Analysing Academic Writing: Contextualized Frameworks 9781474211741

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List of tables

2.1

Frequency of engagement features in articles and student reports (per 10,000 words) 2.2 Frequency of engagement features in student reports (per 10,000 words) 2.3 Overall functions of directives by genre (per cent)

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3.1 Categories and examples of attitude 3.2 Examples of instances of evaluation oriented to either FD or FR

27 29

4.1 4.2

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4.3

Epistemic and deontic modality in the students' texts Overall frequencies of epistemic and deontic modals in different parts of the texts Occupational wishes ofthe seminar students (N=20)

6.1

Titles of the exegeses and their visual projects

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10 11

51 61

8.1 Summary of Theme choices analysed and coding system used 8.2 Theme choice analysis I 8.3 Theme choice analysis II: textual and interpersonal thematic elements within the multiple Theme category

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9.1

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Theme patterning in student test essays

138 139

10.1 Expectations for the laboratory report 10.2 Roles of grammatical metaphor

175 186

11.1 Sampling of texts across genre and university 11.2 Grammatical problems with 'favourite clause type' construction across genre

194 204

12.1 The double classification and framing potential of genre-based literacy pedagogy 12.2 The assessment framework of plant science and physiology 12.3 Examples of the writing tasks in the scientific writing portfolio

214 215 216

Contributors

Youping Chen is Associate Professor in the Management School, Shanghai Jiaotong University, teaching Business English and Business Communication. He has over 15 years' experience teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in China, and his current research interest is the application of systemic functional theories to EFL teaching and research. Caroline Coffin is Lecturer at the Centre for Language and Communications at the Open University, UK. Her area of specialization is educational linguistics and the role that language plays in the teaching and learning of disciplinary knowledge. Currently she is carrying out research into the affordances of electronic conferencing in the context of distance and higher education. Her most recent publication is Teaching Academic Writing: A Toolkit for Higher Education (co-authored with MJ. Curry, S. Goodman, A. Hewings, T. Lillis andJ. Swann (Routledge 2003). Helen Drury is Lecturer in the Learning Centre at the University of Sydney. She has taught academic literacy for more than 15 years in Australia, the UK and Indonesia. She is currently involved in developing and evaluating online learning programs for report writing in the disciplines. Her main research interests are scientific and technical writing, genre and multimodal analysis and online learning of academic literacy. Robert Ellis is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Teaching and Learning, University of Sydney. His research interests are learning, linguistics and technology, particularly how a linguistic approach to researching learning can complement other research methodologies such as Student Learning Research. He previously taught and researched English for Academic Purposes and Information and Communication Technologies in Learning at the University ofNSW and the University of Western Sydney. Joseph Foley is currently a language specialist with the Southeast Asian Ministry of Education Organization, Regional Language Centre based in Singapore. Prior to this he taught at the National University of Singapore for 20 years, mainly in the areas of systemic functional linguistics and socio-psycholinguistics. He is editor of the RELC Journal and has published extensively in the field of applied linguistics.

Acknowledgements

We would like to extend our thanks to Emeritus Professor Frances Christie. who provided impetus for the idea of this volume. and to those colleagues who acted as anonymous referees for papers.

1 Introduction

In the context of ongoing and focused attention on the processes and practices of academic writing, this volume reflects in particular on the writing of novices, that is students, rather than experts. The analysis of student writing is used as a point of departure for reflecting on the particular demands of this context, highlighting some of the ways in which students negotiate identity, construct roles and develop argumentative positions, engage in technologically supported writing processes, and deal with the demands of specialized disciplines and of a language which may not be their own. The research in this volume is contextualized in a variety of ways. First, the complex phenomenon of language is contextualized in relation to a theoretical framework which views texts as intimately related to their contexts. Context is theorized in a number of complementary ways in this volume, focusing largely on systemic functional linguistics, but including related social,onstructivist frameworks and more generalized perspectives on ethnography. These approaches are consistent in their concern for a rich account of text,ontext relations, one which can account for meanings across a wide range of dimensions, from the overall purpose of a text to its various inflections for ideational, interpersonal, and textual meanings. The second way in which the research is contextualized is in terms of the particular type of student writing which is examined in each chapter. The chapters demonstrate a broad range of writing contexts, in terms of level, discipline, task and language background. In terms oflevel, both pre-tertiary, undergraduate and postgraduate writings are examined, although there is particular emphasis on undergraduate writing, and some of the changing demands of different levels within that, such as first versus final year. A wide range of disciplines are examined, from plant science, to business, to history, geography, art and design, and biology, each problematizing the ways in which these specific disciplines shape students' potential for making meaning appropriately. As well as variation in discipline, there is also variation in the overall task, or genre, demanded of students, from expository and report writing, to exegesis, to contributions to online discussions. And importantly, the chapters demonstrate a wide range of language contexts within which learning takes place, from the experience of first language speakers, such as

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Patterns of engagement: dialogic features and L2 undergraduate writing Ken Hyland

1 Introduction In recent years there has been a growing interest in the interactive and rhetorical character of academic writing, expanding the focus of study beyond the ideational dimension of texts to the ways they function at the interpersonal level. Such a view argues that academic writers do not simply produce texts that plausibly represent an external reality, but use language to acknowledge, construct and negotiate social relations. The ability of writers to offer a credible representation of themselves and their work, by claiming solidarity with readers, evaluating their material and acknowledging alternative views, is a defining feature of successful academic writing. Controlling the level of personality in a text is central to maintaining interaction with readers and building a convincing argument. Put succinctly, every successful text must display the writer's awareness of both its readers and its consequences. This concern with the interpersonal has always been central to both systemic functional and social