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
›
9. STAGE 5: THE NEW ANALYTICAL TOOL: REFERENTIAL COHESION IN RESEARCH ARTICLES AND MA THESES
›
9.6. Results: Patterns of Referential Cohesion
›
9.6.7. The distribution of types of cohesive reference in MA theses and RAs
›
9.6.7.2. Comparative reference

9.6.7.2. Comparative reference

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Comparative reference is the third (and last) of the types of reference analyzed here. Again, see the relevant part of Table 8 for the list of the types of items falling under the two main categories of pre- and postmodifiers and adjectives and adverbs of comparison. What is characteristic of the reference items of the comparative type is that they occur most often with a demonstrative – specifying or slightly modifying its meaning. Therefore, in this part of the analysis only those items are counted as cohesive that either perform reference on their own (e.g., there were two groups of participants all participants…), or without which the reference of a demonstrative would not have been clear or interpretable:

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

s. 390 In English, there are two ways to express the possessive: for example, ‘my husband’s secretary’ and ‘the door of the house’.
s. 391 In the latter example in English…
(HTH8)
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

The data in Figure 25 represent the total number of comparative reference items that contribute to cohesion in the three subcorpora (based on normalizing the frequencies of items based on the total number of words, and multiplied by 1000, like the previous two types of cohesive reference: pronouns and demonstratives, for easier comparison). Based on Figure 25, it can be concluded that lower rated theses (LTH) greatly differ from both research articles and higher-rated theses, as they use very few cohesive comparative reference items in comparison with the other two. The last column compares the ratio of the cohesive ties to total ties in the three subcorpora. High-rated RAs and MA theses used around 5-6 times more of the comparative reference items than low-rated theses for building inter-sentential relationships in texts.
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Figure 25 Cohesive comparative reference
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Even though there were 28 items in this cohesive reference type, they contributed little to the cohesive reference of the texts. In the course of the analysis, it was also found that out of the types of reference items comparatives were most likely to perform cataphoric reference, especially in high-rated theses (28 instances), but also in RAs (16) and low-rated theses (15). Table 27 contains the details of the normalized totals for the corpora. It appears that there were a number of items that proved to be irrelevant in the analysis of academic writing, as they did not participate in cohesive ties (little, differently, as, so). The items with the highest frequency are indicated in bold (e.g., all, both, each, some, other, such and more). The figures in Table 27 show that low-rated thesis writers use fewer of these items for cohesive relationships. This is mainly because they tend to use them (especially all, both, each, some) with another cohesive reference item: a definite article or a demonstrative. These do not appear in Table 27, because where a clear referential relationship was established by another definite item, comparative references were not counted to avoid distortion of referential cohesion data by counting one tie multiple times.
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Table 27 Cohesive comparative items

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Determiners all / each are mostly used without the definite article in the RA corpus, while in the thesis corpus they were much more common with the or of the when talking about participants, classes, materials, etc. in describing research procedures and results.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

120. Although relatively few students had used the VLH when available, it was a new technology to the course and the university, and some students may have been unsure about how to access it.
121. It may prove worthwhile for researchers to examine the VLH in the context of an Internet distance-education format, wherein all students in a course must use the VLH to access lecture materials.
(RA13)
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Out of the research articles, only RA has items crossing section boundaries; however, as these sections are not numbered, they are more like paragraph headings:

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

117. Data Collection
118. Each participant was tested individually in a private office for one session of 30 to 45 minutes.
119. Participants were asked to orally read each passage, which were presented in random order.
(RA1)
 
149. Total Number of Miscues
150. In either COH text structure, the college students with learning disabilities produced a significantly greater number of miscues than the college students without learning disabilities, F (1,37) = 56.3, p< .000I.
(RA1)
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

In a non-cohesive position specified by the subsequent modifier:

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

s. 59. Informed written parental consent was obtained for all children participating in the study.
(RA4)
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Generally, RAs use both with referents immediately following it in the same sentence, or cohesively to point to two previous items.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

s. 10… both the storage and processing of material…
s. 30… both the verbal and visuo-spatial working memory tasks…
(RA4)
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Many of the highest frequency cohesive items were expected to participate in longer chains of reference with a crucial role in selecting the specific presupposed items in the previous text. However, in the analysis of comparatives it was found that it was this category where it was most difficult to not include items with ellipted noun phrases or those replaced by substitution (i.e. one or ones) in the analysis. There was such a clear break in reference chains by omitting these items (approx. 30 instances in each corpus) that it would probably be more sensible to include items with ellipted nouns and the ones with nominal substitution in future analyses of academic discourse.
chevron_left
chevron_right
Tartalomjegyzék navigate_next
Keresés a kiadványban navigate_next
A kereséshez, kérjük, lépj be!
Könyvjelzőim navigate_next
A könyvjelzők használatához
be kell jelentkezned.
Jegyzeteim navigate_next
Jegyzetek létrehozásához
be kell jelentkezned.
    Kiemeléseim navigate_next
    Mutasd a szövegben:
    Szűrés:
    Kiemelések létrehozásához
    MeRSZ+ előfizetés szükséges.
      Útmutató elindítása
      delete
      Kivonat
      fullscreenclose
      printsave