Academic Discourse Genres Research Articles

The place of the academic article as a genre in academic communication. Book Review: I. P. Khutyz. Genres of academic discourse. Traditional and new. Moscow: Publishing House VKN, 2021. 132 p.

The place of the academic article as a genre in academic communication. Book Review: I. P. Khutyz. Genres of academic discourse. Traditional and new. Moscow: Publishing House VKN, 2021. 132 p.

ХЕДЖИРОВАНИЕ КАК СТРАТЕГИЯ ВЕЖЛИВОСТИ В ЖАНРЕ РЕЦЕНЗИИ НА НАУЧНУЮ СТАТЬЮ

Metadiscourse in academic communication has been under the analysis of a great number of studies. However, most research was predominantly conducted on English academic texts, while metadiscourse strategies are used in Russian-language academic prose remains understudied and needs to be explored. On the basis of 50 reviews of manuscripts submitted to Russian journals, the present article analyzes types of the lexical realization of hedging as a metadiscourse strategy used by reviewers to mitigate negative evaluations and to show politeness. The study is relevant due to the numerous attempts to reconceptualize the nature of academic discourse and to ascribe it to the interactional rather than informational type of communication. Hedging is used for constructing harmonious relationship between the reviewer and the reviewee. The present study aims to identify lexical items used for hedging in the corpus of research article reviews. When the quantitative analysis reveals that hedging is predominantly realized through the use of verbs and adverbs, the interpretive analysis shows that lexical hedges serve for three pragmatic functions such as shifting the communicative focus, mitigating criticism, and de-intensifying negative evaluations. Hedging is an indicator of the authorial pragmatic competence and is a key to effective communication in the evaluative genres of academic discourse and research articles reviews. It creates a proper balance of negative and positive evaluations, assists in saving face and constructing an image of a competent partner.

Percepção de alunos de fonoaudiologia e pedagogia acerca das experiências e práticas de leitura e escrita de textos pertencentes ao gênero acadêmico

ABSTRACT Purpose to analyze the perception of Speech-Therapy and Education undergraduates regarding their experiences and practices in reading and writing texts from academic discourse genres. Methods It´s a mixed crosscut study, with data collected by the application of a semi-structured questionnaire with open and closed questions about students’ relation towards reading and writing of academic texts, their difficulties in the use of these genres and how they cope with such difficulties. Results The results show that a significant number of the students assume that they have some difficulty in reading and writing these discourse genres in academic settings, which may be an indication of gaps in working with reading and writing during previous educational levels. Some of these students even blame themselves for not effectively following the reading and writing proposals in higher education, implying that this is due to an intrinsic disorder. Conclusion The data allow us to state that, despite the increase in the number of students in higher education, many still feel excluded from academic life, especially for not using academic discourse genres in a proficient way. It is the University responsibility, along with all actors involved in higher education, to promote actions that consider the right to education for all students.

Perception of speech therapy and education students about their experiences and practices in reading and writing academic genre texts.

to analyze the perception of Speech-Therapy and Education undergraduates regarding their experiences and practices in reading and writing texts from academic discourse genres. It´s a mixed crosscut study, with data collected by the application of a semi-structured questionnaire with open and closed questions about students' relation towards reading and writing of academic texts, their difficulties in the use of these genres and how they cope with such difficulties. The results show that a significant number of the students assume that they have some difficulty in reading and writing these discourse genres in academic settings, which may be an indication of gaps in working with reading and writing during previous educational levels. Some of these students even blame themselves for not effectively following the reading and writing proposals in higher education, implying that this is due to an intrinsic disorder. The data allow us to state that, despite the increase in the number of students in higher education, many still feel excluded from academic life, especially for not using academic discourse genres in a proficient way. It is the University responsibility, along with all actors involved in higher education, to promote actions that consider the right to education for all students.

Writings by philologists of the past as a basis for shaping linguistic personality of a modern teacher

The objective of this article is to analyze Apollos’ linguistic personality and answer the question whether the linguistic personality of a priest-scholar, author of grammar writings, public figure of the 18th century can be exemplary during the formation of a modern educator’s linguistic personality. Methodology. To solve the declared problem, a comparative analysis of the modern Russian teacher and scholar of the past’s linguistic personality was done. This became possible due to the use of sociolinguistic methods – questionnaire survey and interview, as well as to the use of Yu. N. Karaulov method of analysis of linguistic personality, M.K. Petrov concept of sociocode and G. Lakoff cognitive metaphor theory. The main findings of the research: 1) it has revealed problems of modern education; 2) identified and described Apollos’ value orientations, transmitted to students; 3) formulated a scientific hypothesis: it is necessary to use the writings of linguists/philologists and educators of the past as a basis for the formation of linguistic personality of a modern educator, tutor, mentor, facilitator because linguistic personality of previous centuries’ scholars and methodologists can be recognized as a model linguistic personality for a teacher of Russian language and literature. Application of research findings. The research findings can be introduced to a number of academic disciplines such as “Educator’s professional personality”, “Sociolinguistics”, “Cultural linguistics”, “Communicative-speech training”, “Academic eloquence”, “Genres of academic discourse”, “Stylistics”, “Russian language in the sociolinguistic aspect”, “Sociolinguistic foundations of communication”, etc.), they will also be essential in developing continuing (lifelong) education courses for teaching staff specializing in “Linguistic personality of a tutor: history and contemporaneity”. The novelty and originality of this research stems from the fact that 1) the analysis of pedagogical discourse was carried out in two time slices – year of 2019 and 18th century, that allowed to reveal the specificity of a Russian language and literature teacher’s linguistic personality in synchrony and diachrony, 2) Apollos’ grammar was for the first time explored within the anthropocentric paradigm, 3) the prospects for further study are seen in taking from the best of the past philology to the matrix of modern education.

Образовательные технологии обучения академическому письму на английском языке (на примере мотивационного письма)

Introduction. Developing academic communication skills is one the priorities in English language learning and teaching at universities. The process involves a comprehensive study into various genres of academic discourse. Written genres are of utmost importance since the greater part of academic communication takes place in a written form. Objective. The paper is aimed at describing the algorithm of teaching how to write a personal statement in English. Results. The author puts forward the methods that take into account genre conventions of a personal statement and special approaches to creating academic written texts that were designed by the foreign practitioners and are now being actively used by the Russian school of academic writing. Each stage employs universal and specific educational technologies that improve efficiency of class and independent work on personal statements. Conclusion. The algorithm consists of a wide range of procedures that enhance learning of the major components of a personal statement that refer to various knowledge dimensions. This approach enables all the participants to learn academic writing more effectively and consciously.

WHAT IS VALUABLE IN THE ACADEME: CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS

The paper focuses on the corpus-based analysis of academic discourse values. The research aim is to reveal how teachers transmit academic discourse values through their everyday interactions with students (during lectures, seminars) and to reveal, which values are relevant for the students (based on the analysis of their essays, research papers and some such). The research relies on corpus-based approach and primary methods used are a semantic analysis and a context analysis as well as definition analysis of evaluative means. The research results have revealed that various values play important role in academic interactions and shape the image of the academe – on the local as well as on the global scale. The study of the contexts containing the word valuable in British National Corpus (Davis, 2008-), British Academic Spoken English (Nesi, & Thompson, 2000-), British Academic Written English (Nesi, 2008-), Corpus of Russian Student Texts (Rakhilina, Zevakhina, & Dzhakupova, 2013-) and Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (2002-) has revealed that the values of academic discourse can be subdivided into six domains: emotional, cognitive, educational, research-related, academic life-related, topic- / area-related. The further applicability of research findings manifests itself in various avenues of research: linguistics (evaluative means), axiology (cross-disciplinary study of values), teaching practices (academic discourse genres) and others.

Discursive representation of authoritarianism in academic communication

The article deals with the discursive category of authoritarianism as one of the typical constants of the prototypical communicative situation, involving the inequality of the participants of the semiotic status-oriented interaction. The article provides an overview of this term in such Humanities as Psychology, Sociology, etc.; the concepts of authority and authoritarianism are differentiated from the perspective of the illocutionary point. The authors give the definition of an authoritarian discourse, the main illocutionary force of which is to exert a psychological pressure on communication partners. The markers of discursive representation of authoritarianism at different semiotic levels within the format of academic communication are analyzed. The key pragmatic characteristics of the academic discourse genres are the asymmetry of the communicative initiative and a teacher`s dominance in communication. The paper concludes that authoritarianism is expressed by a variety of lexical, grammatical, syntactic means at the verbal level (excessive use of professional terminology, modal words with the meaning of obligation, a language game, introductory words with directive connotation, etc.); and by phonation and kinetic means (speech volume and tempo, expressive mimic and gestures) at the nonverbal level. The pragmatic aspect of authoritarian discourse is taken into consideration.

Imitation, Informational Value and Phatic Communication in the Genres of Academic Discourse

The article deals with the current state of academic discourse in the sphere of social sciences and its description as a multifaceted communication phenomenon. The analysis allows the authors to classify the features of numerous academic genres and to define the extra-linguistic nature of their origin. The key features include the prevalence of phatic utterances over informative ones, imitation, and desemantization, as well as deintellectualization as a new feature introduced by the authors. The contextual interpretation of the linguistic features of modern academic discourse in this study is based on its sociolinguistic analysis and employs the method of correlation of social and linguistic phenomena, as well as pragmalinguistic analysis encompassing a wide “context of the situation”. Transformational “socio-traumatic” processes of modernity have influenced the sphere of social sciences. Academic discourse (as well as discourse in general) is dependent on the social, cultural and temporal context, which triggers a change in the proportion of its cognitive and manipulative functions. Dissertations and dissertation synopses as predominantly and increasingly formalized genres of academic discourse display features of imitation. In such papers, researchers discover an ‘imitation explosion’. We argue that the leveling of negative signs in academic discourse can be achieved only if society changes its attitude towards professional discourses, especially concerning their form and content, as well as the researchers’ responsibility. Therefore, the possibility of improvement of academic discourse is determined by both linguistic and extralinguistic (socio-cultural) factors. It is essential that society gradually develops a positive reputation and responsibility of a scholar as a subject of academic discourse.

ANGLO-AMERICAN SCHOOLS OF SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION IN THE CONTEXT OF ACADEMIC DISCOURSE GENRES

The article presents a critical review of research works dedicated to Anglo-American scientific communication debates on academic discourse genres. This study shows that Standard English represented by British English and American English dominates in Anglo-American scientific communication. It has been assumed that Anglo-American academic discourse, as a scientific notion of discourse study is a hybrid term used to identify two interrelated types of discourse: instructional-pedagogical discourse that comprises teaching and learning practices in educational establishment and research-oriented discourse relating to research data sharing between different discourse communities. The results of the present study have revealed the internal genre taxonomy of Anglo-American research-oriented discourse identified by criterion academic spoken or written communication, with spoken research genres further divided into research report, conference presentation, roundtable discussions, dissertation defence and written research genres divided into research article, monograph, dissertation, abstract, and summary. The research article is claimed to be the leading research genre recognised by a distinct rhetorical structure: Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion and Conclusions. Finally, three main approaches to genre analysis introduced by Anglo-American scientific communication schools have been overviewed, namely neo-rhetorical (North American New Rhetoric Studies), sociocultural (Australian systematic functional linguistics) and linguo-didactic approach (English for Specific Purposes).

Re-thinking the dissertation and doctoral supervision / Reflexiones sobre la tesis doctoral y su supervisión

The doctoral dissertation is the final obstacle for most apprentice scholars. This paper considers the place and purpose of the dissertation and argues that it no longer provides an adequate preparation for the types of work that PhD graduates will do within and outside the academy. The common dissertation format — book length, single-authored, print-based — is at odds with a world where knowledge is made collaboratively and disseminated digitally. Moreover, the effort required to produce a dissertation keeps students from writing the many other genres of academic discourse, and reduces the opportunities that supervisors have to mentor new scholars. The paper finishes by offering a number of alternatives to the traditional dissertation and examines the barriers to implementing those alternatives.

A inscrição do sujeito na escrita acadêmica numa perspectiva dialógica

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1984-8412.2016v13n3p1506Na esfera acadêmica é comum encontrarmos textos que não reverberam especificidades enunciativo-discursivas de seu contexto de produção e de circulação. Tal dissonância é fruto, em geral, do desconhecimento dos alunos em torno do funcionamento dos gêneros discursivos acadêmicos. A fim de contribuir para amenizar esse hiato, este trabalho busca compreender os modos como o sujeito na posição de aluno-universitário é acometido em sua escrita nessa esfera de atividade humana. Para isso, aliando pressupostos teóricos da Linguística Aplicada e da Análise do Discurso, analisa-se a produção textual decorrente da uma atividade avaliativa desenvolvida por um estudante no final do primeiro semestre de seu ingresso na Universidade. O critério de seleção desse corpus deu-se em virtude de que esse aluno apresentou um maior grau de dificuldade – em relação aos demais colegas – para as produções escritas no âmbito dos gêneros acadêmicos no decorrer da disciplina de Leitura e Produção Textual Acadêmica oferecida no curso de graduação. A análise apontou uma reflexão de como é possível, por meio de uma relação dialógica, nos termos bakhtinianos, entre professor e aluno, mobilizar o sujeito-aluno que escreve nessa esfera para que, ao escrever, possa também se inscrever.

Lexical Bundles in Academic Presentations Given by PhD level EAP Students: A Literature Review

Lexical bundles are multiword units that perform a variety of discourse functions and are a characteristic of academic discourse genres. Their use is considered a marker of linguistic proficiency and necessary for successful adaptation to academic communities. This literature review, which is part of a proposal for the analysis of lexical bundles use by Colombian PhD-level EAP students in their academic presentations, (a) explores the concept of lexical bundles in academic discourses and (b) presents potential areas for their study in the academic presentation genre. The review makes particular emphasis on the lack of studies on lexical bundles use in the academic presentation as a genre as well as the lack of studies on spoken genres in situations in which English is used as a foreign language by PhD-level EAP students, particularly, in the Colombian context.