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
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9. STAGE 5: THE NEW ANALYTICAL TOOL: REFERENTIAL COHESION IN RESEARCH ARTICLES AND MA THESES
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9.6. Results: Patterns of Referential Cohesion
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9.6.7. The distribution of types of cohesive reference in MA theses and RAs
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9.6.7.1. Demonstrative and pronoun reference in MA theses and research articles
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9.6.7.1.1. Reference to authors
9.6.7.1.1. Reference to authors

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

The preliminary comparison of RAs and theses (in Stage 3) has already shown that thesis writers are more likely to use pronoun reference to refer to cited authors (or to themselves as the authors of the thesis – which involves first person pronouns and will not be discussed here in more detail). This difference between handling research results in discussing the theoretical background reveals one of the most exciting outcomes of this study. Comparing the literature review sections in the RCA tables revealed that the majority of thesis writers used pronominal reference to refer to previous studies, as in:

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

91. Dunnett, Dubin & Lezberg (Valdes (ed.) 1986, Ch 15) says that the teachers’ own attitudes to the students’ backgrounds […]
92. They emphasise the importance of basic understanding of language and […]
93. They say that their cultural awareness can “foster an intercultural point of view” (ibid., 148).
94. In their article they define the most important elements of cultural awareness and the target language as the following:
(LTH10)
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

This same extract from the RCA table of LTH10 looks like this (where numbers indicate the sentence number in which the item occurred; blue indicates the presupposed item, black the referring elements), based on the thesis extract above:

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

s. 91
Dunnett, Dubin & Lezberg
s. 92
they
s. 93
they
s. 94
their, they
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

In fact, we many other extracts could be cited from RCA tables of MA theses, such as these in Table 22, from which it can be assumed that novice writers tend to focus on researchers and not their products or results.
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Table 22 Cohesive pronoun reference in MA thesis literature reviews

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

In contrast, expert writers rarely use pronoun reference to refer to studies. Most often the authors of cited papers do not appear in the RCA table, either because the sentence contains the presupposed item, usually in brackets, or because the subsequent sentence already talks about the relevant results of the study, the concepts applied from it or, in other words, its content. RAs generally cite more authors to support a specific notion or argument relevant to the research presented; therefore, it is more appropriate to refer to previous studies with a demonstrative or the definite article. The examples below in Table 23 from the RCA tables from three RAs illustrate this.
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Table 23 Reference to previous studies in RAs

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

This exploration of reference to authors accounts for some of the differences between RAs and MA theses concerning the personal pronouns used. However, more of this difference can be put down to the depth of the discussion of the results in MA theses. This is what will be discussed next.
 
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