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
›
6. STAGE 2: DEVELOPING A NOVEL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF COHESIVE REFERENCE
›
6.6. Results and discussion
›
6.6.4. New and extended chains

6.6.4. New and extended chains

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

When dividing the RA into subsections, two main types of referential chains can be identified: extended (which have their referent in some previous Section) and new. The ratio of new and extended chains in each Section shows the ratio of new referents introduced. Figure 11 shows the outcome of this analysis. In Figure 11, the rightmost two columns represent the ratio of the total number of new and extended chains in the RAs, as compared to Biber et al.’s (1998) results for given versus new referring expressions in academic prose. The similarity of the two columns hopefully provides some evidence to the validity of this part of the present study.
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Figure 11 The ratio of new and extended chains per section in 10 RAs
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

As regards the sections in the papers, the Abstract cannot contain any extended chains, but it is closely related to the Introduction, as shown by the relatively high percentage of extended chains in the Introduction. The Background again contains more new chains, thus probably more new information, which is then referred to by various elements in the Method and Findings sections. This high ratio of extended chains in the Method section of RAs supports the observation by Swales (1990, 169) that in “soft” sciences, the Method is very explicit, and contains a detailed description supported by a high number of anaphoric references and lexical repetition. As can be expected, the Summary and Conclusions section carry low new information, as shown by the lowest percentage of new chains, but has the highest portion of extended chains as compared to the other sections.
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