Gabriella Jenei

Referential Cohesion in Academic Writing

A descriptive and exploratory theory- and corpus-based study of the text-organizing role of reference in written academic discourse

Non-existent forms

Most non-existent forms occurred in intended s-genitives and of-phrases. According to Biber et al. (1991), of-phrases have the highest frequency in academic prose while s-genitives are surprisingly rare. They explain this characteristic feature of the academic register partly by its subject matter, which rarely focuses as much on human beings and their relationships as the other registers they studied (i.e., conversation, fiction and news). Another explanation for the excessive use of of-phrases is their capacity to provide additional clarity to a structure by producing “a less dense and more transparent means of expression” (Biber et al., 1991, 302). The possibilities of clarification opened up by using an of-phrase instead of a genitive are: 1. using coordination (e.g., the execution of a senior officer and two dogs), 2. an appositional construction (e.g., the celebration of the birth of a famous writer, Jack Kerouac.), 3. a post-modifying prepositional phrase (e.g., the withdrawal of US military forces from Iraq) or 4. a relative clause (e.g., contemporaries of John, who would certainly have…). In addition, of-phrases were found to be about three times as likely to present new, rather than given information and introduce new entities into the discourse (Biber et al., 1991, 305), while s-genitives tended to maintain reference to previously mentioned entities.

Referential Cohesion in Academic Writing

Tartalomjegyzék

Kiadó: Akadémiai Kiadó

Online megjelenés éve: 2024

ISBN: 978 963 664 049 1

Nyelvészet

This monograph aims to contribute to the study of written discourse and to writing pedagogy within the field of teaching English for academic purposes. The study has both a theoretical and an empirical focus. Due to the lack of an analytical tool available for the reliable cohesive reference analysis of extended texts, to explore the patterns of referential cohesion in research papers, it has been necessary to develop a new analytical tool. In practice, the study advances the theory of cohesion analysis by refining the cohesive reference-related aspects of Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) taxonomy of cohesion to transform it into a reliable and valid analytical tool for cohesive reference analysis in academic discourse in particular. The analytical tool is then applied to present a corpus-based comparative analysis of research articles and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) writers’ MA theses. This is accomplished by a multi-stage investigation, using quantitative and qualitative approaches at every stage to ensure that quantitative data is supported by qualitative insights and vice versa. The present empirical study points out considerable differences regarding the cohesive reference patterns among research articles produced by expert writers and the subcorpora of high- and low-rated theses by novice EFL writers. A major outcome of the investigation is that it yields significant pedagogical implications for both teachers and learners of academic writing: provides clues for the design of tasks for the development of the relevant aspects of EFL discourse competence together with additional practical activities for a variety of applications of the theory-based analytical tool.

Hivatkozás: https://mersz.hu/jenei-referential-cohesion-in-academic-writing//

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