knowledge and sense of achievement gained through the class as well as the instructor’s teaching style. Some participants were dissatisfied with their learning experiences because of content difficulty, relatively heavy workload, and their insufficient English proficiency which hindered them from following the class. Most students self-evaluated that their writing skills after the class somewhat improved. Students chose writing an essay, learning about academic writing conventions, such as APA styles and in-text citations, and instructor’s feedback as class activities that helped them improve their academic English writing.To the question about the appropriateness of academic English writing as a mandatory general education subject, a vast majority of students hold a positive view. Their reasons include their belief of academic English writing as essential knowledge that they need to possess as a university student belonging to an academic discourse community as well as transferable knowledge needed not only in an English class but also in various disciplines. They also recognize its practicality for their academic activities and its rarity to learn anywhere else except university.The findings suggest that school administrators should allocate more credit hours for an academic English writing course and offer it for students in their 2nd or 3rd year of university. The findings also emphasize the importance of instructors’ effort to tailor their instruction according to their students and to provide supplementary learning materials, such as pre-recorded videos so as to effectively guide students to improve their skills for English writing for academic purposes.

중국어 학술지 논문에 나타난 부스터 표현에 대한 연구

The present study aims to compare and analyze the use of boosters in Chinese research articles of different disciplines and find out their similarities and differences. Boosters are the linguistic devices through which the writers or speakers express certainty about the propositional content. In research articles, the expression of commitment toward the propositional content enable writers to mark the information shared with readers, and to show authority as a member of the academic discourse community. This paper selects research articles of linguistics, sociology and biology, one of the representative disciplines of humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, respectively. By analyzing the types, frequencies, functions and distribution characteristics of boosters in journal papers, we could find out the similarities and differences in the usage of boosters in different academic fields and disciplines. We could also understand the mechanism that how boosters, as stance markers, perform interpersonal functions in academic discourse.

The politics and praxis of academic English: Toward antiracist language pedagogy

Academic English has drawn criticism for its hegemonic status, and its dominance and legitimization as an “appropriate” language variety within academic and mainstream discourse communities have been problematized for stigmatizing home languages and dialects of multilingual and multidialectal students. However, students' proficiency in academic language is cited as one of the critical factors affecting their academic success (Francis, Rivera, Lesaux, Kieffer, & Rivera, 2006); therefore, instructional support for multilingual and multidialectal students' academic language development has been crucial to the educational agenda. The debate surrounding the politics of academic English and of the instructional practices geared toward developing multilingual and multidialectal students' academic English proficiency has important pedagogical implications. Seeing value in the propositions on both sides of the debate, the authors of this article reflect on the implications of these propositions in classroom practice and seek ways to support multilingual students in their effort to develop their academic English proficiency without stigmatizing and suppressing their home language and dialect. The authors propose an integrated framework for antiracist language pedagogy that builds on critical inquiry, inclusive teaching, and a multiliteracies approach to academic language and literacy development.

Openings and closings in institutionally-situated email requests

Abstract The study abroad (SA) experience presents opportunities to enrich linguistic and cultural knowledge, but pragmatic development does not always follow a linear path. This investigation describes one interlanguage challenge: managing online interactions in upward email requests. Openings and closings in emails of two academic discourse communities are examined: (L1) English-speaking experts with three years of prior socialization into UK academic practices (n = 162) and (L2) Chinese English as a foreign language novices as newcomers on their SA stay (n = 159). The study aims to analyze sociocultural variance between the groups and whether a 10-month sojourn influences novice email practices. Results revealed novices and experts adopted markedly different strategies for interpersonal work. Experts tended to take a less formal, egalitarian stance when initiating emails while novices opted for increased levels of formality in structure and style. Most novices’ mismanagement could be traced back to first language influences or, more commonly, to an overreliance on formal letter writing techniques.

The relationship between citations and the linguistic traits of specific academic discourse communities identified by using social network analysis

For a research article (RA) to be accepted, not only for publication, but also by its readers, it must display proficiency in the content, methodologies and discourse conventions of its specific discipline. While numerous studies have investigated the linguistic characteristics of different research disciplines, none have utilised Social Network Analysis techniques to identify communities prior to analysing their language use. This study aims to investigate the language use of three highly specific research communities in the fields of Psychology, Physics and Sports Medicine. We were interested in how these language features are related to the total number of citations, the eigencentrality within the community and the intra-network citations of the individual RAs. Applying Biber’s Multidimensional Analysis approach, a total of 771 RA abstracts published between 2010 and 2019 were analysed. We evaluated correlations between one of three network characteristics (citations, eigencentrality and in-degree), the corpora’s dimensions and 72 individual language features. The pattern of correlations suggest that features cited by other RAs within the discourse community network are in almost all cases different from those that are cited by RAs from outside the network. This finding highlights the challenges of writing for both a discipline-specific and a wider audience.

Fostering Doctoral Student Socialization and Research Expertise through Writing Pedagogy

In this article, we introduce a pedagogical exercise for doctoral writing and publication that aims to support students’ grounding in their research and to demonstrate concretized thinking throughout various stages of the research/writing/doctoral milestone process. We add to existing doctoral writing pedagogies with the contribution of the 7-Slide Update, which guides doctoral students to focus on key dissertation elements to support their socialization into and communication within academic discourse communities. This exercise creates a structure by which students can begin articulating their research, charting yearly progress, and developing as communicators of scholarship through written and oral means. The pedagogical exercise also supports socialization as doctoral students position their work in their respective disciplinary or academic discourse communities as it emphasizes developing research expertise and scholarly communication skills. The exercise is adaptable for use in doctoral and graduate-level programs. The article presents the original implementation of the exercise at a doctoral student residency and its modified version implemented a year later. Feedback from student and faculty participants is shared and implications are detailed.

Engagement Resources in Project Works Written by Selected Students at St. John Bosco’s College of Education, Ghana

Writing a thesis in a second language (L2) remains a considerable challenge. By drawing on the Appraisal Theory (Martin & White, 2005), this study explored the way students of St. John Bosco's College of Education engage with the academic discourse community in their undergraduate (diploma) project writing. The data comprised introduction and conclusion sections of thirty (30) purposively sampled project works. Engagement items in the project works were examined manually. The results revealed that expand engagement markers were more frequently used than contract engagement markers, that deny was the dominant type of contract engagement markers, and that acknowledge was the most favored subtype of the expand engagement markers. This study confirms that an engagement system is a key tool to help novice writers align authorial voices with readers, thereby achieving promotional and persuasive purposes. The findings are of potential interest to other novice research writers and their examiners in future project work writing and examinations.

Interactional Metadiscourse Markers in Applied Linguistics Reply Articles

A published research article is not the final product in the knowledge dissemination circle. One genre entailing negotiation of academic outcomes is reply articles which seem to carry an evaluative burden (Khosravi & Babaii, 2017) and provide the academics with an opportunity to communicate their comments and criticisms on the published research findings. Nevertheless, it seems to have been underestimated compared to other genres in academic discourse communities. Attempting to fill this void, the current study attempted to investigate the frequency of interactional metadiscourse markers in 19 reply articles published in academic journals in applied linguistics from 2016 to 2021. Coding the interactional resources of Hyland’s (2005) interpersonal model of metadiscourse revealed that self-mentions were the commonest interactional metadiscourse markers followed by hedges, boosters, engagement markers and attitude markers in the reply articles. The study contributes to the existing literature by corroborating the genre-specific nature of interactional metadiscourse and has implications for the academic reading and writing course designers and material developers.

Teaching Methods for Strengthening Authorship in College Academic Writing －A Case Study of a Social Science Writing Class

College academic writing education must focus on reinforcing authorship. Authorship means that one's identity as an author is reflected throughout the text. Authorship also refers to the identity of a subject who produces knowledge through a dynamic process. However, this process requires the author to actively participate in academic dialogues with other scholars, rather than simply act as a passive recipient of knowledge and discourse in the academic community. This is particularly true when it comes to academic writing. This study presents educational guidelines on how to strengthen authorship based on communication in the academic community. It further explores specific teaching methods by examining several instructive teaching samples. We propose an explicit and specific authorship-enhancing teaching method that could prove particularly useful in process-oriented academic writing. Through theory-based lectures and case studies that critically review previous research as a product of the academic discourse community, we propose explicit and specific educational methods, not only to strengthen authorship among our students, but to also teach them about the certain types and characteristics of academic writing. We also provide education regarding citations and plagiarism by applying explicit theories and using examples from the authorship-enhancement perspective. This study suggests that one-on-one consultations can help students address the difficulties inherent in academic writing. Furthermore, through the process of writing education which aims at strengthening authorship among our students, we can also expect other educational effects to naturally develop as well.

Writing Strategies as Acts of Identity

AbstractWorking within the framework of language learner strategies, and more specifically strategies employed by L2 writers, this article presents findings from a qualitative, longitudinal study of seven international college students in the United States. On the basis of data comprising 54 interviews with the students over a period of four years, and over 100 samples of their written work, three questions are addressed: 1) What strategies did the students use to achieve writing success within their academic discourse community? 2) How did the writers’ decisions to employ specific strategies reflect academic and other goals? 3) How did the students’ uses of strategies over time reflect their evolving identities? Findings indicate that the students all used diverse strategic repertoires, and that their implementations of specific actions in specific contexts were reflective of unique goals and aspirations. By highlighting links among strategies, goals, and identities, this article proposes an understanding of advanced EAL writers as nimble, self‐aware actors whose approaches to composing indicate not only their interests in developing new competencies in English, but also their desires to construct future selves.

학술적 담화공동체의 개념과 학술적 글쓰기 교육에서의 의미

본 연구는 글쓰기 교육 분야에서 대학교를 학술적 담화공동체라고 전제하는데 착안하여, 담화공동체의 개념과 기준을 이론적으로 검토·정리해 보았다. 이때 Swales(1990)에서의 담화공동체 개념과 이를 다시 수정한 Swales(2016)을 중심으로 분석했다. 특히 Swales의 담화공동체 개념에 대한 비판적 연구들을 정리하고 이를 통해 Swales의 담화공동체 개념에 변화 양상을 추적·정리해 보았다. 또한 학술적 담화공동체의 세 가지 유형과 특징을 살펴보았고, 학술적 담화공동체의 구체적 예시를 바탕으로 대학원 유학생을 위한 글쓰기 교육에서의 의미도 정리해 보았다. 본 연구는 학술적 담화공동체의 개념을 정리하고 교육적 의미를 모색했다는 점에서 의의가 있을 것이다.

Appraisal Resources in an Academic Genre: English versus Persian Nutrition Research Articles.

Academic study writers utilize a specific set of discursive resources backed up by both cultural and professional norms to be endorsed by the intended audience. The current study aimed to investigate if there were any significant differences between English and Persian academic research articles published in peer-reviewed journals in the field of nutrition in light of appraisal theory. To this end, a corpus of 40 English and 40 Persian academic research articles was analyzed in terms of three categories and subcategories of appraisal theory. The results revealed that the authors of both English and Persian research articles included more attitude resources followed by graduation and engagement resources. Furthermore, no significant difference was observed between these two sets of articles in terms of three major appraisal categories. The findings carry pedagogical implications for English for academic purposes courses to provide the academic discourse communities with the required discursive competencies.

From its drifter past to nomadic futures: future directions in backpacking research and practice

While the label ‘backpacker’ didn’t originate in 1990 when first presented at an academic conference by the late Philip L. Pearce, its usage rose within an emerging academic discourse community that established shared interests, sources of information, terminology, and methods of communication, along with a certain level of expertise and knowledge on the subject. While the community internationalised and embraced interdisciplinary approaches, a review of the academic scholarship points to the communities increasing instability, as differential authoritative voices conflict over discursive conventions that regulate our understanding of backpacking. While once conceptual and theoretical developments in backpacker research were built through subject level consensus, distinctions within the community point to new hierarchies, with their own particular schools of thought and reinterpretations. As disparities, incongruities and deviations in backpacker research output emerge, this overview explores current research directions and identifies paradoxes, challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.