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Despite the wealth of productive ESP/EAP research on promotional genres over the past decade, such research has yet to spotlight Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statements (DEISs) for academic job application purposes in U.S. higher education. To address this gap, this study systematically analyzes the rhetorical features of 80 DEISs and explores the perceptions of faculty administrators, ESP/EAP writing teachers, and novice writers regarding the genre analysis findings. A step-driven rhetorical move analysis targeting the frequency and distribution of rhetorical moves/steps, as well as patterns in inter- and intra-move sequences within the DEISs, was implemented. The analysis unveiled five reoccurring moves, each consisting of multiple steps, with varying frequencies across different texts. It also identified a mixture of circular, linear, and somewhat disorganized patterns in inter-move sequences. Furthermore, through subsequent semi-structured interviews with three faculty members and one L2 student writer, the study revealed a consensus among the interviewees regarding the practical value of the genre analytic findings, particularly for ESP/EAP writing instruction and professional assessment. Meanwhile, it highlighted the interviewees' mixed reactions concerning specific rhetorical features of the DEISs and their collective doubts surrounding the writing and use of DEISs. • Five rhetorical moves structure diversity, equity, and inclusion statements (DEISs). • Steps present writers' understandings, experiences, competence, and plans for DEI. • Circular, linear, or somewhat disorganized patterns sequence the five moves. • Practitioners positively interpret the findings' value in pedagogy and assessment. • They problematize DEISs for their rationale, genre norms, and expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to estimate the developmental trajectory of grammatical complexity for L2 writers by investigating the extent to which clausal and phrasal complexity is associated with L2 writing proficiency. The corpus used in this study contained 234 argumentative essays of first-year Korean college students at three proficiency levels. The five clausal and four phrasal features were extracted from the tagged corpus to count the frequency of each complexity feature. Our findings demonstrated an association between writing proficiency and clausal and phrasal complexity. Especially noteworthy was that the main source of complexity at each proficiency level (i.e., finite adverbial clauses, WH relative clauses, of phrases as nominal postmodifiers) showed a gradual increase in complexity in terms of two parameters: structural type and syntactic function. A qualitative follow-up analysis provided a detailed description of differences among developmental levels, especially with respect to the lexical associations of particular complexity features. Pedagogical implications are for using empirically derived developmental stages in creating detailed rating scale descriptors and providing more customized writing courses accordingly. • L2 writing proficiency is associated with clausal and phrasal complexity. • The early development proceeds from finite adverbial clauses to WH relative clauses. • The advanced development features postmodifying of phrases. • Grammatical complexity develops steadily in terms of structural/syntactic parameters. • The lexical realizations of grammatical structures also matter for development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic writing is often referred to as "formal," but the teaching and assessment of formality can be challenging as formality has been conceptualized in many ways. The goal of this study is to explore the elusive construct of formality in the context of academic writing, especially with regard to what formality means to academic writing instructors. We used instructors' perceptions of formality (i) to identify relationships between the use of linguistic features in academic texts and perceptions of formality and (ii) to determine the extent to which the situational characteristics of texts (e.g., differences in audience, purpose, and discipline) are related to perceptions of formality. Specifically, we asked 72 academic writing instructors to rate the formality level of 60 short academic text excerpts on a five-point scale. The excerpts were sampled from two publication types (university textbooks, journal articles) in three disciplines (psychology, biology, history). Overall, the results indicate that perceptions of formality can be explained by both linguistic features and situational characteristics. As linguistic features and situational characteristics are intertwined, differences in perceptions of formality seem to be functionally motivated. Implications for the teaching of academic writing are discussed. • There is no consensus as to what "formal writing" means. • This study explores the multi-faceted nature of the construct of formality. • Teacher perceptions of formality are the focus of this study. • We explore how linguistic features affect teacher perceptions. • We also explore how situational characteristics of writing affect teacher perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study draws upon questionnaire and interview-based data collected from 32 disciplinary lecturers, 34 English language tutors, and 56 students (24 undergraduates, 32 postgraduates; 29 L1, 27 L2) to explore participants' beliefs about the educative value of the proofreading of student writing. No consensus emerged between or within parties, with a range of pro- and anti-educative views. Those who spoke of the educative value of proofreading claimed it was able to provide individualized learning opportunities, drawing learners' attention to knowledge gaps and recurrent errors, arming writers with learning strategies, raising their awareness of genre conventions, and pointing them to useful instructional materials. However, those espousing anti-educative views claimed that, unlike writing centre tutoring, proofreading was not a pedagogic experience, and that student writers had little desire to learn from a proofreader, simply accepting all the changes the proofreader had made to their text and quickly submitting for assessment. Such a variety of views points to the difficulties of introducing an in-house educative proofreading policy. The article concludes by exploring how educative proofreading could be embedded into university support services and its raison d'être effectively disseminated to all stakeholders. • Lecturer, language tutor, student views on educative value of proofreading. • No consensus whether proofreading is or should be educative or not. • Lack of consensus makes establishing in-house educative proofreading policy difficult. • Embedding, dissemination of educative in-house proofreading discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s, grammatical complexity has received considerable attention in different fields of L2 studies, for instance, second language acquisition (SLA) and L2 writing. While over the past three decades grammatical complexity has frequently been represented by clausal structures in L2 writing, since the beginning of the 2010s scholars have increasingly paid attention to phrasal features. We conducted this study to investigate how the use of noun phrases is associated with L1- and L2-English language backgrounds in academic writing. Noun phrase complexity was operationalized to the 11 noun modifiers (e.g., premodifying nouns, relative clauses, prepositional phrases) proposed in Biber, Gray and Poonpon (2011). A Chi-square test followed by a residual analysis was used to statistically analyze noun phrases in the two corpora. The results demonstrate that there is an association between the use of noun phrases and whether the author is an L1 or L2 user of English. The L1 essays have diverse patterns of noun phrases, whereas the L2 essays have compressed structures of noun phrases. A qualitative analysis of the corpora reveals repeated cases of phrasal modifiers in the L2 essays. Pedagogical implications are provided for academic writing courses for L1 and L2 students. • NP complexity is associated with L1- and L2-English language backgrounds. • Eight noun modifiers contribute to this association in academic writing. • L1 students produce diverse NP patterns with a wide range of noun modifiers. • L2 students construct compressed NPs based on phrasal modifiers. • L2 students use repeated cases of phrasal modifiers in their writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an investigation of the variation in writing assignments across undergraduate course-levels and sub-areas of a single university department. The central component of this study is an exhaustive analysis of the non-linguistic, situational characteristics of all writing assignments given over two years of undergraduate course offerings in the English department of a large public U.S. university. All writing assignments from a collection of syllabi representing all courses offered in the department were categorized using a bottom-up process informed by assignment descriptions, curricular documents, and two expert informants for each department sub-area, yielding a comprehensive taxonomy of writing assignment-types in the department. Assignment-types were identified by differentiating situational characteristics (central purpose, audience, personal nature, object of study, coherence, revision, time, assignment specifications, and medium). Differences in purposes and topics of common assignment-types across sub-areas are investigated using assignment prompts. An analysis of variation in the frequency and characteristics of assignment-types across course-levels and sub-areas reveals department-internal differences in the educational aims and uses of writing assignments. A comparison of the core purposes of common assignment-types with those of related studies attempts to identify purpose-sharing register-clusters that shed light on the nature of writing assignments at the undergraduate level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on our recent work (Anderson et al., 2020; Anderson & Okuda, 2019 ; Anderson et al., 2021) investigating macrostructural variation in doctoral dissertations. Two of the central questions that remained under-addressed in this (and other) prior research were if and how dissertation macrostructures have changed over time, and what this change might indicate in terms of acceptable and preferred dissertation writing practices and the personal choices and institutional forces that shape dissertation genres. To address this, our present study includes a corpus of 1,254 doctoral dissertations from a single Canadian research university spanning a 52-year period from 1966 to 2018. As a related question, we were also curious about the proclivity of co-authorship practices in dissertation texts, since previous research (Anderson et al., 2021) has demonstrated that co-authorship is common with certain dissertation macrostructures but much less so (or even non-existent) in others. As shown below, both macrostructures and co-authorship demonstrated changes over time in the corpus of texts analyzed for this study. Dissertations are now increasingly manuscript-based and/or contain published sections, many of these co-authored. The authors conclude with implications of this change and calls for further inquiry in this area. • We analyzed 1254 doctoral dissertations for macrostructure and authorship practices. • 52 years of education dissertations were analyzed from one research university. • Both macrostructure and (co)authorship practices have changed over time. • "Alternative" dissertation macrostructures are now as popular as traditional ones. • Co-authorship is common in some macrostructures and non-existent in others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the academic writing challenges encountered by L2 postgraduate students in Engineering and the strategies they developed (or, from the perspective of faculty, should develop) to address these issues. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data gathered from 82 graduate students and 24 faculty in Engineering in three universities in Hong Kong, the study revealed similarities and differences related to topics previously identified in the literature. The study identified major differences between students and faculty regarding academic writing challenges. The primary concern of most L2 graduate students was challenges at the sentence level (i.e. local language features), whereas that of most faculty was challenges at the discourse level (i.e. global language features). The study also revealed that some student strategies for managing academic writing challenges (e.g. employing Google Translate) do not fully meet faculty expectations. These findings have significant pedagogical implications, for example, the need for providing appropriate writing models and writing interventions for L2 graduate students in Engineering. • This study examines academic writing challenges for L2 Engineering postgraduates. • L2 graduate students are more concerned about writing skills at the sentence level. • Their faculty are more concerned about writing skills at the discourse level. • Using academic papers as models is a common strategy for L2 graduate students. • Some student strategies for academic writing do not meet faculty expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on author identity and relations in academic writing have mostly focused on research articles and relatively few studies have attended to the construction of identity in texts where there is a more obvious unequal relationship between author and reader. This paper reports on a study of interpersonal relationships constructed in an occluded genre, the manuscript review, and compares writer–reader relations across reviews with three different reviewer recommendations: 'reject,' 'major revision,' and 'minor revision.' An analysis of select lexicogrammatical features used in the construction of recommendations and the presence of author and reader in texts reveals the construction of a more unequal relationship between author and reader in 'major revision' and 'reject' reviews than in 'minor revision' reviews. This is due to the use of strong directives, the lack of author presence in mitigating negative evaluation and recommendations given, and the more direct reference to authors through the use of the second person pronoun, especially in negative comments. This study reveals that the polite and egalitarian relationship identified in public academic genres may not always be present in private academic genres and shows that author persona can vary in response to purpose, context, and readers of a genre. • Author–reader relationship varies across reviews with different recommendations. • Strong directives are more common in 'major revision' than 'minor revision' reviews. • More use of 1st person pronoun mitigates recommendations in 'minor revision' reviews. • Less use of 2nd person pronoun in reviews creates a collegial author–reader relation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to the emerging line of research on the linguistic realizations of rhetorical functions in disciplinary writing by presenting a list of phrase-frames identified from the Corpus of Social Science Research Article Introductions (COSSRAI) aligned with the rhetorical move-steps that they occurred in. COSSRAI contains the introduction sections of 600 research articles published in leading journals in six social science disciplines. The corpus was manually annotated for rhetorical move-steps using an extensively adapted version of Swales' (2004) Create a Research Space model. A list of phrase-frames was extracted from the corpus using a combination of corpus statistics and manual filtering. The phrase-frames were then systematically mapped to the rhetorical move-steps they occurred in. Three types of phrase-frames emerged from our analysis: specialized phrase-frames that occurred in one move-step only, semi-specialized phrase-frames that occurred primarily in one move-step but also in others, and non-specialized phrase-frames that occurred in multiple move-steps with no clear association with any of them. We conclude with a discussion of the pedagogical implications of the list of phrase-frames aligned with rhetorical move-steps and the findings of our analysis. • A corpus of social science research article introductions was annotated for rhetorical move-steps. • A list of phrase-frames was extracted from the corpus. • The phrase-frames were matched to the rhetorical move-steps they were used to realize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research articles in English are read and composed by individuals from many lingua-cultural backgrounds; this diversity in the users of English as an academic lingua franca is likely to increase further with the rise of open access (OA) publishing. In the light of this, a pertinent question is how gender is constructed in international research articles. This study examines OA articles (N = 1003) with respect to the use of epicene pronouns, third-person singular pronouns of indeterminate gender. The analysis of pronominal reference shows that the non-gendered singular they was the most common pronoun overall, closely followed by gendered he or she forms. The use of generic he also occurred with some frequency. Further, the study investigates what kinds of author guidelines OA journals have for the use of gender-fair language. The analysis reveals that specific guidelines were generally uncommon, and that there was no immediate correspondence between policy and practice in cases where journals provided guidelines. Taken together, the findings disclose a state of flux in the use of epicene pronouns in OA articles. A key issue in international publishing and journal editing is thus to raise awareness about gendered language through guidelines and submission checklists. • A corpus study was conducted to examine epicene pronouns in open access articles. • Epicene pronouns are third-person singular pronouns of indeterminate gender. • They was the most common pronoun (46.8%, N = 1,173), followed by he or she (38.5%). • The gender-biased 'generic' he was also still in use (14.7%). • Most journals did not provide any guidelines for the use of gendered language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhetorical moves are discoursal units that perform communicative functions in a given genre. They have been manually identified in many previous studies taking a corpus-based approach, and these studies have provided important contributions to discourse structure theories. However, manual analysis has restricted the scale and quantity of texts under investigation and the identification of moves is likely to be influenced by researchers' prior knowledge. In contrast, a corpus-driven approach, by applying automatic computational technology to process a large number of texts, possibly results in a better representation of the moves in a genre and minimises researcher bias in move identification. This study applies one typical corpus-driven approach, a bundle-driven approach, to analyse rhetorical moves of PhD abstracts, a move-intensive genre. The study focused on 5-word sentence initial bundles. Almost all the generated bundles could be identified as move indicators. The majority of the indicated moves aligned with the moves proposed for research article abstracts in previous studies, and one new move, Structure , was identified. This study indicates the potential of a bundle-driven approach in exploring rhetorical moves and in examining the linguistic features of moves by means of lexical bundles. Pedagogical implications for EAP writing are also suggested. • Corpus of 3,697 PhD abstracts in Arts and Humanities studied. • Sixty-six 5-word sentence initial bundles, 717 individual cases analysed. • Discourse functions of 91% bundles found reflecting the IMRD organisation and the rest functioning as text organisers. • Linguistic features of these bundle-based move indicators investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genre analysis is a powerful pedagogy to foster doctoral students' awareness of academic writing conventions and variation. Nonetheless, concerns remain about the risks of promoting rhetorical 'painting by numbers', with writers glumly surrendering agency and authorial voice. Recent reappraisals of genre pedagogy encourage fostering genre manipulation, innovation, and play. We examine whether genre pedagogy can indeed promote conscious manipulation and even playfulness of academic genres, or at least an enhanced sense of control over conventions. Data from interviews with 30 doctoral students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) collected over a two-year period were analyzed to extract comments pertaining to deliberate authorial choices, unconventionalities in writing or writing processes, and positive shifts in writing perceptions. The findings reveal students' appreciation of genre awareness and a sense of control from knowledge of genre conventions, affording them agency in their writing. Crucially, students do not appear to surrender to standardization, but are instead agentive and metacognitive in their approach to writing, using their genre knowledge to compose, manipulate, and critique their genres. • We examine whether genre pedagogy fosters uncritical compliance to genre conventions. • Thirty doctoral students in STEM reported genre manipulation in research writing. • Students critiqued conventions and made intentional authorial choices, at times in unconventional ways. • Students reported shifts in their perceptions about writing and themselves as writers. • We underscore the potential of genre pedagogy to foster agency and creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates lexical bundles (LBs), a particular type of frequently occurring multiword sequence, in the academic writing of native and nonnative English-speaking first-year university students. The study extends the functional analysis of LBs in the literature by investigating the evaluative prosody and semantic preference of LBs in the same semantic domains that are employed by novice student writers from the two different language groups. The students wrote argumentative essays in response to identical writing prompts. The very specific functions of the LBs in the essays were examined and compared. The results indicate semantic traits specific to each language group. This outcome can contribute to instruction on argumentative essays, which are a common pedagogical writing genre assigned across disciplines at the undergraduate level as well as in language-focused courses in general. • This study extends the functional analysis of lexical bundles (LBs) in the literature by investigating the semantic prosody and preference of LBs. • L1 and L2 English students wrote argumentative essays in response to identical writing prompts. • The findings suggest the very specific functions that the LBs serve in this particular academic genre as used by the two groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the potential of integrating corpus-based and genre-based approaches to teaching rhetorical structures in a discipline-specific English as a Foreign Language (EFL) academic writing course at a university in China. The instructor and students first collaboratively compiled a specialized corpus consisting of the introduction sections of engineering research articles (RAs), which was subsequently annotated for rhetorical moves. A series of guided corpus-based genre analysis activities were then used to help the students understand the rhetorical structures of engineering RA introductions and the linguistic features associated with different rhetorical moves. The effectiveness of this pedagogical approach was evaluated with data triangulation across pre- and post-instruction questionnaires, interviews, students' reflective journals, and student-produced writing samples. Results showed that the integrated approach helped enhance the students' genre knowledge and improve their genre-based writing skills. This study thus contributes evidence of the feasibility and effectiveness of corpus-based genre pedagogy in discipline-specific EFL contexts. • The study integrated corpus-based instruction in teaching rhetorical structures. • The pedagogical effectiveness was assessed by triangulating multiple data sources. • The corpus-based genre analysis activities were found to be pedagogically effective. • Corpus use helps to generalize linguistic patterns and consolidate genre knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is motivated by John Swales' genre analysis of academic texts and rhetorical studies of visuals in scientific texts. Swales' approach still generates insights into the rhetorical structure of research genres across disciplines, yet few studies explore their nonverbal aspects. Rhetorical studies of visuals examine images and ignore links with surrounding texts and may overlook ways that the nonverbal contributes to the discipline's intellectual project. ESP genre research has begun multimodal analysis of academic genres but its focus on conference presentations has left a gap in the study of verbal-visual links in other academic genres. This paper addresses this gap in multimodal genre scholarship. After analyzing a corpus of 30 RAs from discrete mathematics to identify the functions of visuals and possible visual–move associations, we found that visuals in two-thirds of the corpus perform three functions: ontological, argumentative, and epistemological. Our data also indicates three multimodal rhetorical moves initiated primarily by visuals. Implications of our findings are that visual moves go beyond textual considerations, they can disrupt the RA's chronological structure, and novice writers in the field would benefit from understanding the crucial associations between the visual representations, disciplinary knowledge, and the rhetorical structure of RAs in this field. • Visuals in discrete mathematics RAs perform three functions: ontological, argumentative, epistemological. • Visuals in discrete mathematics RAs support arguments by performing multiple functions. • Visuals in discrete math RAs initiate three moves: Define visually, Represent the operation outcome, Embody the operation. • Novice writers must understand how visuals in discrete mathematics RAs connect to rhetorical structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interpreting research findings in doctoral thesis discussions is a demanding rhetorical task for writers, as it requires them to both make propositions of their own findings and engage with previous scholarship by evaluating others' findings in a way that their academic discourse community finds acceptable. Although many studies have examined thesis writers' use of evaluative language, they have often focused on a quantitative analysis of its frequency and type within clause boundaries. Our study, in contrast, is based on a qualitative analysis of the co-articulation of different evaluative items across clause boundaries. We find three main patterns of discussing the author's own results combined with critical engagement with previous literature and we present typical examples to illustrate the construction of interpersonal positioning as the text unfolds. We then discuss some workshops in which we used these findings to help Master's student writers become aware of different strategies for effectively interpreting research findings in writing discussion sections. • distance is combined with pronounce / endorse to argue against previous literature. • acknowledge is combined with counter / deny to make connection with previous literature. • endorse is combined with entertain to align with previous literature. • Thesis writers' awareness of the three patterns was raised in pedagogical workshops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ever-intensifying globalization and marketization of higher education are placing increased pressure on doctoral students to publish during candidature. This paper reports a study of Chinese nursing doctoral students' endeavors to publish in English. Drawing on Activity Theory, the study employed a multiple-case study design and collected multiple types of data from six doctoral students and one supervisor from a major research-intensive university in mainland China. Thematic and activity systems analyses of the data revealed a tension concerning the students' dual role as student and expert scholarly writer. The tension was manifested in the students' developing, but still limited grasp and use of some conceptual tools needed to publish their work. The analyses also showed that the students dealt with this tension by relying on mediating resources, such as cultural artifacts and social others that facilitated not only their publishing efforts, but also their socialization into the academic culture and community. These findings point to a deep-seated structural tension in doctoral education that, while constraining doctoral students' scholarly publishing endeavors, could also enable them to acquire the skills of the trade to publish and to be socialized into their disciplinary communities. • Doctoral students seeking to publish face challenges arising from their dual role. • They are expected to be student and expert scholarly writers at the same time. • A tension exists between their developing, yet limited, grasp of conceptual tools. • Cultural artifacts and social others mediate students' overcoming of the tension. • The tension-ridden process brings along learning and socialization opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metadiscourse is the commentary on a text made by its producer in the course of speaking or writing. Here we take an interpersonal perspective, focusing on metadiscourse as a repertoire of resources available for writers to organise a discourse or their stance towards its content or the reader. In this paper we explore whether, and to what extent, metadiscourse has changed in professional writing in different disciplines over the past 50 years. Extending our diachronic work analysing a corpus of 2.2 million words from articles in the top journals in four disciplines, we show there has been a significant increase in interactive features and a significant decrease in interactional types. Surprisingly, interactional metadiscourse shows a marked decline in the discursive soft knowledge fields and a substantial increase in the science subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Move analysis is a text analytical approach first developed by John Swales (1981) to investigate the underlying generic structure of research articles (RAs) in terms of moves-and-steps for pedagogical purposes. A widely shared aspiration of move analysts has been to identify the linguistic features characterizing the various RA moves not only in English, but also across languages. One shortcoming blocking this advancement is the lack of multilingual corpora fully annotated for their specific communicative functions in a coordinated and reliable manner. In this paper, we describe and discuss a methodology for analysing the various RA sections for their generic structure up from the step level in two languages and across a wide range of disciplines, using the discussion section as a test case for illustrating that methodology. Among the topics treated are establishing criteria for choosing a suitable sample of comparable RA discussions across the two languages, designing a model for annotating the section's moves and steps, creating an accessible computer-assisted coding scheme, achieving good levels of inter-rater reliability, and obtaining validation from expert informants and writers. In essence, this is a methodology paper offered as a working model for other EAP researchers undertaking similar analyses in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the objective of determining what academic vocabulary students use productively, and exploring the relationship between receptive and productive academic vocabulary, this paper continues the dialog on what constitutes academic vocabulary. By adopting a set of principled criteria (ratio, dispersion, discipline specificity and range) and by approximating the procedures from a recent study of academic vocabulary, the academic vocabulary found in students' writing is identified and subsequently compared to the academic vocabulary found in published academic writing (indexical of receptive purposes). Nearly 600 words emerge as being represented significantly more frequently in students' academic writing than in their non-academic writing, demonstrating that students distinguish in their writing between academic and non-academic vocabulary. Furthermore, the investigation finds significant differences between students' productive academic vocabulary and academic vocabulary serving receptive purposes, suggesting that students' productive and receptive academic vocabulary needs are far from identical. The findings reported here are intended to serve as a tool for EAP educators working to help students develop academic vocabulary fit for purpose, as well as an incentive for EAP researchers to continue to explore the nature of academic vocabulary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies to date have investigated the role of publication context in shaping academic writers' linguistic choices in establishing authorial identity in different writing cultures. This study explores how authorial identity is represented through first person pronouns in 130 Sociology research articles (RAs) in Turkish and in English published in national and international journals. Both corpus-based and interview-based analyses were employed. Three sub-corpora were analyzed: (1) Turkish writers' Turkish RAs in national journals, (2) Turkish writers' English RAs in mainstream international journals, and (3) Native Speaker (NSE) writers' English RAs in mainstream international journals. The findings revealed extensive similarities in the frequency and discourse functions of first person pronouns in English RAs written by NSE and Turkish scholars in mainstream international journals. Both groups utilized first person pronouns in high-risk functions, such as expressing an opinion, to front a powerful authorial identity. In contrast to Turkish and NSE scholars publishing in international journals, Turkish writers publishing in Turkish national journals tended to avoid using first person pronouns and displaying an overt authorial presence in their RAs. The findings revealed the likely significance of the publication context in the discoursal choices of academic writers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the writing of experimental research reports in social sciences, one of the challenging components that learners need to include is associated with procedural descriptions. Nonetheless, owing to the lack of related exposure to rhetorical and language conventions, learners frequently encounter difficulties in using appropriate language resources to report such procedures. Motivated by the need to provide learners with some materials that genuinely reflect the language choices expected by expert members of an academic community, this study looks into how published writers use a broad spectrum of linguistic strategies to present experimental procedures in research reports published in high-impact journals on language education. Based on a genre-based analytical framework and pertinent data elicited from specialist informants, this paper reveals how language instructors can make informed choices in the preparation of teaching materials by taking note of various lexico-grammatical choices, especially recurrent parallel structures, agentless passive structures exhibiting varying degrees of obligation, and specific adverbials in different sentential positions. The findings have accentuated the need to consider some major differences between published advice presented in a manual and the actual practice of expert writers in EAP lessons aimed at raising learners' consciousness of the language resources needed for reporting experimental procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informality has become something of a contemporary mantra as, from the denim-clad offices of internet startups to the pages of business reports, we are encouraged to shed old constraints and relax conventions. This paper explores the perception that since informality has now invaded a large range of written and spoken domains of discourse, academic writing has also followed this trend. It asks the question whether academics are now freer to construct less rigidly objective texts and craft a more inclusive relationship with their readers. Taking a corpus of 2.2 million words from the same leading journals in four disciplines at three periods over the past years, we explore changes in the use of ten key features regarded by applied linguists and style guide authors as representing informality. Our results show only a small increase in the use of these features, and that this is mainly accounted for by increases in the hard sciences rather than the social sciences. It is also largely restricted to increases in first person pronouns, unattended reference and sentences beginning with conjunctions. We discuss these results and argue they represent changes in rhetorical conventions which accommodate more obvious interpersonal interactions in the sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Establishing a niche’ has been shown to be an important rhetorical strategy in research genres to argue for the need for new research. Limited research has focused on this aspect of the rhetorical structure in research article introductions (RAIs) in mathematics. This genre-based study investigates how writers in discrete mathematics establish a niche for their research. We identify five steps that discrete mathematicians choose from among or combine to establish both a niche for and the significance of their work. In examining the implications of our findings for novice writers in the field, we propose slight modifications to the CARS model to accommodate the practices of writers in discrete mathematics and to assist newcomers in understanding the crucial features of structuring RAIs in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an elaborated framework for mapping learners' development of nominalizations , one prominent realization of the linguistic resource, grammatical metaphor (Halliday, 1993; Martin, 2008). The framework emerges from a larger, corpus-assisted analysis of the Chinese Longitudinal Learner Corpus (CLLC), 520 Chinese learner texts collected during the students' first four semesters of university (Liardét, 2013b, 2014, 2015). Over the past few decades, SFL research has provided rich descriptions of nominalizations (e.g., Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999; Taverniers, 2006 ); however, little has been done to empirically describe deployment quality and map learners' development ontogenetically, over time (Baratta, 2010). The proposed framework outlined in this paper seeks to identify how learners develop nominalization proficiency by accounting for intermediate realizations that may otherwise be dismissed as mistakes. These nuanced descriptions are illustrated throughout using excerpts from the CLLC and the paper concludes with pedagogical recommendations for apprenticing learners to advanced nominalization proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the use of Academic Vocabulary List (D. Gardner & Davies, 2014) items in successful university study writing. Overall, levels of use of AVL items are high, and increase as students progress through the years of undergraduate and taught postgraduate study, suggesting that it may be a useful resource. However, significant variation is found across text types and disciplines. While the former is relatively minor, the latter is extensive, suggesting the list is more relevant to some student writers than others. An analysis by items indicates that around half of the words on the list are used very little. Moreover, the items which are frequent differ across disciplines. However, a small core of 427 items was found to be frequent across 90% of disciplines. This suggests that a generic productive academic vocabulary does exist, but that it is smaller in scope than the full Academic Vocabulary List. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies on the manuscript review, an occluded genre, have focused mainly on its discourse features and not on discourse variation in reviews according to final reviewer recommendation. This paper reports on a study of two sub-sets of manuscript reviews written for English for Specific Purposes , with the final reviewer recommendation of “major revision” and “reject.” An analysis of the organization of the commentary section of manuscript reviews indicates that “major revision” reviews are characterized by discourse units with the function of recommendation while “reject” reviews tend to foreground discourse units with the function of negative evaluation. Lexicogrammatical features associated with the functions of recommendation and negative evaluation were also found to vary in frequency in the two sub-groups of texts through analysis using Python, a computer language. I argue that “reject” and “major revision” reviews have different positions on two continua, one for recommendation and the other for negative evaluation, and I use these positions to explain the variation in discourse organization and lexicogrammatical features revealed in the “text-first” analysis suggested by Askehave and Swales (2001). I suggest that sub-categories for heterogeneous genres with multiple communicative purposes could be established through use of the centrality of a particular purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely accepted that ambitious learners of a L2, including learners of EAP, need productive knowledge of many conventionalized phrases, or formulaic sequences (FSs). Although it is difficult for the post-childhood learner to acquire these FSs without aid, the range of relevant pedagogical techniques known to be effective and efficient is unimpressive. We report an experimental investigation of the potential of a dictogloss exercise modified to direct the attention of EAP learners to 14 FSs in a journal abstract. Learners were randomly assigned to two treatment groups—standard dictogloss and modified dictogloss. In post-treatment written reconstructions of the abstract, the learners who had done the modified dictogloss used significantly more of the targeted FSs than did the learners in the standard dictogloss condition. The modified dictogloss requires less class time than the standard dictogloss and only slightly more teacher preparation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ESP/EAP professionals, by focusing on issues that arise from instructional practice in Anglo-American nations, have unwittingly perpetuated a deficit model in teaching and researching academic writing in other parts of the world. Students' writing is often measured against the language standards in those “center” nations. An intercultural rhetoric framework suggests that we need to view English writing as a local practice in which students appropriate resources from various “small cultures” (Holliday, 1999). Further, representing writing practice outside of Anglo-American contexts in research requires a dialectical process, negotiating between local and translocal frames and concepts. Adopting this rhetorical framework, we examined the reasoning patterns of 75 highly rated undergraduate theses in translation studies at a Chinese university. Our study reveals that the thesis writing community has established its own language standards and the students appropriate these standards to fashion their reasoning styles. Further, they marshal additional resources from national, professional-academic, and instructional cultures. We conclude by offering suggestions for teaching and researching thesis writing in non-English dominant contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents word clusters used to comment on results in the Discussion section of quantitative research articles in the field of applied linguistics. The corpus linguistic approach was adopted to identify clusters in 124 Discussion texts from leading applied linguistics journals. The identified clusters were then comprehensively analysed in context for their discourse functions. Next, the present study mapped the clusters onto an analytical framework termed the ‘four-Step model’, based on Yang and Allison's (2003) genre-based description of the Commenting on results Move. The study provided a detailed corpus linguistic account of how the clusters were used in specific Steps described in the model. A detailed description of the linguistic features, the internal structure (Move/Step cycles and embedding) and communicative functions of specific Steps in the Commenting on results Move were also presented based on the concordance analysis of the clusters. The findings further suggest that the use of specific clusters strongly manifests, and is conditioned by, the research article genre. The study has pedagogical implications for academic writing courses for students, especially for those from non-English language backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]