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


Introduction

The first part of this chapter (Sections 2.1–2.4) will introduce the theoretical background to written discourse analysis with a special focus on cohesion and genre analysis to show the place of reference from a wider perspective. The central concepts used in this book are defined in Section 2.2. Section 2.3 will give a brief outline of approaches in written discourse analysis including cohesion analysis and methods of discourse analysis, providing a quick overview of influential taxonomies and research since the 1970s. Given that cohesion has been demonstrated to be significantly influenced by genre and text type, and because the purpose of this study is to compare two distinct genres, Section 2.4 will be devoted to genre analysis. First, the concept of ‘genre’ will be defined, and then a method for analyzing genres as applied in this study will be discussed. The most important findings about teaching and learning English for Academic Purposes (EAP) are summarized in Section 2.4, with a focus on the challenges faced by non-native students learning to use EAP. Section 2.5 of the review of the literature will focus on the two genres (or rather, subgenres) this study intends to compare: RAs and MA theses. The motivation for comparing these two subgenres will be justified by describing their textual and generic features, and highlighting the expected pedagogical implications that the comparison intends to reveal. It will also show how reference as a cohesive device is problematic for non-native speakers of English (NNSs), thereby providing the rationale and context for this study in written discourse analysis.

Referential Cohesion in Academic Writing

Tartalomjegyzék


Kiadó: Akadémiai Kiadó

Online megjelenés éve: 2024

ISBN: 978 963 664 049 1

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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