1. Applied Linguistics (Language Teaching and Learning)
Rajab Esfandiari; Sahar Saleh
Abstract
In the last two decades, citation behaviour in academic research writing has been highlighted in English for academic purposes. This concordance-informed, corpus-based study has focused on cross-disciplinary analysis of citations by English and Iranian academic writers in English Economics and Industrial ...
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In the last two decades, citation behaviour in academic research writing has been highlighted in English for academic purposes. This concordance-informed, corpus-based study has focused on cross-disciplinary analysis of citations by English and Iranian academic writers in English Economics and Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering research articles published in international and Iranian national English-medium journals. To that end, research articles in Economics and Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering were developed and divided into four sub-corpora: English corpus and Iranian corpus. Thompson and Tribble’s (2001) classification and Thompson and Ye’s (1991) framework were used to analyse citations. The computer program AntConc (version 3.5.7) was used to identify 1,032 citations. The results of data analysis showed more frequent uses of citations by Economics than Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering writers. In terms of citation structures, more integral citations were utilised by Economics writers, and more non-integral citations were used by Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering writers. In addition, the citation analyses of native and non-native writers revealed that English writers employed more citations than Iranian writers. The findings imply that the cultural context of publication, in addition to the linguistic background and knowledge structures of their disciplines, seems to shape the writers’ citation choices when writing their research articles.
1. Applied Linguistics (Language Teaching and Learning)
Saeedeh Mohammadi
Abstract
Genre analysis as an area of great concern in recent decades, involves the observation of linguistic features used by a determined discourse community. The research article (RA) is one of the most widely researched genres in academic writing which is realized through some rhetorical moves and discursive ...
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Genre analysis as an area of great concern in recent decades, involves the observation of linguistic features used by a determined discourse community. The research article (RA) is one of the most widely researched genres in academic writing which is realized through some rhetorical moves and discursive steps to achieve a communicative purpose. This study aimed at proposing a model of generic patterns competence applicable in writing RAs in different English for Academic Purposes (EAP) disciplines. In so doing, a “qualitative meta-synthesis” (Walsh &Downe, 2005) approach was adopted as the research method. A meta-synthesis exercise was framed and the currently available literature on various models of generic moves suggested for the different sections of RAs was investigated. 391 relevant abstracts and 354 full papers were selected and screened and a number of 26 studies were appraised for final inclusion. Afterwards, a reciprocal translation was conducted to generate the latent themes and concepts in the general model. More specifically, a thematic coding strategy was applied for synthesizing the selected qualitative evidence. Then, different obtained themes and categories were synthesized to extract the major dimensionsof the model of RA generic competence. Finally, four super themes of generic competences were emerged including: RA abstract generic competence, RA introduction generic competence, RA methodology generic competence, and RA discussion generic competence. The new model can be a common frame of reference to guide the EAP researchers in understanding and following the appropriate generic structuresin producing an acceptable body of academic discourse to be published in highly prestigious journals.
2. Applied Linguistics (Inspirations from neighbor disciplines)
Seyed Foad Ebrahimi; Abdollah Mohsenzadeh
Abstract
This study intends to investigate the realizations and functional patterns of shell nouns in Applied Linguistics research articles. To this end, fifty research articles in the field of Applied Linguistic were selected from Journal of English for Academic Purposes and journal of English for Specific ...
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This study intends to investigate the realizations and functional patterns of shell nouns in Applied Linguistics research articles. To this end, fifty research articles in the field of Applied Linguistic were selected from Journal of English for Academic Purposes and journal of English for Specific Purposes published by Elsevier. The articles were analyzed for the realizations of shell nouns based on the list suggested by Hinkel (2004). As to the functional patterns, Schmid’s (2000) classification of functional patterns of shell nouns was also adopted. Findings reported that some shell nouns are used more frequently while some were put aside. Findings also reported that writers of research articles in the field of Applied Linguistics used functional patterns suggested by Schmid (2000). Findings of this study could have implications by raising the awareness of writers of Applied Linguistics research articles, especially in EFL contexts, concerning the use of shell nouns and functional patterns in which shell nouns are used.
2. Applied Linguistics (Inspirations from neighbor disciplines)
Seyed Foad Ebrahimi; Chan Swee Heng
Abstract
Cohesive frames are linguistic elements that precede the grammatical subject in the main clause. This study investigated the frequencies and communicative purposes of cohesive frame types in results and discussion section of research articles from 4 disciplines. To run this study, 40 results and discussion ...
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Cohesive frames are linguistic elements that precede the grammatical subject in the main clause. This study investigated the frequencies and communicative purposes of cohesive frame types in results and discussion section of research articles from 4 disciplines. To run this study, 40 results and discussion sections of research articles were selected from 4 disciplines, namely Applied Linguistics, Psychology, Chemistry and Environmental Engineering (10 from each discipline). Then, the corpus was analyzed using Ebrahimi’s (2014) taxonomy of cohesive frame types. The results showed that writers of the four sets of results and discussion section of research articles showed similarities and differences concerning the frequencies and communicative purposes served through the use of cohesive frame markers. frequencies and communicative purposes of cohesive frame types were imposed by the rhetorical functions of results and discussion section and disciplinary conventions of writing. The results may have implications for teaching students in writing the results and discussion section of research articles, particularly for non native novice writers of English.
