Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, Islamic Azad University, West Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran

2 PhD Candidate of Applied Linguistics, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Acquiring proficiency in academic genres is a key factor in research community. Among various genres in academic discourse communities, spoken genre, especially Conference Presentations (CPs), play a crucial role in research communities, though investigation on this important genre is in its infancy or is relatively under-researched. Therefore, the present study aims to shed light on the importance of two most frequently used structures in CPs, passive voice, and pseudo-cleft. To this end, 600 minutes of Iranian international CPs were recorded and then transcribed. The rate of employment of the structures, and the effect of gender and university degree of presenters were estimated. The results of the chi square analysis of the data suggested that although rate of use of passive voice was higher than pseudo-cleft, the differences between males and females, and graduates and postgraduates were minor and hence gender and university degree did not significantly influence the rate of use of the structures. Since passive voice and pseudo-cleft are two of the most important structures in academic genre, the results of the present study have obvious importance in increasing conference presenters and lecturers’ awareness of the employment of the structures efficiently.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Article Title [Persian]

مشخصات ساختاری در ارائه های کنفرانس گویشوران غیر بومی زبان انگلیسی: بررسی کاربرد ساختار مجهول و شبه گسسته

Authors [Persian]

  • دکتر مینو عالمی 1
  • ندا خانلرزاده 2

1 دانشیار زبانشناسی کاربردی، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی ، واحد تهران غرب، تهران، ایران

2 دانشجوی دکتری زبانشناسی کاربردی، دانشگاه علامه طباطبائی، تهران، ایران

Abstract [Persian]

کسب مهارت در ژانر آکادمیکیک عامل مهم در جامعه محققین است. از بین ژانرهای مختلف در گفتمان جامعه آکادمیک، ژانر گفتاری، مخصوصاً ارائه کنفرانس، اهمیت بالایی در جامعه محققین دارد، اگرچه مطالعه این ژانر هنوز در مراحل ابتدایی است و تحقیقات کمی در این راستا انجام شده است. بنابراین، تحقیق حاضر سعی در بررسی دو ساختار مهم در ارائه کنفرانس- ساختار شبه گسسته و مجهول- داشته است. بدین منظور ششصد دقیقه از ارائه های کنفرانس ایرانیان در یک کنفرانس بین المللی ضبط ونوشته شده است و میزان استفاده از این ساختارها و ارتباط آنها با جنسیت و سطح تحصیلات ارائه دهندگان بررسی شده است. نتایج حاصل از مربع خی داده ها حاکی از آن بود که علیرغم استفاده بیشتر ساختار مجهول نسبت به ساختار شبه گسسته، سطح تحصیلات و جنسیت افراد تاثیر چندانی در استفاده از این ساختارها نداشته است. از آنجاییکه این دو ساختار از مهمترین ساختارهای ژانرهای آکادمیک می باشند، نتیجه این تحقیق اهمیت بسزایی در افزایش آگاهی سخنران ها در کنفرانس های آکادمیک نسبت به استفاده درست از چنین ساختارهایی دارد.

Keywords [Persian]

  • ارائه های کنفرانس گویشوران غیربومی انگلیسی
  • ژانر آکادمیک
  • ژانر گفتاری
  • ساختار مجهول
  • ساختار شبه گسسته
Berkenkotter, C., & Huckin. T. (1995). Genre knowledge in disciplinary communication: Cognition/ culture/power. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Carter-Thomas, S. (2004). Specialised syntax for specialised texts? A comparison of the preferred syntactic patterns in proceedings article and conference presentation introductions. Actes du Colloque GLAT 2004, 11-21.
Carter-Thomas, S., & Rowley-Jolivet, E. (2001). Syntactic differences in oral and written scientific discourse: the role of information structure. ASP, La Revue du GERAS (31-33), 19-37.
Carter-Thomas, S., & Rowley-Jolivet, E. (2003). Analysing the scientific conference presentation (CP). A methodological overview of a multimodal genre. ASP, La Revue du GERAS (39-40), 59-72.
Connor, U. (2000). Variation in rhetorical moves in grant proposals of US humanists and scientists. Text-Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse, 20(1), 1-28.
Connor, U., & Connor, U. M. (1996). Contrastive rhetoric: Cross-cultural aspects of second language writing. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Connor, U., Helle, T., Mauranen, A., Ringbom, H., Tirkkonen-Condit, S., & Yli-Antola, M. (1995). Tehokkaita EUProjektiehdotuksia. Ohjeita kiroittajille (Successful European Union grant proposals. Strategies for writers). Helsinki, Finland: TEKES.
Connor, U., & Mauranen, A. (1999). Linguistic analysis of grant proposals: European Union research grants. English for Specific Purposes Journal, 18(1), 47–62.
Dąbrowska, E., & Street, J. (2006). Individual differences in language attainment: Comprehension of passive sentences by native and non-native English speakers. Language Sciences28(6), 604-615.
Dubois, B. (1980). Genre and structure of biomedical speeches. Forum Linguisticum 5(2), 140-168.
Dudley-Evans, T. (1994). Genre analysis an approach to text analysis for ESP. In M. Coulthard (Ed.), Advances in written text analysis (pp. 219-228). London, UK: Routledge.
Duszak, A. (Ed.). (2011). Culture and styles of academic discourse. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter.
Faber, B. (1996). Rhetoric in competition: The formation of organizational discourse in conference on college composition and communication abstracts. Written Communication, 13(3), 355-384.
Fernández-Polo, F. J. (2014). The role of I mean in conference presentations by ELF speakers. English for Specific Purposes, 34, 58-67.
Fernández-Polo, F. J. (2018). Functions of “you” in conference presentations. English for Specific Purposes, 49, 14-25.
Guest, M. (2018a). Conference presentation introductions and openings. In M. Guest (Ed.), Conferencing and presentation English for young academics (pp. 121-136). Singapore: Springer.
Guest, M. (2018b). Genre and mode in the academic discourse community. In M. Guest (Ed.), Conferencing and presentation English for young academics (pp. 77-85). Singapore: Springer.
Halleck, G, B., & Connor, U. M. (2006). Rhetorical moves in TESOL conference proposals. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 5(1),70-86.
Hincks, R. (2005). Measures and perceptions of liveliness in student oral presentation speech: A proposal for an automatic feedback mechanism. System, 33(4), 575-591.
Hinkel, E. (1997). Indirectness in L1 and L2 academic writing. Journal of pragmatics, 27(3), 361-386.
Hood, S., & Forey, G. (2005). Introducing a conference paper: Getting interpersonal with your audience. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 4(4), 291-306.
Hyland, K. (2000). Disciplinary discourses: Social interactions in academic writing. London, UK: Longman.
Kaplan, R. B., Cantor, S., Hagstrom, C., Kamhi-Stein, L. D., Shiotani, Y., & Zimmerman, C. B. (1994). On abstract writing. Text-Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse, 14(3), 401-426.
Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. London: Routledge.
Kress, G., Jewitt, C., Ogborn, J., & Tsatsarelis, C. (2001). Multimodal teaching and learning: The rhetorics of the science classroom. London, UK: Continuum.
Lin, C. Y. (2010). ‘… that’s actually sort of you know trying to get consultants in…’: Functions and multifunctionality of modifiers in academic lectures. Journal of Pragmatics, 42(5), 1173-1183.
Morell, T. (2004). Interactive lecture discourse for university EFL students. English for Specific Purposes 23, 325-338.
Morell, T. (2015). International conference paper presentations: A multimodal analysis to determine effectiveness. English for Specific Purposes, 37, 137-150.
Paltridge, B., & Starfield, S. (Eds.). (2013). The handbook of English for specific purposes. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons.
Querol-Julián, M., & Fortanet-Gómez, I. (2012). Multimodal evaluation in academic discussion sessions: How do presenters act and react? English for Specific Purposes31(4), 271-283.
Raisanen, C. (1999). The conference forum as a system of genres: A sociocultural study of academic conference practices in automotive crash-safety engineering. Goteborg, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis.
Raisanen, C. (2002). The conference forum: A system of interrelated genres and discursive practices. In E. Ventola, C. Shalom, & S. Thompson (Eds), The language of conferencing (pp. 69–93). Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang.
Rowley-Jolivet, E. (1999). The pivotal role of conference papers in the network of scientific communication. ASP: La Revue du GERAS 23-26, 179-196.
Rowley-Jolivet, E. (2002). Visual discourse in scientific conference papers. A genre-based study. English for Specific Purposes 21(1), 19-40.
Rowley‐Jolivet, E., & Carter‐Thomas, S. (2005). The rhetoric of conference presentation introductions: Context, argument and interaction. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 15(1), 45-70.
Samraj, B. (2002). Introductions in research articles: variations across disciplines. English for Specific Purposes 21(1), 1-17.
Shalom, C. (2002). The academic conference: A forum for enacting genre knowledge. In E. Ventola, C. Shalom, & S. Thompson (Eds.), The Language of Conferencing (pp. 51-68). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Swales, J. (1976). Verb frequencies in English. ESPMENA Bulletin, 4, 28-31.
Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Thompson, S. E. (1994). Frameworks and contexts: A Genre-based approach to analysing lecture introductions. English for Specific Purposes, 13(2), 171-186.
Thompson, S. E. (2003). Text-structuring metadiscourse, intonation and the signalling of organisation in academic lectures. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2(1), 5-20.
Trosborg, A. (Ed.) (2000). Analysing professional genres. Amsterdam, Netherland: John Benjamins.
Ventola, E. (1999). Semiotic spanning at conferences: Cohesion and coherence in and across conference papers and their discussions. In W. Bublitz, U. Lenk, & E. Ventola (Eds.), Coherence in spoken and written discourse: How to create it and how to describe it (pp. 101-124). Amsterdam, Netherland: John Benjamins Publishing.
Ventola, E., Shalom, C., & Thompson, S. (Eds.). (2002). The Language of conferencing. Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang.
Webber, P. (2005). Interactive features in medical conference monologue. English for Specific Purposes24(2), 157-181.