Language issues in ESP II: Discourse and genre analysis

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Language issues in ESP IIDiscourse and genre
analysis

• Foundations of ESP
• LG523

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Discourse analysis

• analysis of spoken or written texts beyond the
  sentence level
• Some examples of topics
• Cohesive devices in business presentations
• Openings and closings in doctor-patient sessions
• Turn taking in conversations
• Paragraph structure
• Some examples of studies
• Hoey (1983, 1994) macrostructures or common text
  patterns (problem-solution, claim-justification)
• Harford Bardovi-Harlig (1992) advising
  sessions at the university (openings and closings
  in sessions with native and L2 students)

3
Genre analysis

• Genre in literary studies, film, anthropology,
  study of folklore, music
• In applied linguistics, three approaches to
  genre
• The English for specific purposes approach
• The New Rhetoric approach
• The functional-systemic approach (Halliday)
• Hyland (2004, p. 4) Genre is a term for
  grouping texts together, representing how writers
  typicaly use language to respond to recurring
  situations.
• Swales (1990, p. 58)
• A genre comprises a set of communicative events,
  the members of which share some set of
  communicative purposes.
• Exemplars of a genre exhibit various patterns of
  similarity in terms of structure, style, content
  and intended audience.
• Q Can you think of some academic genres?

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• Examples of genres research article, conference
  proposal, business report, grant application,
  letter to the editor, reference letter, MA
  dissertation, MA dissertation proposal, lecture,
  seminar
• Some are public (accessible to everyone) others
  are occluded (only seen by a small number of
  people)
• Q From the list above, which are public and
  which are occluded genres?
• Genre sets abstract and introduction in the
  research paper
• Genres and subgenres
• Review gt book review, film review, CD review
• Promotional writing gt sales letter, tourist
  brochure

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The notion of discourse community

• Swales (1990, chapter 2) A discourse community
  
• 1. has a broadly agreed set of common public
  goals
• 2. has mechanisms of intercommunication among its
  members (e.g., meetings, correspondence,
  newsletter, mailing list)
• 3. uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to
  provide information and feedback (in accordance
  with the common goal)
• 4. utilizes and hence possesses one or more
  genres in the communicative furtherance of its
  aims
• 5. in addition to owning genres, it has acquired
  some specific lexis (including community-specific
  abbreviations, e.g., ESP)
• 6. has a threshold level of members with a
  suitable degree of relevant content and
  discoursal expertise
• Task Is this a discourse community? Read the
  description on the handout and discuss in your
  group whether all the criteria are satisfied.

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Genre analysis the CARS model

• Swales (1990) Move and step analysis of
  introductions to research articles the CARS
  (creating a research space) model
• Move 1 Establishing a territory
• Step 1. Claiming centrality and/or
• Step 2. Making topic generalizations and/or
• Step 3. Reviewing items of previous research
• Move 2 Establishing a niche
• Step 1a Counter-claiming or
• Step 1b Indicating a gap or
• Step 1c Question-raising or
• Step 1d Continuing a tradition
• Move 3 Occupying the niche
• Step 1a Outlining purposes or
• Step 1b Announcing present research
• Step 2 Announcing principle findings
• Step 3 Indicating Research article structure

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Genre analysis recent trends in research

• Move and step analysis of other genres
• Sales promotion letters (Bhatia, 1993),
• PhD thesis (Bunton, 2005)
• Cross-cultural comparisons of genres
• German and American lectures (Schleef, 2009)
• English and Spanish book reviews (Moreno
  Suárez, 2008)
• Intercultural influences
• Genres written by writers from different L1
  backgrounds writing in English (Prechts (1998)
  study of recommendation letters written by
  British, American, German and Eastern European
  lecturers)
• Diachronic (historical) studies of genres
• Bazermans (1988) work on the evolution of
  scientific report in physics
• Salager-Meyer et als (2007) book reviews in
  French and English medical journals, a comparison
  between the last decades of the 19th and the 20th
  centuries

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Further reading

• Bhatia, V.K. (1993). Analysing genre Language
  use in professional settings. London Longman.
• Hoey, M. (2001). Textual interaction An
  introduction to written discourse analysis.
  London Routledge.
• Hyland, K. (2004). Genre and second language
  writing. Ann Arbor, MI University of Michigan
  Press.
• Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis. Cambridge
  CUP.
• Swales, J. (2004). Research genres. Exploration
  and applications.
• Cambridge CUP.

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References

• Bazerman, C. (1988). Shaping written knowledge.
  The genre and activity of the experimental
  article in science. Madison, WI University of
  Wisconsin Press.
• Bhatia, V. (1993). Analysing genre. Language use
  in professional settings. London Longman.
  Section on Sales promotion letters (pp. 45-59).
• Bunton, D. (2005). The structure of PhD
  conclusion chapters. Journal of English for
  Specific Purposes, 4 207-224.
• Hartford, B., Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1992).
  Closing the Conversation Evidence from the
  Academic Advising Session. Discourse Processes,
  15, 93-116.
• Hoey, M. (1983). On the surface of discourse.
  London Allen and Unwin.
• Hoey, M. (1994). Signalling in discourse a
  functional analysis of a common discourse pattern
  in written and spoken English (pp. 26-45). In M.
  Coulthard (Ed.). Advances in written text
  analysis. New York Routledge.
• Hyland, K. (2004). Genre and second language
  writing. Ann Arbor, MI University of Michigan
  Press.
• Moreno, A.I., Suárez, L. (2008). A study of
  criticial attitude across English and Spanish
  academic book reviews. Journal of English for
  Academic Purposes, 7(1), 15-26.
• Precht, K. (1998). A cross-cultural comparison of
  letters of recommendation. English for Specific
  Purposes, 17, 241-265.
• Salager-Meyer, F., Alcaraz, Arzia, M.A.,
  Berbesi, M. P. (2007). Collegiality, critique and
  the construction of scientific argumentation in
  medical book reviews A diachronic approach.
  Journal of Pragmatics, 39(10), 1758-1774.
• Schleef, E. (2009) A cross-cultural
  investigation of German and American academic
  style, Journal of Pragmatics, 41 1104-1124.

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TASK for Session 5 Presentations

• Each group should prepare a presentation focusing
  on one language skill in ESP (i.e., reading,
  writing, speaking and listening). The
  presentations should include the following
• a brief introduction to the role of the skill in
  ESP based on Dudley-Evans St John (1998)
• article presentation (either from the list below
  or another article about the skill in question
  from English for Specific Purposes or Journal of
  English for Academic Purposes). Focus on the aims
  of the study, main findings and pedagogical
  implications (i.e., what the study tells us about
  the teaching of the skill in ESP)
• Each group will have 20 minutes for the
  presentation. All group members are expected to
  participate however, it is up to the group to
  divide up individual tasks. Powerpoint slides
  and/or handouts can be used. It is essential that
  you rehearse the whole presentation before the
  class and to check your timing!

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Suggested articles for presentations

• Writing
• Bitchener, J., Basturkmen, H. (2006).
  Perceptions of the difficulties of postgraduate
  L2 thesis student writing the discussion section.
  English for Academic Purposes, 5, 4-18.
• Reading
• Pritchard, R.M.O., Nasr, A. (2004). Improving
  reading performance among Egyptian engineering
  students principles and practice. English for
  Specific Purposes, 23, 425-445.
• Oral communication skills
• Kim, S. (2006). Academic oral communication
  needs of East Asian international graduate
  students in non-science and non-engineering
  fields. English for Specific Purposes, 25,
  479-489.
• Listening to academic lectures
• Tauroza, S. (2001). Second language lecture
  comprehension research in naturalistic controlled
  conditions. In Flowerdew, J., Peacock M.
  (Eds.). Research perspectives on English for
  academic purposes. (pp. 360-374). Cambridge
  CUP.
• OR Thompson, S.E. (2003) Text-structuring
  metadiscourse, intonation and the signalling of
  organisation in academic lectures, Journal of
  English for Academic Purposes, 2 5-20.

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Article analysis

• Samraj, B., Monk, L. (2008). The statement of
  purpose in graduate program applications Genre
  structure and disciplinary variation. English for
  Specific Purposes, 27, 2, 193-211.
• 1. Why is the topic of the study important,
  according to the author(s)?
•  
• 2. What are the aims/research questions?
• 3. What does the corpus consist of? Where were
  the texts collected?
• 4. What is the overall structure of the genre
  under analysis?
• 5. What other findings do you find interesting?
• 6. What are the pedagogical implications of the
  findings, in your opinion?