Writing a Research Work in Linguistics

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МИНИСТЕРСТВО НАУКИ И ВЫСШЕГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ

ЮЖНО-УРАЛЬСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ

Ш143.21-9 Б201

Е.С. Баландина, Т.Ю. Передриенко

WRITING A RESEARCH WORK IN LINGUISTICS Учебное пособие

Челябинск 2020

Министерство науки и высшего образования Российской Федерации Южно-Уральский государственный университет Кафедра иностранных языков

Ш143.21-9 Б201

Е.С. Баландина, Т.Ю. Передриенко

WRITING A RESEARCH WORK IN LINGUISTICS Учебное пособие

Челябинск Издательский центр ЮУрГУ 2020

ББК Ш143.21-923 Б201 Одобрено учебно-методической комиссией ИЛиМК

Рецензенты: д.филол.н. Кушнерук С.Л., к.п.н. Довгополова Л.Б.

Б201

Баландина, Е.С. Writing a Research Work in Linguistics: учебное пособие / Е.С. Баландина, Т.Ю. Передриенко – Челябинск: Издательский центр ЮУрГУ, 2020. – 57 с. Учебное пособие предназначено для магистрантов I и II курсов, обучающихся по направлению подготовки 45.04.01 «Филология (Теория и практика английского языка)». Цель учебного пособия – познакомить студентов с основными принципами организации лингвистического исследования. В учебном пособии детально изучаются основные этапы подготовки научного исследования в области лингвистики. Авторы уделяют особое внимание правилам написания различных частей выпускной квалификационной работы магистра (введения, основной части, заключения, списка используемой литературы, приложения) и предлагают разнообразные вопросы и упражнения для тренировки и закрепления материала. Учебное пособие соответствуют требованиям Федерального государственного образовательного стандарта и может быть использовано для самостоятельной работы.

ББК Ш143.21-923

© Издательский центр ЮУрГУ, 2020 2

CONTENTS 1. 2. 3. 4.

Research Work and its Aim…………………………………………………. 4 Research Topic………………………………………………………………. 5 Academic Style……………………………………………………………… 6 The Content of Master Thesis ……………………………………………… 10 4.1. Title Page………………………………………………………………… 11 4.2. Abstract………………………………………………………………….. 12 4.3. The Table of Contents…………………………………………………… 16 4.4. Introduction……………………………………………………………... 17 4.5. The Body of the Thesis………………………………………………... 21 4.5.1. Theoretical Framework…………………………………………... 21 4.5.2. Literature Review………………………………………………… 24 4.5.3. Research Methodology……………………………………………32 4.5.4. Practical Part (Analysis)………………………………………….. 37 4.6. Conclusions……………………………………………………………... 41 5. Formatting Rules……………………………………………………………...46 6. The Presentation of Master Thesis…………………………………………… 48 7. Assessment…………………………………………………………………… 53 References………………………………………………………………………. 55

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1. RESEARCH WORK AND ITS AIM Task 1. Read the text and answer the questions given below. Research work is a process of steps used to collect and analyze information to increase the understanding of a topic or issue. It consists of three steps: pose a question, collect data and present an answer to the question (John W. Creswell). Master Thesis is a piece of original research work written by a student under the supervision. Thesis idea should be original and relevant. You should reserve enough time for writing your Thesis so that its content and structure will be as good as possible. Master Thesis reveals understanding, reflection and analytical abilities. This research work should show familiarity with the previous work in the field and should demonstrate the ability to use research methods and academic style. Furthermore, Master Thesis must demonstrate the student’s ability to use relevant literature and to present research results as well as show the ability for further research. The aims of the Thesis are: • to put into practice theories and concepts learned on the programme; • to provide an opportunity to study a particular topic in-depth; • to improve the student’s ability for independent research work and its practical application; • to combine relevant theories and suggest alternatives; • to enable the student to apply different research methods; • to demonstrate the student’s ability to use relevant literature and to present research results; • to show evidence of the ability to plan and manage Thesis within deadlines. After the completion of the Thesis, the student should be able: • to define, design and deliver an academically rigorous piece of research; • to understand the relationships between the theoretical concepts taught in class and their application in specific situations; • to show evidence of critical and holistic knowledge and have a deeper understanding of their chosen subject area; • to appreciate practical implications and constraints of the specialist subject; • to understand the process and decisions to be made in managing a project within strict deadlines. 1. What does the Master thesis reveal? 2. What are the main aims of the Master thesis? 3. What should the student be able to do after the completion of Thesis?

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Task 2. Study the statements and reveal the aim of the research work. 1. This study investigates overall grammatical developments of written Australian English across the twentieth century. 2. The purpose of this study is therefore to road-test a two-step methodological approach in the investigation of over 6000 progressive constructions in five comparable corpora: the British, US, India, and Singapore components of the International Corpus of English (ICE), in addition to the recently released Corpus of Dutch English. 3. Our classification provides a unified account of the distinctive syntactic and semantic characteristics of individual adjectives that cannot be explained by previous studies. 4. The problem of defining humour is discussed, followed by a brief outline of the theoretical models which underpin the analysis of the various functions which humour serves in professional language. 5. The article aims to examine the multivoicedness of masculinities in a specific local context. 6. This is the first attempt to test the diachronic stability of a mixed language by means of synchronic experimental data. 7. The objective of this article is to estimate speakers’ age from their speech. 8. This study contributes to theoretical debates concerning the role of age for second-language learning. 9. This article reports a study examining whether foreign language (FL) word learning can be improved with a reduction in cognitive load. 10. We find that Japanese speakers are estimated to be younger than the English speakers by English listeners. 2. RESEARCH TOPIC Task 1. Read the text and discuss the main points that a student should consider when selecting a topic of the research. A student chooses a topic for Master Thesis together with an academic supervisor. A supervisor proposes topics that are relevant to the research projects of the department or the discipline. Topics related to your unit's project themes are recommended. In the process of selecting a topic, you should take into account the following points: 1. Personal interest in the theme will ensure that you complete the process. 2. Theoretical and conceptual “edge”: the topic should be interpretable using an interesting approach and relevant concepts. 3. The topic should be researchable, in other words, there should be problems related to the topic that you try to resolve using available data. 5

Understanding of your topic, as well as the research questions, makes your work easier to guide your choice of theory, literature and empirical data, as well as to outline Thesis. Readers of scientific texts should always receive answers about what the problem is (the delimited area that does not have a solution), why the problem is interesting/important and how Thesis illustrates and solves the problem. Task 2. Study the following Research Topics and state the aim. 1. The linguistics of self-branding and micro-celebrity in Twitter: The role of hashtags. 2. A cross-cultural study of English and Chinese online platforms. 3. The utility of topic modelling for discourse studies: A critical evaluation. 4. Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach. 5. Discourse analysis of statements of purpose. 6. The Language of wisdom understood through an analysis of wise quotes. 7. Emojis as tools for emotion work: communicating affect in text messages. 8. A cross-linguistic puzzle and its theoretical implications. Task 3. Brainstorm activity. Follow the instruction given below. 1. First of all consider, what is your topic for consideration? Write this in less than 25 words. 2. Next brainstorm all the ideas that come to mind. Let your ideas flow and write down everything. Don’t censor. 3. Now, do some freewriting to a prompt: What do I already know about this topic/question? What do I need to find out? Why do I consider this topic to be relevant? Write for 10 minutes. 4. Finally, write a list of sources where you can find books, journals, reports that you need to read. This will help you provide the foundation for your Thesis. 5. Discuss your ideas with other students. 3. ACADEMIC STYLE Task 1. Read the text and answer the questions given below. The purpose of academic writing is to communicate complex ideas in a way that makes them least likely to be challenged. So it’s important to avoid any ambiguity. The distinctive features of the academic style are:  preciseness,  clear logic,  compressive character,  impersonality,  formality. 6

Preciseness is a basic property of a scientific text. Preciseness and reliability of a scientific text are established with references and citations. The bibliography is considered to be a kind of social control over scientific value and reliability of the results of research. Clear logic is achieved through a system of logical connections and interrelations. A stock of linking phrases will help to make a connection between a point in the past and future, to refer a receptor forward or back. For example, As we will see…; … As I said earlier…;… Linking phrases help to develop a point (Moreover…; Despite this…;…According to our estimates,…) The structure is also important in academic writing – it helps to make your ideas clear, guides the reader's comprehension and can strengthen your arguments. Compressive character and economy are also the features of academic style. A scientific text must provide a reader with maximal information within a minimal time period and with minimal effort. This stylistic feature is achieved with lexical and grammatical means (See Pic. 1) Impersonality is a measure of the extent to which a producer of a text avoids reference to him/herself or a receptor. Using impersonal and indefinite structures, passive constructions, infinitive clauses, etc. provides the impression of impersonal and objective style. Formality results from the author’s tendency to avoid connotative words in the scientific text. Writing should be formal, but it does not need to be pompous. To maintain formality, there are various colloquialisms and shortened forms to avoid:  Avoid shortened forms: shouldn’t, it’s for it is  Avoid popular phrases or clichés such as: when it comes to the crunch  Replace with: finally, in summary, in a crisis  Avoid casual everyday words such as: really, okay, maybe. Correct use of grammar and punctuation is important. They show that you care about your work and have adopted a disciplined attitude to writing academically. They also help to make sure your meaning is understood. The most common mistakes include:  incomplete sentences (missing a verb or needing information in the previous sentence to make sense);  the wrong use of semicolons and colons;  the wrong use of apostrophes (check whether the s is there to indicate possession or a plural);  nouns and verbs where singular /plural do not agree (try proofreading aloud to spot this);  inconsistent use of tenses (always use the past tense when you are reporting on something that was done). Where abbreviations and acronyms are required to avoid repetition, ensure that, on the first mention, the unabbreviated term appears together with abbreviation or acronym, for example: First mention: “An article in the American Journal of Philology (AJPh) reported...” 7

Subsequent mention: "Writing in the AJPh, Brown concluded that..." Sentence length is also important. Short sentences are clear and easy to read. However, too many short sentences are monotonous. Long sentences are more interesting but can be difficult to construct and read. Effective writing normally uses a mixture of long and short sentences, often using a short sentence to introduce the topic.

Pic. 1 1. What is preciseness? Do you think that it can serve as a social control over scientific value and reliability of the results of research? In what way? 2. What problems can the author come across when dealing with bibliography? 3. How can the author achieve clear logic? Give examples of some other useful connections that are not mentioned in the text. 4. Think about any lexical and grammatical means that can help the author to achieve the compressive character of the text. 5. What is the tradition of impersonality in your country? 6. Do you think that it is a good option not to use connotative words in the scientific text? How do you think in what cases a scientist can use metaphors and bright similes? 7. What are the most common mistakes connected with grammar and punctuation? 8. What are the main rules of using abbreviations and acronyms in an academic style? 9. What can you say about the sentence length?

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Task 2. Match the linking words with their usage. Think of some other examples.

The principal of usage 1. Link words that introduce additional information 2. Link words that compare and contrast 3. Link words that give explanations 4. Link words that express consequences 5. Link words that explain the rationale for adopting a particular procedure or line of research

Linking words a) owing to, due to, as a result of, consequently, thus b) in order to, with the purpose of, with the aim to, in an attempt to c) moreover, in addition, furthermore, as well as d) whereas, on the other hand; although, however e) because, since, as, in fact

Task 3. Fill in the gaps with the suitable linking words: therefore, as well as, however, in order to, due to, moreover, in addition to. 1. Discredits were expressed verbally, by body signals, __________ by a combination of the two. __________, it was also expressed in an indirect way (impersonal accusation), that is, not through the meanings of explicit signals, but through the inferences that may be implied by them. 2. __________ the rapid development of information technologies and globalization trends the world is becoming more unified. __________ the role of the language used in politics is increasing. 3. __________ illustrate the correlation of broad and narrow understandings of linguistic manipulation, it should be noted that the need for verbal communication between people arises in case if subsequently, they must somehow interact with each other. 4. __________ discrediting strategy, Donald Trump also used self-promotion strategy mostly through the tactic of promise (55%). 5. If the conditions determining a particular strategic result are reduced, in this case, we forecast that certain speech actions must guarantee success with a fair share of probability. __________ interaction situations may not approve the forecast.

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Task 4. Study the given paragraphs and complete the tasks. Paragraph 1. Underline any examples of poor style Find examples of: 1) imprecise vocabulary 2) vague expressions 3) too personal expressions 4) too informal phrases 5) contractions 6) rhetorical question 7) repetition How to make corpus linguistic analysis is a topic that lots of people have written about in the last few years. There are lots of different theories etc and I think some of them are ok. When we think about this we should remember that corpus linguistics is an approach that aims at investigating language and all its properties by analysing large collections of text samples. So how do we do it? It’s quite a complex subject but I’ll just talk about a couple of ideas. Paragraph 2. Think about the main mistakes that were done by the Master student Find examples of: 1) Redundancy, i.e. repeating an idea or including an irrelevant point; 2) Grammar mistakes; 3) Sentence length problems. In the fields of media researches, psychological media and theory of communication, the effect of media and its influence are regarded to be main notions connected with the terms of mass media and media culture that have their own special influence on changing the audience minds, attitudes and their way of behaving. In other words, media influence is regarded to be an authentic power achieved by media message can have a deep result in changing individual beliefs. Task 5. Rewrite the paragraphs according to the rules of academic style. 4. THE CONTENT OF MASTER THESIS Master Thesis should include the following parts:  Title page  Abstract  Table of Contents (with page numbers)  Introduction  Body of the Thesis  Conclusion  Bibliography (Literature)  Any necessary appendices or endnotes 10

4.1. Title Page The thesis must have a title page as shown below: Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation South Ural State University INSTITUTE OF LINGUISTICS AND INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES Reviewer ________________/Your reviewer / _________________________

Head of department _____________ /K. N. Volchenkova/ _______________________________

TITLE OF YOUR MASTER THESIS MASTER THESIS

Supervisor: Associate Professor Surname, Ph.D. in__________________ ___________________ 20___ Student: Full name Group: LM-___ ___________________ 20__ Controller: Associate Professor Surname, Ph.D. in__________________ _____________________ 20__ Defended with the grade: _________________ 20__

Chelyabinsk 20__

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4.2. Abstract Task 1. Read the text and answer the questions given below. Abstract is an important component of your Thesis. Presented at the beginning of the Thesis, it is likely the first substantive description of your work read by an external reviewer. Abstract is a summary of the whole Thesis. It presents all the major elements of your work in a highly condensed form. Abstract often functions, together with Thesis title, as a stand-alone text. Abstract is not merely an introduction in the sense of a preface, preamble, or advance organizer that prepares the reader for the thesis. In addition to that function, it must be capable of substituting for the whole Thesis when there are insufficient time and space for the full text. Currently, the maximum size for Abstract is 1.5 – spaced page, about 300 words. The structure of Abstract should mirror the structure of the whole Thesis and should represent all its major elements. For example, your Thesis should cover such aspects as introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion and conclusion, so there should be one or more sentences assigned to summarize each point. Abstract should include:  Aim and objectives: What are the main ideas or areas of the theory being investigated?  Boundaries: What is the context and background to Thesis?  Methodology: What was/were the main method(s) employed to generate the results?  Results: What were your main findings?  Conclusions: What are the main conclusions that you arrive at when viewing the entire Thesis? Don't Forget:  The most common error in Abstracts is the failure to present results.  The primary function of your Thesis (and by extension your abstract) is not to tell readers what you did, it is to tell them what you discovered. Other information, such as the account of your research methods, is needed mainly to back the claims you make about your results.  Approximately the last half of Abstract should be dedicated to summarizing and interpreting your results. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

What is an Abstract? What is the general size of an Abstract? What can you say about Abstract structure? What should an Abstract include? What are the main points to consider when writing an Abstract?

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Task 2. Study the examples of Abstracts. Evaluate them according to the following points:  Abstract presents the major elements of the work in a highly condensed form.  Abstract functions as a stand-alone text.  The structure of Abstract mirrors the structure of the whole Thesis: introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion and conclusion.  Abstract presents the aims and objectives of the research.  Abstract reveals the boundaries and background of the research.  All methods are enumerated.  The main results and findings are described.  Abstract presents the conclusion of Thesis. Abstract 1. The topic of the master’s thesis is "Image of education in the language consciousness of Russian and Arabic students". Language consciousness is one of the most important aspects in the field of psycholinguistics. It is defined as a verbalized type of social culture. It is considered to be the basis of the theoretical knowledge and social experience that are gathered as a result of the cultural and historical expansion of the ethnic group. The purpose of the thesis is to analyze the image of education as a universal phenomenon. The work is carried out from the position of psycholinguistic school which intends to analyze different aspects that can influence the educational process organization in the culture of a foreign language for Russian and Iraqi students. To attain this, we consider studying the perception of the images education, entering the university, university, teacher, student and exam. We use the method of the free-associative experiment as well as the comparative method to investigate how education is achieved from the perspective of psycholinguistics. Associative fields established in our experiment allow us to analyze the image of education from a purely linguistic point of view in response to the formal-grammatical characteristics of the given responses as well as analyzing the distribution of all reactions according to the semantic fields grouping. Findings of this experiment suggest that education plays an important role in developing society since it grants people knowledge and ideas. Abstract 2. The topic of the master’s thesis is person deixis as a cohesive device of narration in Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights.” Deixis is a universal device used as a philosophical, socio-linguistic and psychological phenomenon. The paper describes the concept of deixis as a phenomenon, which links linguistic utterances with the context in which they occur. That’s why it is important to analyze them to find out 13

the essential characteristics of deixis and to portray it as a cohesive device in narration and as a linguistic device, disclosing the individual style of the author. In our project, we pose several problems and solve them with the help of synchronic approaches and various linguistic methods of investigation: critical analysis and synthesis of the literature; linguistic analysis, corpora analysis, discourse analysis, biodata analysis, and cultural-historical analysis. To study the concepts of both deixis and person deixis, we explain their definitions and functions; present classifications of person deixis given by different scholars; analyze various linguistic components that construct the structure of sentences; make the componential analysis of the chosen classifications and present our analysis of these linguistic components depending on both: their occurrences and deictic projection; make observations concerning various roles and forecast future changeable roles of these personal deixis. Changes of their roles can be explained by the features that constantly constitute the basis of deixis. These features are relativity and context-dependency. In this thesis, we introduce a new technique called AntConc for counting the deictic personal pronouns and showing the occurrences of deictic projection which characterizes the individual style of the author. We expect this new analysis will significantly help all students who have an interest in both fictional and non-fictional texts. Having analyzed the premises of this phenomenon, we can also forecast that this study will be extended to analyze other linguistic constituents in diverse texts. Task 3. Take 2-3 Thesis of the graduated students and construct your skeleton for writing an Abstract. To help students achieve an authoritative stance in their abstract, we can suggest selecting a passage of writing from some other Thesis or published works. What remains is the skeleton that students can then work with. The example below shows how you can structure your abstract. Removing the content makes the syntax visible without plagiarising. However, do not feel obliged to follow a particular structure if you have your approach. The topic of the Master’s Thesis is _________________________________. The paper describes the concept of ___________________________________. The topic under consideration in relevant, because___________________________________________________________. The main aim of our work was_____________. In our project we pose several problems and solve them with the help of ______________________________ approaches and various linguistic methods of investigation:_______________________________________. In order to study the concepts_________________, we explain their definitions and functions; present classifications of ___________given by different scholars; analyze various 14

linguistic____________________________________________; make the analysis of _____________________and present our own analysis of__________________________________________________; make observations _____________________________________________________. In this thesis, we introduce__________________________________________. We expect________________________________________________________. Having analyzed ___________________________, we can also forecast that this study will be ______________________________________________________.

Task 4. Study information connected with the useful phrases for writing Abstract. Introduction (brief statement of context)

Materials and Methods

Results

The paper/article discusses/analyses/considers/explains/describes/develops/presents/ provides/studies/represents/features/contains/covers/suggests/prop oses/shows/opens up a new field/offers a solution to ….. /serves as an introduction to ….. The main objective/goal/purpose of the paper/article is ….. We started by investigating ….. We designed a new technique for …… We used a new approach. These experiments were carried out to find out ….. To verify the validity of the ….. method, we carried out several experiments. The ….. analysis was performed to ….. We checked for the presence of ….. The increase in ….. was not caused by/was not due to a decrease in …... The (optimized condition) was obtained from …. It has been found that ….. The results show that ….. The previous sections have shown that ….. The method is an effective way to improve ….. The analysis and simulation indicate that ….. The …. analysis plays a crucial role in ….. We have introduced a new approach to ….. This approach may fail if/due to ….. One of the big advantages of (this approach/method) .…. is that ….. To verify this method, ….. is compared with ….. The only disadvantage/drawback of such ….. is ….. There is no evident relationship between ….. and ….. ….. are in good agreement/correspond with ….. 15

Discussion

There is a good match between ….. and ….. To illustrate the result, a simulation of ….. was performed. The simulation results match the calculations. The decrease/increase in ….. can be contributed to ….. To overcome/avoid this problem/difficulty, it is necessary to adopt a ….. One possible solution to this problem is to (use) …… This solution requires ….. The data obtained is/are broadly consistent with the major trends ….. These results agree/concur/are consistent/are in good agreement with other studies which have shown that ….. In contrast to some reports in the literature, there were ….. An important implication of these findings is that ….. The finding was quite unexpected/surprising and suggests that ….. The findings have a number of possible limitations, namely …..

Task 5. Using the given phrases and the created skeleton write your Abstract. 4.3. The Table of Contents The table of Thesis contents shall not include more than four heading levels. The sample is given below. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 3 CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL BASE OF THE RESEARCH ................................... 7 1.1. General information about consciousness ..................................................... 7 1.2. Linguistic consciousness ............................................................................. 12 1.3. Associative experiment ............................................................................... 17 1.4. The methodology of the research................................................................. 22 CHAPTER 2. THE ANALISIS OF THE IMAGE EDUCATION FOR ARABIC STUDENTS ................................................................................................................. 24 2.1. Image of Education on linguistics consciousness of Arabic students ........... 24 2.1.1. Education............................................................................................. 26 2.1.2. Professor .............................................................................................. 31 2.1.3. Student................................................................................................. 37 Results ........................................................................................................................ 42 CHAPTER 3. THE ANALISIS OF THE IMAGE EDUCATION FOR RUSSIAN STUDENTS ................................................................................................................. 44 3.1. Image of Education on linguistics consciousness of Arabic students ........... 44 3.1.1. Education............................................................................................. 46 3.1.2. Professor .............................................................................................. 51 3.1.3. Student................................................................................................. 57 Results ......................................................................................................................... 60 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 62 References ................................................................................................................... 66 16

4.4. Introduction Task 1. Read the text and answer the questions given below. The main purpose of the Introduction is to give an overview of the main points of your Thesis. The Introduction should include:  The background for your choice of theme  A discussion of your research question or thesis statement  A schematic outline of the Thesis The thesis should be divided into chapters and sections. The Introduction to your Thesis should be concise. The Introduction should always be clear about what the aim of Thesis is, what topic will be dealt with, why it is relevant, what the object and the subject of your research are, what methods were used, what material was analysed, what the foundation for your study was, what theoretical and practical values you distinguish, how you are planning to develop your argument and what the structure of your Thesis is. Moreover, in the Introduction the problem formulation should point out the aim of the Thesis. The subject of Thesis is narrowed down within the problem formulation; the formulation shows what subject you are going to handle in your Thesis. Problem formulation generally consists of a research question and a number of operational sub-questions that are derived from the research question. The questions should be phrased in a way that it is possible to answer them within the scope of the Thesis. Here are some phrases you can use to state the importance or relevance of the research area you are dealing with: Recently, there has been growing interest in … The increasing interest in … has heightened the need for … The (your topic) has become a favourite topic for … The development of … is a classic problem in … Knowledge of … has great importance for … The study of … has become an important aspect of … Many researchers have recently turned to … The relationship between … and … has lately been investigated by a number of researchers. Many recent studies have focused on … Of particular interest and importance is … (this sentence includes inversion; used to stress a specific feature But! do not overuse). If you want to establish a research area by indicating the incompleteness or weaknesses of the previous research, which means you will assess previous research in a negative way. For this, you can use different parts of speech and structures which may differ in the strength: 17

 adjectives controversial, incomplete, questionable, unconvincing, misguided, unsatisfactory inconclusive.  verbs concentrate on, disregard, fail to consider, ignore, be limited to, misinterpret, neglect to consider, overestimate, overlook, be restricted to, suffer from, overestimate, underestimate.  negative openings However, little information/data has been published on … / little attention has been paid to … / little research has been carried out to explain … (Little is used, as you know, for uncountable nouns). For countable, on the other hand, we use few. However, few studies/investigations have dealt with… / few researchers have been published on … / few attempts to elucidate the principle of … have been made.  contrastive statement The research has focused rather on … than on … Although considerable attention has been paid to …, much less effort has been devoted to …  need for further research Thus, it would be of interest to find out how … The previous findings indicate that the method might nor be effective when applied to … It means that further research is needed to explain … You can give the purpose of your thesis (infinitive of purpose), its content or nature using the following phrases. The (main) aim/goal/purpose of this Master thesis is to … (Here the aim is a noun.) The Master thesis aims to explain and assess … (Here the aim is a verb.) The primary focus of this Master thesis is on … This Master thesis focuses primarily on … In this Master thesis the results of … research are presented. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

What is the main aim of the Introduction? What are the general characteristics of the Introduction? What should the problem formulation reveal? What are the phrases to state the importance or relevance of the research? How can you present the purpose of your thesis? How can you indicate the incompleteness or weaknesses of the previous research?

Task 2. Study the following sentences and comment if they are good for Introduction. 1. Language and cultural diversity is a brand of Central Europe. 2. The relevance of the research problem is driven by the modern discourse in legal culture and legal linguistics.

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3. The article analyzes some effective suggestive psychotechniques in the political media discourse. 4. This research is the study of linguistic deviation is one of linguistic analysis in literary studies. 5. The article is a review of different approaches to communication issues. Task 3. Study the example of Introduction and answer the questions. 1. What are the main sections under consideration in Introduction? 2. Underline the phrases that are used to introduce the new section or opinion. 3. What phrases are used to state the importance or relevance of the research? 4. What phrases introduce the need for further research? The research is vital because at the present stage of development of linguistics it becomes evident that it is necessary to create an effective model of public speeches which would allow speakers taking into account not only the extra-linguistic factors that reflect the dynamics of social development but also pragmatic characteristics of language means, their most effective combination within a certain performance. To achieve this goal it is necessary to correlate a statement being produced with nonlinguistic context, while it should be relevant to the situation of communication. Accountancy of the situation of communication, its general and particular characteristic, proper use of linguistic manipulation strategies and tactics as well as stylistic devices and their expressive possibilities can lead to effective interaction of speakers and the audience, to the achievement of desired results. A debate is a genre of political discourse, the importance of which is felt sharply not only by scientists but also politicians. Due to the rapid development of information technologies and globalization trends the world is becoming more unified. In these circumstances, the role of the language used in politics is increasing. The study of political discourse is essentially important in a democratic society because democracy is not so much a set of procedures and their use as dialogic interaction between the various political parties, social movements and even individuals. Increased attention to oral communication in recent decades is associated with the general shift of interest from language as a structure to language analysis as an activity, from language competence to communicative one. As a result, the notion of discourse arises; various areas that deal with oral colloquial speech are being formed, such as linguistic pragmatics, conversational analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, communicative linguistics and so forth. The study of pre-election debates from this perspective involves the analysis of their internal organization: linguistic manipulation strategies and tactics, the distribution of communicative initiatives, the hidden meanings of statements and so on. Our target is to investigate, compare and contrast linguistic manipulation strategies realized by communicants in the framework of pre-election debates. The 19

intermediate aims of our research are to consider linguistic manipulation strategies as a constituent of communication behaviour and to analyze linguistic manipulation strategies and tactics as well as language means in the genre of pre-election debates using the example of the USA. The research object is the genre of televised debates. The research subject is linguistic manipulation strategies in the genre of preelection debates. The research is carried out through comparison and contrast of the speeches uttered by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during the 2016 United States presidential election debates. The methods of the analysis are: comparative, statistical, content and discourse, including generalization and evaluation of the results. The research materials are transcripts of the 2016 US Trump-Clinton presidential debates. Due to the fact that pragmatically analyzing all of the utterances by Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton from all three presidential debates occupies a large space in this study, only ninety illustratively representative examples (utterances) are presented in this paper, while the statistical analysis involves all of them. As for the theoretical sources, our investigation is based on the works of such eminent linguists and psychologists as A.A. Leontev, I.A. Zimniia, E.I. Sheigal, S.L. Rubinstein and others. The theoretical value of the research is that it can be taken as a basis for further development of the problem that is connected with the study of linguistic manipulation strategies, and it is perspective in the aspect of the study of linguistic manipulation in other types of discourses and for linguistic and cultural-logical analysis. Besides, the analysis of linguistic manipulation strategies in the genre of pre-election debates will help to conceive how these strategies and tactics, as well as stylistic devices, help presidents to seize the political power and position. The practical value of the research is accounted for by the possibility to use the results of our investigation at the courses of Rhetoric and Stylistics of the English language. Structure and volume of the research. The paper has 95 pages and consists of an introduction; theoretical part in which theoretical aspect of linguistic manipulation, as well as linguistic manipulation strategies and tactics, are discussed; practical part in which we analyze linguistic manipulation strategies, tactics and language means employed by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The total outcome of the research is summarized in a separate conclusion. Our references consist of 42 sources represented by the books of Russian and foreign authors, Internet sources and dictionaries.

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Task 4. Make the skeleton of the Introduction given above. Task 5. Introduce to your partner the topic of your Master Thesis according to the plan:  the relevance of your research;  the aim of your research;  the subject and the object of your research;  the material that you use for analysis;  the theoretical value of your research;  the practical value of your research. 4.5. The Body of the Thesis The length of the Thesis is from 60 to 80 pages, but also longer works can be considered. However, the length of the Master Thesis should not exceed 100 pages. 4.5.1. Theoretical Framework Task 1. Read the text and answer the questions given below. In your Thesis, you should generally include a theoretical and literature review where you present what other researchers have said about the topic of your work. In this review, you should be able to demonstrate your knowledge of various linguistic theories that are relevant to your research topic. You can also express which problems arise from existing approaches or subscribe to one. Always remember that your work should try to expand existing knowledge; if you only present other people's ideas without critically overthinking them, your work will be incomplete. Try to be creative, and although it is not expected from you to develop a completely new theory, the originality of your arguments is crucial. In Thesis, theories need to be presented clearly and applied to demonstrate your scientific insight. Having read basic literature in your research area, you have several more or less unorganized ideas. However, you should always remember that the reviewed literature is organized in a logical manner that best suits the topic and the goal of the Thesis. The chosen way of the organization must draw attention to similarities and differences among the reviewed literature, relationships between sources (accordance, contradiction, supportive arguments) not just to give the information from different sources independently. And what is more important, all the ideas must be related to your topic. Thus, a carefully planned organization is a vital component of any Literature Review. Introduction starts on a general level, with common features of your research area. Then it becomes more and more specific and finishes with your topic issues, which continue in the main body. The main body can be organized in different ways:

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 chronologically – not very common in technology, unless you want to show the history and development in the area;  thematically – individual issues and topics of the area are dealt with;  methodologically – the time factor is not important, methods of previous research are followed. When you have decided what strategy of the main body organization is the best for your purpose, the process of organizing ideas is much easier. As in the Theoretical part / Literature Review you are reporting to somebody else’s idea, you must indicate this. The verbs that are used for the purpose follow: add, affirm, agree, argue, assert, believe, challenge, claim, describe, disagree, dismiss, dispute, doubt, explain, identify, indicate, maintain, observe, point out, present, propose, question, recommend, report, say, state, suggest, support, think, urge. 1. 2. 3. 4.

What information should be included in the Theoretical part of your thesis? What knowledge should you demonstrate in the Theoretical Framework? What are the ways to organize the main body of the research? What are the differences between the ways of organizing the main body?

Task 2. Match the verbs with the information that they state.

1) Explain

Verbs for describing a) to indicate the conclusion your source reaches

2) Argue

b) to indicate the source presents something as a fact

3) Point out

c) to indicate the issue or topic that the source examines d) to indicate the source gives details of how or why something happens e) to indicate the source’s most important point

4) Evaluate 5) Reject 6) Discuss 7) Suggest 8) Conclude 9) Note 10) Emphasize

f) to indicate the source presents a position on an issue g) to indicate that the source makes a judgment regarding an issue h) to indicate that a source disagrees with a position i) to indicate the source thinks something is possibly true j) to indicate that a source deals very briefly with an issue 22

1) Claim 2) Contend 3) Assume 4) Reveal 5) Imply 6) Exaggerate 7) Allege

Verbs to add a critical voice a) to indicate that the source has treated something as a fact but you believe it is not b) to indicate that the source places too much emphasis on something c) to indicate that your source has stated something as fact (and you may disagree) d) to indicate a source makes a claim without proof e) to indicate that you disagree with your source’s position f) to indicate that the information was previously hidden or not widely known g) to indicate that the source says something indirectly

Task 3. Use various reporting verbs in the given paragraphs. Rewrite them. Study the example. Example: Original text A. Wierzbicka said that the national consciousness has different levels, and it contains the facts that are on the surface as well as the ones which are hidden very deeply. John Field in his “Psycholinguistics: The Key Concepts” said that psycholinguistics goes to the heart of what people do with language. That is why we can agree with E.F. Tarasov who said that psycholinguists offer to analyze cultural values through linguistic consciousness which is defined as a reflection of the objective world in a bilateral sign in which ideas of objects and phenomena of the world are connected with sound representations. Revised version A. Wierzbicka suggested that the national consciousness has different levels, and it contains the facts that are on the surface as well as the ones which are hidden very deeply. John Field in his “Psycholinguistics: The Key Concepts” marks that psycholinguistics goes to the heart of what people do with language. That is why we can agree with E.F. Tarasov who emphasized that psycholinguists offer to analyze cultural values through linguistic consciousness which is defined as a reflection of the objective world in a bilateral sign in which ideas of objects and phenomena of the world are connected with sound representations.

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Paragraph 1. Original text S.C. Levinson said that political discourse is a specific structural system of the language, characterized by special directions, concepts, and terms, an invitingly and incentive appointment. J. Thompson said that the persuasive function of language is most often used in speech political acts. P.B. Parshin said that any text has a certain effect on the consciousness of the person to whom it is addressed. O.S. Issers said that if we are talking about a political text, then its main goal is to influence the audience that determines the whole set of methods and techniques that politicians use in their activities. P.B. Parshin said that the politician persuades the audience, expresses his opinion and his point of view on certain historical events and phenomena, calling to support him on this issue. Paragraph 2. Original text K. Allan said that derived words as carriers of derivational meanings in different levels of generalization, performing their main function in the language – nominatively representative ones, are the most important components of the semantic categorization of the world. A. Kibler said that choosing a language tool or form, the subject of speech offers a certain way of understanding the subject or event, relying on a well-known collective experience of conceptualization and categorization of the world in the language. V.A. Kosova said that categories in linguistics are traditionally considered as constructs of our consciousness that design our knowledge of the world and correlate it with the models of knowledge fixed in the structure of a language. P. Avanzini said that currently categorization issues are examined in various aspects. 4.5.2. Literature Review Task 1. Read the text and answer the questions given below. Literature Review is essentially a summary of all of the existing scholarship about your topic with plenty of direct quotations from the primary and secondary sources that you’re referencing. The review of the literature must be exhaustive to ensure that your Master Thesis will be important and not redundant. In Literature Review you can use primary and secondary sources.  Primary sources are those that are written by a scientist who created the idea. They are the important factual base that you will use in your Master Thesis

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 Secondary sources are sources that are written about primary sources. They are important to include in your Master Thesis because you'll need to demonstrate that you have a solid understanding of the critical context of your topic and that you understand what the major scholars in your field have to say about the subject. To ensure this is the case, you need to be aware of the context of your research, what other people have said on the subject, and what the general opinion of your topic is. In the Thesis a student is expected to provide a critical review of the existing literature (published and electronic) on the research topic being studied. This does not mean that you have to indicate every book and article that has been written on the subject but any you do read should be referenced appropriately. Variation in reviewing the literature. To make the text readable you cannot use the same structures, it would be boring. On the contrary, the variation of language means is appreciated. Here, many sentences start with the name, which is followed by a reference verb in the past tense. You can improve the style using different structures: According to Sutherland... A different viewpoint is presented by Paradis, who... Shapin, on the other hand, ... Literature Review should be: • Relevant: Literature used should support your arguments relating to your research question and aim and objectives of the study; • Up-to-Date: Recent literature (most literature used has to be published in the past five years), however, it is important that seminal and important work is also included in Literature Review. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

What is Literature Review? What is the difference between primary and secondary sources? Why must Literature Review be exhaustive? What are the requirements to Literature Review? Why is the variation in reviewing literature essential?

Task 2. Decide if you need to give a reference in the following cases:  A quotation from a book  An item of common knowledge  Data you found from your own primary research  A graph from an internet article  A theory from a journal article  An idea of your own based on reading several sources

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Task 3. Study the Table “Linguistic strategies for commenting on previous research” and complete the last column with 3-4 suitable examples. STRATEGY

Hedges

Boosters Attitude markers Engagement markers Self-mentions

FUNCTION

The author does not want to be directly connected to the statement The author is sure about the claim The author expresses his/her attitude To build a relationship with the audience The author explicitly referred to

EXAMPLE

May,

In fact, Unfortunately, You can see, We,

Task 4. Use different variations in reviewing the literature, reporting verbs and linguistic strategies for commenting in the given paragraphs. Study the example. Example: Original text T. Zittoun & A. Gillespie said that any person is a representative of a certain culture that reflects in his mind. K. Johnson said that it means that his consciousness is seen as the subjective awareness of momentary experience interpreted in the context of personal memory and present state. D. Matsumoto said that various images and representations are formed in the worldview under the influence of a given culture thus constructing the cultural worldview that is understood as a belief system about one’s culture. Revised version According to T. Zittoun & A. Gillespie any person is a representative of a certain culture that reflects in his mind. Therefore, we can agree with K. Johnson who stated that a person's consciousness is seen as the subjective awareness of momentary experience interpreted in the context of personal memory and present state. In fact, various images and representations are formed in the worldview under the influence of a given culture thus constructing the cultural worldview that is understood as a belief system about one's culture (Matsomoto, 2006).

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Paragraph 1. Original text R.N. Salieva said the definition of a phraseological unit, its peculiarities and its nature are discussed by both: a classic old school of linguistics and young scientists. M. Stepanova said that established colocations are reproducible syntagms, i.e. word phrases, phrases, predicative phrases and stable sentences with peculiar semantics. T.N. Fedulenkova said that phraseological unit as a linguistic unit and it is defined in dictionary with the help of signs of secondary naming, which is characterized by bipartite dichotomy of content and meaning: a) the content of a phraseological unit – it's meaning; b) the content of a genetic model of a phraseological unit – the meaning of a genetic model of a phraseological unit. T.N. Fedulenkova said that the content of a genetic model of a phraseological unit consists of materialistic – phonic or graphical substance – components, its meaning is composed of word meanings its components. V.I. Maksimov said that phraseological unit is a word or a sentence having tightly bound components and used in certain syntactic roles (like word combinations and sentences) as a ready-made element of speech. This definition underlines the fact that phraseological units are ready-made but not created in a process of speech or writing as new combinations. A.V. Kunin said that phraseological unit is a stable combination of lexical items with fully or partially metaphorical figurative meaning. Paragraph 2. Original text L. Litosseliti said that historically within linguistic research, the study of text (written discourse) or talk (spoken discourse) was not considered worthy of serious research. A key strand of linguistic research evolved from the writings of Noam Chomsky. He said that the goal of Linguistics should be to study underlying linguistic competence: the rules that inform the production of grammatical sentences. Chomsky said that the focus of the study is the abstract system: the underlying structure of language. Noam Chomsky said that actual utterances were regarded as disorderly, chaotic and of no value in offering an understanding of language as a system. A significant challenge to Chomsky‘s theories was made by the applied linguist, Del Hymes. Del Hymes said about the term “communicative competence” in deliberate contrast to “linguistic competence”. Hymes said that a person who has only linguistic competence would be quite unable to communicate – a ‘social monster’ producing grammatical sentences disconnected from the context in which they occurred. This notion of a communicatively competent speaker and writer, who knows the rules of how to communicate appropriately in different social settings, has had a profound effect on linguists with an interest in the field of discourse analysis. For the conversation analyst, Harvey Sacks said that ordinary, mundane speech exhibits an exceptional level of orderliness, and apparent instances of non-fluency are not viewed as the product of mistakes or speech errors but have a meaning and a purpose. 27

Task 5. Read the information and study the reference list below. Answer the questions. Full details of all the books and journal articles cited or referenced throughout the Thesis should be included. A reader should be able to identify the exact source and refer to it directly. You need to keep track of your citations as you write, rather than trying to add them after you finish writing. The most common citation formats are MLA, APA, and Chicago. Follow the APA standard. Create a coordinating work cited or reference entry for each source you cite in the text of your document or in a footnote. APA stands for the American Psychological Association. They are responsible for creating this specific citation style. This citation style is used by many scholars and researchers in the behavioural and social sciences, not just psychology. For more information: http://www.bibme.org/citation-guide/apa

1) 2) 3) 4)

5)

REFERENCES Finney, J. (1970). Time and again. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. Eggers, D. (2008). The circle [Kindle Version]. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/ Tumulty, K. (2006). Should they stay or should they go? Time, 167(15), 340. Tumulty, K. (2006, April). Should they stay or should they go? Time, 167(15) Retrieved from http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1179361,00.html Simmons, B. (2015, January 9). The tale of two Flaccos. Retrieved from http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-tale-of-two-flaccos/

1. Find an example of:  APA Online Magazine Citation  APA Book citation  APA Website Citation  APA E-Book citation  APA Magazine Citation 2. What are the main differences in the way these sources are referenced? Task 6. Study the basic rules for formatting citations in your text and check how the references are listed in your theoretical part.  One author A growing number of people refer it to... (Froggatt, 2003).  Two authors It was observed during the interview that the respondents ... (Jowett & Shanley, 1993). 28

 Three to five authors Their experiences well documented ... (Herth, Korner, & McGee, 2004)  Six or more authors Narrative interviews were conducted for over two weeks (Benzein et al., 2001).  Citation of a work discussed in a secondary source …showed in the study (Bendz, Sjodin, & Aurell, 1990, as cited in Olson, Meek, & Lynch, 2004).  Direct Quote The author stated, “that the term concept is...” (Lopez, 1993, p. 311).  Several works within the same parentheses This question was discussed recently by a great number of scientists (Brown, 2006; Cook, 2007; Wilson, 2000). Task 7. Read the text and answer the given below. Plagiarism We cite sources for many reasons. One reason is to give credit to the authors of the work you used to help you with your own research. When you use another person’s information to help you with your project, it is important to acknowledge that individual or group. This is one way to prevent plagiarism. Another reason why we create citations is to provide a standard way for others to understand and possibly explore the sources we used. Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement. All published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under this definition. Plagiarism may be intentional or reckless, or unintentional. Forms of plagiarism  Word for word quotation without clear acknowledgement.  Quotations must always be identified as such by the use of either quotation marks or indentation, and with full referencing of the sources cited. It must always be apparent to the reader which parts are your own independent work and where you have drawn on someone else’s ideas and language.  Cutting and pasting from the Internet without clear acknowledgement. Information derived from the Internet must be adequately referenced and included in the bibliography.  Paraphrasing the work of others by altering a few words and changing their order, or by closely following the structure of their argument, is plagiarism if you do not give due acknowledgement to the author whose work you are using.  Auto-plagiarism. You must not submit work for assessment that you have already submitted, either for your current course or for another qualification of this, 29

or any other, university, unless this is specifically provided for in the special regulations for your course. Where earlier work by you is citable, i.e. it has already been published, you must reference it clearly. Identical pieces of work submitted concurrently will also be considered to be auto-plagiarism. Plagiarism is a breach of academic society. It is a principle of intellectual honesty that all members of the academic community should acknowledge their debt to the originators of the ideas, words and data which form the basis for their own work. To avoid the plagiarism in your work you can use paraphrasing that means changing the wording of a text so that it is significantly different from the original source, without changing the meaning. Effective paraphrasing is a key academic skill needed to avoid the risk of plagiarism: it demonstrates your understanding of a source. Note that an effective paraphrase usually:  has a different structure to the original;  has mainly different vocabulary;  retains the same meaning;  keeps some phrases from the original that are in common use. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Why do we cite? What is plagiarism? What are the main forms of plagiarism? What is understood by paraphrasing? What are the effective means of paraphrasing?

Task 8. Study the techniques for paraphrasing and do the exercises. 1) Changing word class Exercise: Make a different word, using the prompt in brackets. Example: development (change to verb) - to develop 1. To analyse (change to noun) 2. To analyse (change to adjective) 3. Evaluation (change to verb) 4. Theoretical (change to verb) 5. Problem (change to adjective) 6. To expect (change to noun) 7. To agree (change to opposite verb) 8. Organised (change to opposite adjective) 9. To prove (change to noun) 10.To prove (change to opposite verb) 2) Changing vocabulary by using synonyms 1. Approximately 150 students took part in our experiment. Example: Around 150 students participated in our experiment. 2. The problem of transferring phrasemes (both in figurative and nonfigurative understanding) from one language to another is linked to their semantic unity. 3. The current level of development of linguistics is characterized by the usage of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of linguistic phenomena. 30

4. Figures of speech embellish language, sophisticate it, and provide additional meaning to words. 5. It is commonly believed that the Russian language is featured with the flexible word order; thus, this or that member of a sentence does not possess any strictly fixed position. 6. As the advertising discourse, in most cases, contains a verbal component, one of the approaches used to study it is the linguistic one. The latter often includes psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic viewpoints. 3) Changing word order 1. Linguists have mostly been taking a communicative approach to the subject matter and concentrating on such phenomena as idiomatic imagery, language concepts, gender roles, text structure peculiarities, the use of polymodality and nonverbal components…. Example: Idiomatic imagery, language concepts, gender roles, text structure peculiarities, the use of polymodality and nonverbal components are the most important aspects that modern linguists concentrate attention on the base of the communicative approach. 2. On the other hand, language mixing of some kind in advertising texts have been pointed out and described by a lot of researchers. 3. The theory of speech acts, which today can call on fifty years of research tradition, has evolved a number of terms that are applied in order to indicate particular classes of speech acts. 4. The translator makes mistakes because they translate the vulgarism without taking into account their real meaning in the relevant context. 5. Scientists are currently involved in studying the influence of gender on the characteristics of internet users, and there have been contests to find the most effective methods of identifying gender. 6. The research of media manipulation is connected with studying of means and methods of ideological verbal and nonverbal influence. Task 9. Combine all these techniques to paraphrase the paragraphs. Paragraph 1. It is important to analyze the modern linguistic terminology system from the point of view of the evolution of a given layer of vocabulary, influenced by both internal and external factors, as well as the investigation and systematization of the metalanguage of linguistics, which makes it possible to consider all levels of language in dynamics. The need for such research arose due to the expansion of the terminology field of linguistics in relation to new trends in this field. Linguistic terminology appears to be a flexible system of terms reflecting all the recent progress and changes. Since new terms denote new concepts and phenomena in the sphere of linguistics, it is important 31

to investigate the cognitive processes of term formation. Terms are now considered not only as linguistic units but also as units of professional knowledge or means of knowledge transfer. Investigation of conceptual metaphor reveals the mechanisms of professional cognition. Paragraph 2. A person is a representative of a certain national culture that means that his linguistic consciousness has certain qualities that were formed under the influence of a particular national culture. Moving through culture shapes a series of experiences across the life course, and these experiences "layer up" within individuals, forming complex sedimentation of culture within the individual. Linguistic consciousness consists of images and representations that are associated with words (more precisely with the bodies of linguistic signs) and are used by communicants to construct thoughts when coding and decoding speech messages. Thus, the differences of linguistic consciousness are the main cause of misunderstanding in intercultural communication, because any dialogue actually takes place only in the consciousness of a particular person and reflects the particular images existing in it. Task 10. Active Reading Have a journal article in front of you that you are planning to read and do the following:  Underline key ideas and key terms  Use lines on the margin to draw attention to an important passage  At the end of a chapter or paper, sketch a simple outline of the key arguments or ideas Write a number of summary sentences to give you an overall picture of what the reading is about. Use different variations in reviewing the literature, reporting verbs and linguistic strategies for commenting, various techniques of paraphrasing. 4.5.3. Research Methodology Task 1. Read the information. How should you begin the Method section? What is the purpose of this section? You should begin Research Methodology chapter by stating, again, the research objectives of the Thesis. This will enable the reader to make a validity assessment of your chosen research methodology. The secret of writing this section is to be able to describe the materials you used in your experiments and/or the methods you used to carry out your research, in a way that is sufficiently detailed to enable others in your field to easily follow your method and, if desired, even replicate your work. A key skill is to make sure the descriptions are as complete and concise as possible. 32

The purpose of Research Methodology chapter is to give a well-documented outline of the methods used so that any other researcher can understand and maybe even replicate the research and assess its validity. This makes Research Methodology chapter one of the most important in a research project. Task 2. Match the parts of the questions that the Methods section should answer. 1. What hypotheses

a) for collecting my data?

2. Where did I carry out this study and what 3. How did I design my experiment/sampling and what assumptions 4. What variable was I

b) the data?

5. What equipment did I use (plus modifications) and 6. What protocol did I use

e) was I testing?

7. How did I analyze 8. What probability did I use

g) where did this equipment come from (vendor source)? h) did I make?

9. What difficulties did

i) measuring and why?

c) to decide significance?

d) I encounter?

f) characteristics have?

did

this

location

Task 3. Study the examples of Methodology chapters and answer the questions. Make the skeleton of the given Methodology chapters. 1. What aspects are included in Methodology chapter? 2. What questions from the list above are covered in each Method section? 3. Can you underline the phrases that are used to introduce the new section or opinion? Method section 1. A reliable method for identifying metaphorically-used words in spoken and written language was invented by a group of metaphor scholars known as Pragglejaz Group (Pragglejaz Group, 2007). The “metaphor identification procedure” (MIP) implies establishing the meaning of a lexical unit in context. The lexical unit is considered 33

metaphorical if its “contextual meaning contrasts with the basic meaning but can be understood in comparison with it” (Pragglejaz Group, 2007: 3). The analysis of metaphoric meanings of specific terms suggested by Roldán-Riejos and Cuadrado (2015: 273) is based on frequency use, contextual clues, and specialised and general dictionaries. The procedure starts with hand-searching for metaphorical terms in specialized dictionaries based on informed intuition. Next, it is followed by the definition and decomposition of the metaphorical terms into their semantic components. Finally, the analysis of the word origin accomplishes the procedure. The authors emphasize the importance of etymological analysis in order to avoid a possible over-interpretation of the terms as lexicalized metaphors when they were not. For the purpose of investigating the role of context in revealing the meaning of metaphorical terms in the linguistic discourse, we made up a list of 205 metaphorical terms extracted from the specialized linguistic dictionaries. After that, a corpus of texts for the context analysis was gathered from the international academic journals on linguistics. All the articles under analysis are written in English. The journals are indexed in Scopus or Web of Science, which proves the high quality of the articles. The articles go through serious review and meet all the necessary requirements of the respected publications. We analyzed articles from the last 10 years (published from 2007 to 2017), as they are supposed to reflect the latest trends and problems of linguistics. The articles were chosen by keyword search containing the terms from the list. The analysis process consisted of three steps. First, a list of metaphorical terms is formed from the entries of the specialized linguistic dictionaries. Second, research articles containing metaphorical terms are searched in the ScienceDirect and Web of Science databases. Third, the context of metaphorical terms is analyzed with reference to their dictionary meaning, i.e. if it includes any indications, explicating the meaning of a linguistic unit under analysis. Method section 2. Theoretical research base The theoretical base for the analysis was the reasonable psycholinguistic idea that the phenomena of the reality perceived by a person in the process of activity and communication are revealed in his linguistic consciousness. This imaging records not only the causal and spatial relationships of phenomena and emotions in the process of perception but also can be characterized by certain ethnocultural peculiarities, dynamism and variability (Ufimtseva, 2004). Method Linguistic consciousness and images existing in it always remain hidden for the researcher and become available by means of the associative experiment which is defined as a method revealing the associations that an individual has in his previous experience (Sorokin, 2007). The aim of the method is to understand the associative series of the participants, to construct and analyse the associative relationships 34

between various images. The technique of carrying out a free-associative experiment is that an examinee is given a questionnaire usually consisting of 100 words that have no logical connections and a person is to read every word and give a response that comes to his/ her mind as soon as possible, without restriction of formal and semantic features of the reaction word (Frumkina, 2001). Then the received results are analysed, compared, worked out statistically and described. Material The associative field, formed of the reactions received by means of the experiment helps to describe images existing in linguistic consciousness. Within any associative field, nuclear and peripheral reactions can be distinguished. Concerning the volume of a nuclear area and the principles of its allocation scientists adhere to various points (Sergiyeva, 2009). However, in our opinion, the choice of allocation criteria significantly depends on the research objectives. As we adhere to the qualitative analysis of the associative fields we consider not only the nuclear reactions but all associates irrespective of their rate ignoring of which could significantly affect the complete though average image existing in the language consciousness. Participants In any linguistic experiment a researcher, creating the simulated conditions for a participant expects to receive the language material that would be enough for studying and examining this or that problem that he wants to search. In this regard at the first stage of the experiment preparation, the main question arises: what number of respondents should be polled in order to receive representative data. In the practice of psycholinguistics the associative field consisting of 100 responses is considered to be quite sufficient and could be included into the associative dictionary (G. Kiss, 1972; Martinovich, 1993; Goroshko, 2005). Limitations The unconscious reaction when the choice is done not by a thought, but by language itself offering a prepared fragment from well-known texts is possible only when the time interval between stimulus and reaction is minimized; so that an interviewee has no possibility to think of what to say and how as the concept of association excludes the idea of answer-selection (Zubkova, 1996). Thus, in our experiment, we gave the respondents the questionnaire of 100 words that were written in their native languages and set the time limit of 15 minutes. We count out that this time limit is enough for this set of questions. Task 4. Read the information and answer the questions given below. Tenses in the Research Methodology chapter Research Methodology chapter is generally written in the past simple using the passive form. The past simple is required because the actions you describe took place in the past (i.e. before you started to write your thesis). The past simple also helps to distinguish what you did from what others have done which is often described in the present simple (general facts, reference to current state of knowledge, previous 35

findings accepted as facts). The passive is a good style here because the focus is on what was done rather than who did it. How many actions to refer to in a single sentence A frequent problem in Research Methodology chapter is that the description reads like a manual, where each individual detail or action is described in a single sentence. Given that you are describing a procedure rather than making a complex analysis, it is perfectly acceptable to have two actions in one sentence. It is important to be concise in Methods. But conciseness does not mean writing a series of lists. This style may be appropriate on a presentation slide but should be avoided in your thesis. What you write should always sound natural if read aloud. Therefore, if you have a long procedure to describe it is better to use bullets (1. …; 2. ….) to list the steps. This makes it easier to read and also provides variety in the layout. Grammatical constructions to justify aims and choices You often need to be able to explain why you made certain choices in the light of what they subsequently enabled you to do. To introduce your choices you can use the following constructions: In order to validate the results, we first had to ... In an attempt to identify the main peculiarities of the linguistic consciousness, it was decided to ... To provide a way of characterizing the samples, an adaptation of Smith’s method [2011] was used. For the purpose of investigating the main manipulation strategies, we ... Our aim was to get a general picture of ... This choice was aimed at getting a general picture of ... The examples highlight that there are many ways to express your aims and intentions. However, all the examples could be expressed much more simply using the infinitive form alone (e.g. To validate the results. To identify the main features. To characterize the samples). 1. What tenses are used in the Methodology chapter? 2. What is the role of conciseness in this section? 3. What grammatical constructions can be used to justify aims and choices? Task 5. Study the given paragraph and complete the tasks. Find examples of:  tense mistakes;  poor grammatical constructions;  poor sentence structure.

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We have used a descriptive and an analytical method to examine euphemisms found in the most famous and widespread British mass media newspapers such as The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Daily Mail Online and we study euphemisms by investigating what cognitive mechanisms (e.g. generalisation, specification, conceptual metaphor, etc.) are used to produce euphemisms and which mechanism is the most productive one. This study is both a qualitative and quantitative one in which different cognitive mechanisms of euphemisation are analysed as well as grouping euphemisms according to the semantic categories they pertain to. It also searches for the spheres that are mostly euphemised, e.g. politics, death and race. We rely on Holder's (2002) dictionary of euphemisms and American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language and the former is a basis in defining euphemisms according to the semantic spheres they belong to. Many articles hardly contain any euphemisms. They were quite long. It took some time to find euphemisms. Reading long pieces of writing is undoubtedly take long periods of time. The most famous British newspapers have been chosen for the study (e.g. The Guardian, The Sun, The Daily Mail Online, etc.). They are accessible online. They possessed an international reputation worldwide. The articles range from the years 2006 up until 2017. They addressing various topics such as politics, race and death. The whole analysis is based on Boldyrev & Aleksikova's (2010: 5-11) own classification of the process of euphemisation, therefore we have also added some new cognitive mechanisms that we discover while conducting this study. Task 6. Rewrite the paragraph according to the rules of Method section writing. 4.5.4. Practical Part (Analysis) Task 1. Read the text and answer the questions given below. There should be one or two chapters in which you present your findings and its analysis. The practical part gives the data and results in a logical and systematic way. In general, there are two types of data. The first type, obtained during the empirical study, is called primary/empirical data while the other, i.e. the data that is statistically grouped is called secondary data. Before you start the treatment of a complex set of data, discuss everything with your supervisor. This can save you valuable time and effort. The introduction of this chapter reminds the reader what, exactly, were the research objectives. Your review of the literature and your evaluation of the various themes, issues and frameworks helped you to develop a more specific set of research questions. In essence, your analysis of the data that you have collected from your fieldwork should provide answers to these questions. You should, as a matter of priority, focus attention on data that is directly relevant to the research questions. You

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should avoid the mistake of including analysis that might be interesting in a general way, but is not linked to the original direction of the Thesis. The theory used in an empirical study is meant to shed light on the data in a scientific manner. The main purpose of using theory is to analyse and interpret your data. To analyse means to distinguish between different types of phenomena – similar to different. Therefore, you should not present theoretical perspectives that are not being put to use. Doing so will create false expectations, and suggests that your work is incomplete. You should be sure in what form to present data (graphs, tables), which often depends on the research area. However, each table or graph must be numbered and labelled and must be referred to in the text. If you have extensive and detailed data, it should be placed in an appendix. This will give the reader a possibility to see what you measured, but will not break the mainline of ideas in the text itself. It is important to comment on the data in an appropriate way - to see them from the viewpoint of the theory or previous research, to discuss the factors that could limit your data, where possible omission/errors could occur and how reliable the data is. The values in the tables/graphs should be statistically treated, and the nonverbal communication should accompany (but not duplicate!) the text. It means that not all information given in graphs or tables will be described in the text; only the most important results, general trends or irregularities will be commented on in the text. This part is the main in Thesis and must be more than descriptive. This chapter develops analytic and critical thinking on primary results and analysis with reference to theoretical arguments grounded in the Literature Review. You should try to highlight where there are major differences and similarities from the literature or between different groups. Where a model or framework of analysis has been used or is being developed you should highlight the main relationships as well as explaining the reason and significance behind features or decisions being discussed. 1. What is the aim of Practical Part? 2. What are the types of data and differences between them? 3. What can create false expectations in the Practical Part? 4. Where should the extensive and detailed data be placed? Why? 5. How should the data from Practical Part be commented? Task 2. Read the information and discuss different language means to comment on data. Qualifications and strength of the claim When commenting on data, you must give only statements, which you are able to justify. It means that you must express the degree of certainty or probability, e.g. 100%, 50%, 10%. There are various language means: 1. probability 38

 using modal verbs with decreasing level of certainty (will, may/can, might/could)  using adverbs (It is certain/probable/likely/possible/unlikely that…)  using adjectives (There is a strong/good/definite/remote possibility that …) 2. distance  using verbs seem/appear or even (less probable) would appear. 3. softening data – limiting it with expressions on the limited data available, in the view of some experts, according to this study, based on observations, etc. 4. qualifying the subject – a majority, some of,… 5. giving exceptions – with the exception of …, apart from …, except for … 6. generalization – verb tend 7. weaker verbs – instead of cause you can say contribute to, establish, indicate, show, suggest, undermine, question, validate, support. Task 3. Study the stages of graph and table description. Discuss the language means that can be used in each section. INTRODUCTION Paraphrase the task

OVERVIEW Write the general information about the main features

BODY PARAGRAPH Write in detail about the main features in a logical way

CONCLUSION Summarize main ideas

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Task 4. Study and discuss the example of chart description. Table 2: Placement of responses according to the level of relations to the image “money” Level of relations Money Money Money (Arabic (Chinese (Russian students) students) students) Contiguity reactions 42% 36% 47% Similarity determination 26% 22% 6% reactions classification 7% 21% 13% Mediated answers 25% 21% 34% As we can see from Table 2 that illustrates the placement of responses according to the level of reactions, the following distribution of reactions is largely determined by the lexico-grammatical properties of the word-stimulus. At the same time, both Russian and Arabic groups of respondents tend to give more reactions based on the principle of continuity, while the Chinese gave more reactions of similarity that consist of determination and classification answers. Here it is important to state that Chinese students gave more classification responses, while Arabic students showed an equal distribution of similarity reactions. As for the Russian interviewees, they described the image "money" mostly through mediated answers and associative pairs that do not have common essential signs in content. Consequently, the obtained data confirms that the relations of contiguity and similarity, reflecting the main types of relations between the phenomena of the objective world, constitute the base for the creation and consolidation of verbal associations for Arabic and Chinese people, while continuity and mediated answers are more typical for the Russian respondents. Task 5. Study the following graphs and the table and describe them. Pic. 1. Challenges of language education policy

Practical constraint •lack of competence •Limited quality teaching •Unfavorable environment

CHALLENGES

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Cultural constraint •Limited exposure •Poor governance •Commitment

Table 1. Frequency of the use of linguistic manipulation strategies and tactics by the opponents in the first debate, % № Type of strategy Clinton, tactic, % Trump, tactic, % 1 Argumentation Illustration and examples, Precise figures, 35% 45% 2 Self-promotion Perspective indication, 34% Promise, 41% 3

Confrontation

4 5

Integration Discrediting

Opposition to the opponent, 51% Unity, 88% Criticism, 67%

Sarcastic comments, 36% Appeal to emotions, 78% Impersonal accusation, 65%

Pic. 2. Semantic spheres of euphemisation in the British mass media Distribution of semantic spheres of euphemisation in the British mass media 6 9

Politics 34% Race 23%

34 10

Mental illness 17% Death 10% Religion 9% Bribery 6%

17 23

4.6. Conclusions Task 1. Read the text and answer the questions given below. After presenting the arguments and the results of the research, you come to Conclusions, where your theoretical and empirical findings come together and your problem formulation has to be answered. This implies that the research results are interpreted by relating them to the problem formulation and connecting them to the theory used. 41

The conclusion should detail the importance of Master Thesis to the scientific community and may suggest the direction that future researchers might follow to continue with relevant information on the subject. A summing up should repeat the most important issues raised in Thesis (particularly in Practical part), although preferably stated in a different way. For example, you could frame the issues within a wider context. In Conclusion you should place your work in a wider, academic perspective and determine any unresolved questions. During the work, you may have encountered new research questions and interesting literature which could have been followed up. At this point, you may point out these possible developments, while making it clear for the reader that they were beyond the framework of your current work. There should be a strong connection between your Conclusion and your Introduction. All the themes and issues that you raised in your Introduction must be referred to again in one way or another. Provide a brief summary of the results of the Thesis, and what they can tell us. What information to cover You will have to address the following questions: • In what way can you generalise the research results to other cases/contexts than those which you studied? • What can you say about your research results in comparison to the relevant linguistic theories? • How do the research results relate to the findings and conclusions of other authors? In what way do these results concord with, or differ from, existing research and why is this? • What did your research add to the theoretical and/or empirical knowledge of the topic at hand? Conclusion is the opposite of Introduction. Remember that Introduction begins general and ends specific. Conclusion begins specific and moves to the general. Useful phrases for generalization Conclusion section must be more general, more abstract, more theoretical, more connected to the practice. For generalization you can use the following expressions: • Generally • In general • On the whole • With the exception of … • Overall Useful phrases to begin Conclusion • We have described a model of the … analysis that is considered to be appropriate for … We have found significant evidence of … • In Thesis, we have presented a complete analysis of various metaphoric expressions that were used… The received data showed that … • In this work, it has been attempted to analyze the advertising discourse… It has been shown that for ... 42

Ways of ending Conclusion Once you have summarized your work, there are three typical ways to end your Conclusion. • The first is to show how your work could be applied to another area. Our findings could be applied quite reliably in other linguistic fields such as …. that will allow scientists to….. These findings could be exploited in other linguistic areas such as …. • The second typical ending is to suggest future work. There is some general agreement that the use of will refers to your own planned work, and that should refer to work that you believe could be addressed by the general community. Thus the following represent the authors' plans: One area of future work will be to represent these relationships … Future work will mainly cover the development of additional features within the suggested methodology, such as… Future work will involve the application of the proposed method…. • The third way to end your Conclusions is to make a recommendation. We suggest that … We recommend that … The construction is thus: to recommend (suggest, propose) + that + someone or something + should (optional) + infinitive (without to) + something 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

What should detail the Conclusion? What connections it should have with other sections of your thesis? What information should it cover? What are the useful phrases for generalization? How can you begin your Conclusion? What are the ways of ending the Conclusion?

Task 2. Discuss in pairs. Which of the following are generally acceptable in conclusions? 1. A statement showing how your aim has been achieved. 2. A discussion of the implications of your research. 3. Some new information on the topic not mentioned before. 4. A short review of the main points of your study. 5. Some suggestions for further research. 6. The limitations of your study. 7. Comparison with the results of similar studies. 8. A quotation that appears to sum up your work.

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Task 3. Fill in the gaps with the suitable words: the main point; in the final analysis; the final step; as a result of; confirm; a conclusion; 1. ________ conducting this study, it was established that the word order in the Russian and Tajik languages essentially influences the communicative function of a language. 2. Let us recap ________ in the argument. 3. Before bringing this paper to ________, we would like to suggest some areas requiring further research. 4. ________ it was shown that obscene lexicon is used not only as a means of speech aggression but also as a means of optimization of interpersonal interaction in situations of frictionless communication. 5. The results of all these analyses ________ that modal Prepositional Word Combinations should receive more attention on morpho-syntactic as well as on semantic level. 6. Having analyzed expressions used in Russian to name and describe the concept of hatred, we can create a prototypical scenario of hatred, which is ________ in analyzing any lexical concept. Task 4. Study the examples of Conclusion sections and discuss the main aspects that are covered in each conclusion. 1) achieved aim; 2) main points of study; 3) comparison with the results of similar studies; 4) implementation of research; 5) vocabulary level. Conclusion 1. As we could see, the emotion of grief and suffering is expressed both in Russian and in English folklore. The analysis allows us to say that grief is a more typical emotional state of the characters of Russian songs, which was indicated by the difference in the number of word occurrences – 289 and 149. In the English lyrics, the character experiences grief in solitude. Russian songs are characterized by sympathy, involvement, and a desire to help the character with overcoming difficulties. Conclusion 2. The phraseological side of each language provides rich linguistic research material because it not only records knowledge of the native world image and the attitude of an individual to its fragments but is also programmed to transfer the golden standards 44

and stereotypes of the national culture. Thus, phraseological terminology reflects the "axiological world image". The study of its connections with ethnic experience and with the original reflection of the environment, culture, traditions, and national customs in the ethnic world enables determining how ancient archetypal human ideas are encoded in the language (Teliya, 1996). Phraseological and terminological, language units are able to transfer two types of information: information that was acquired by humanity in general, and the information that was acquired by specific nations. We believe that the information, which is recorded in the studied terminological phraseological units, accumulates the information of the language and culture as semiotic components that constitute a holistic world image. Language speakers perceive phraseological units as meanings that emerged back in history and can be used only within a context. Despite this, they remain a social phenomenon and are used for social purposes. The lexical-semantic content of terminological phraseological units reflects conceptual micro-fields that are realized in the following spheres: the individual, space and time, animals, objects and their state, biology, medicine, evaluative definitions, etc. Phraseological terminology in the economic discourse denotes currency units, participants of market and stock exchange relations, objects and subjects of economic relations, evaluative economic characteristics (for example, the rate of success), etc. The meaning of phraseological units in economic texts originates from different sources, including mythology, the Bible and religious texts, history, national-cultural peculiarities of the ethnos, its habits and traditions. The main purpose of phraseological units in economic texts is to affect the consciousness of readers. This is possible because phraseological units are emotionally and expressively coloured. The economic phraseological units embrace the following lexical-semantic micro fields: banking and financial field, industrial and production field, economic policy. The research found the division of these semantic micro-groups to be arbitrary since one phraseological unit with a terminological meaning could belong to different fields. Within the economic discourse, the dominant "money" denotes an expressive conceptual meaning with negative and positive markers. The lexical-semantic field with negative connotation includes phraseological collocations, such as "black money", "dodgy money", "blood money", etc. The positive connotation is usually denoted by such constructions as "white money", "honest money", etc. The concept of "electronic money" is especially common nowadays. Toponyms, anthroponyms, and zoonyms were encountered most frequently among the English economic phraseological unit. Phraseological units mean abstract things that take shape within a specific context. The main origins of the economic phraseological units are mythology, historical events, characters and persons, literary works, and religion, including Biblical Scenes. The description of phraseological units determined the psychological, socio-political, and cultural features of the English economic sphere.

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Task 5. Study the given paragraph and evaluate it according to the criteria presented in the previous exercise. The common linguistic features of masculine and feminine political media discourse include frequent use of the superlative and comparative degrees of adjectives; active voice prevailing over passive, the low frequency of compound independent clauses; active use of stylistic devices. Masculine political media discourse is characterized by the predominance of negatively coloured lexical units, the frequent use of words with negative prefixes, the variety of linking words. Feminine political media discourse is marked by the high frequency of words denoting different emotional states, the use of expressive phrases, the use of words with a modal meaning, expressing obligation, doubt, uncertainty, probability. Task 6. Rewrite the Conclusion according to the main aspects that were mentioned in this section. 5. FORMATTING RULES Task 1. Study the following rules. In the text typography, you need to use the following guidelines and rules. • Font: Times New Roman, 14 • Paragraph settings: • Left indentation: 3,5 cm • Right indentation: 1 cm • High margin: 2,0 cm • Lower margin: 2,0 cm • Spacing: • Before a heading: 1 empty rows • After a heading: 1 empty row • Between two headings: 1 empty row • 1 empty row should be left between chapters. • Paragraphs should be indented by 0.7 cm. • Line spacing 1.5 • Table structure • Table heading has to be placed above the table. Table heading should not end in a full stop. • Figure caption text is situated underneath the table and the caption text ends in a full stop. There should be no references in a caption text. • Formatting figure captions Figures, tables and appendices are a part of the written presentation. All these need to be referenced to in the text body, preferably before the figure is placed in the 46

text –i.e., first the referring text, then the figure or table. Figures and tables have a running number through the document if there are plenty of figures. Figure captions are below the figure, and the caption text ends with a full stop. A short caption is centred, while a long caption extending to several lines is justified on both sides. • The numbering is at the bottom of the page with number 2. The title page is not numbered. • All structural components of the Thesis should be provided with meaningful headings. Font: Times New Roman, 16. Task 2. Study the example and discuss the mistakes that were made in the formatting rules. Sociolinguistics aims to study the effects of language use within and upon societies and the reciprocal effects of social organization and social contexts on language use. In contemporary theoretical perspectives, sociolinguists view language and society as being mutually constitutive: each influences the other in ways that are inseparable and complex. Language is imbued with and carries a social, cultural, and personal meaning. Through the use of linguistic markers, speakers symbolically define self and

society. Simply put, language is not merely content; rather, it is something that we do, and it affects how we act and interact as social beings in the world. Language is a social product with rich variation along individual, community, cultural, and societal lines. For this reason, context matters in sociolinguistic research. Social categories such as gender, race/ethnicity, social class, nationality, etc., are socially constructed, with considerable variation within and among categories. Attributes such as “female” or “upper class” do not have universal effects on linguistic behaviour, and sociolinguists cannot assume that the most interesting linguistic differences will be between groups of speakers in any simple, binary fashion. Sociolinguistic research thus aims to explore social and linguistic diversity in order to better understand how we, as speakers, use language to inhabit and negotiate our many personal, cultural, and social identities and roles.

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6. THE PRESENTATION OF MASTER THESIS Task 1. Read the information and find a suitable heading for each paragraph.  Discussion and Conclusions  Introduction  References  Results  Methods The best presentation generally follows the guideline of Thesis presentation: A) Start with your general research objectives and a few words about the context of your work. You should make a clear statement of the hypotheses that you tested. Think ahead and ask yourself, how it is connected to the Discussion and if it tells your audience why you did this experiment or research. B) Strive to keep your methods section brief and relate your material directly to methodology. However, don’t be so brief so the audience can figure out what you did and give some thought to what is relevant to this particular presentation C) Support this section by graphics of your data and statistics. It should be shorter than you first expect, and this is ok! The more concise and clear your results are, the more time you have to talk about their importance. Tell what you found and if your material came out the way you expected. D) Consider the major point that you want your target audience to remember about your talk. This is a section that is often overlooked in oral presentations. Speakers run short of time and rush through the crucial part of the talk. Don’t let this happen to you. Speak in details not only what your results show but also why they are significant. Demonstrate how your research relates to the topic. Indicate why anyone should care about your findings. This will summarize your study and send the audience off on a high note. E) Acknowledge sources of support and research assistance (literature review) if you have direct quotes. It is recommended to cite just a few sources, focusing on those papers that are particularly relevant to your research. When you think you have got the content outlined, even in a rough form, try it out on your professor, your office mate, and even your mother. If they get what you are trying to say, then you're on the right track. Task 2. Classify the phrases into five sections according to the logical progression of a well-balanced presentation. Add your own phrases that can be used in each section Introduction Method Results Discussion Conclusion

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The list of phrases 1. In this presentation, I am going to/I would like to/I will discuss some findings of an international project examine/analyze/bring to your attention/ introduce the notion of/a new model of/ review/discuss/describe/argue that address a particular issue, which in my opinion, give an analysis of/explore the meaning of…. 2. Materials were obtained in accordance with… 3. Good morning everyone. Let me introduce myself. My name is Mark Pavlov and I am a master student from South Ural State University. 4. Our findings would seem to show / demonstrate / suggest / imply that… 5. The three key results of this empirical study are:… 6. We refined / altered / adapted / modified / revised the method used / reported / suggested / explained / proposed / put forward by 7. The following emergent themes were identified from the analysis:… 8. I will begin by giving you an overview of… 9. Previous studies conflict with the data presented in the Results: it was more common for…however nowadays/ we have found… 10.The purpose of today’s presentation is to… 11.Subjects were chosen from a randomly selected sample of... 12.That brings us to the end of the final section. Now, if I can just summarise the main points/ recap the main findings. 13.Participants were selected from the students of the…. Faculty of the University of... 14.An analysis was made to look for … To do this, the average times of x and y were compared… Figures 1–3 show the differences between… 15.One area of future work will be to represent… 16.Our data suggest that… 17.Future work will mainly cover the development of additional features for…, such as… Task 3. Offer the phrases that can be used in each situation. 1. Explain why you chose your specific method 2. Referring to the previous topic to introduce the next topic 3. Stating that your results confirm previous evidence 4. Stating that your results are in contrast with previous evidence 5. Expressing opinions and probabilities 6. Outlining possible applications and implications of your work

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Task 4. Discussion: What spoils a talk? 1. You have probably also found yourself attending some poor or badly given talks. What qualities did these speakers display that detracted from your enjoyment of the presentation? How significant are the following:  Inappropriate level of the subject matter?  Unhelpful slides?  Over-long presentation? Add other problems to this list. 2. Why do we need visual aid? Continue the following list:    

crystallize ideas; help information retention;

3. What are the main difficulties that you have to overcome when 1) you prepare academic presentation; 2) present your report? 4. What are the main aims of visual aids in the oral presentation? Task 5. Determine the main good and bad features of each slide.

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Task 6. Watch the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFxVihJ1KSo and mark the sentences as TRUE or FALSE. Correct the false ones 1. The presenter is the person who has more knowledge about the subject than somebody else. 2. The presenter should never pitch his talk to the level of the audience. 3. In terms of preparation, be sure to make your speech well before the meeting. 4. There is no need to run through your presentation multiple time if you have already participated in many scientific conferences. 5. If the unexperienced audience gets what you are trying to say, then you're on the right track. 6. Presentation is a substitution of your scientific talk, so you can read everything that is on your slide. 7. Animation may look cool and it wouldn’t disturb the audience. 8. You can win if you outline the bullet points in your presentation. 9. Rule of thumb is the usual experience of 1 slide per minute. 10. Technicians can detract you when you are running through your slides in advance.

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Task 7. Make up your own academic presentation according to all the information that you discussed. You can use your scientific research. Present your research to your group mates (time limit for your presentation speech is 5-7 minutes). Task 8. Evaluate the speech and the presentation of your groupmates according to the Table. Comment on the presentations. 40-33 - Excellent 32-25 - Good 24-17 - Satisfactory 16 and below - Bad Max Score Score Content Assessment Introduction Gives a clear statement of a study Provides synopsis of the relevant research projects Methods Gives a description of participant enrollment, procedures and measurements Gives an overview of the techniques used for data analysis Results Gives an account of the major findings of the research Provides an adequate representation of the research data using appropriate graphical aids (tables, figures, graphs, charts etc.) Discussion Makes clear, accurate, and well-articulated conclusions Suggests practical application of the study results Relates findings to the ongoing research Considers areas for prospective studies Slides Text Organization Sequential, logically progressing information Complies with the format requirements in each section: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion Sufficient linguistic competence of each section: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion (using academic collocations, terminology relevant to the subject) Visual Support Conspicuous titles and easily readable text Total for the section

1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1

1 1-4 1-4

1 20

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Competences of professional communication Score Interaction component Ability to arouse interest to the report: questions, comments from 1-2 the listeners. Perceptive component Understanding the content of the peers’ reports (questions, 1-3 opinions, comments). Understanding the peers’ questions (answers to the questions on the 1-3 report) Communicative component (verbal) Grammatical range and accuracy (both simple and complex 1 constructions) Pronunciation 1 Cohesion and coherence (linking words) 1 Fluency 1 Logical synopsis 1 Use of abstract notions, professional terminology 1 Validity of the statements 1 Conciseness 1 Communicative component (non-verbal) Eye-contact 1 Gestures relevant to the situation 1 Facial expression 1 Dress code 1 Total for the section 20 TOTAL

7. ASSESSMENT Study the information presented below. Evaluate your final version of the Master Thesis according to the presented criteria. Master Theses are assessed according to the university regulations with the following grades: excellent (5), good (4), satisfactory (3), poor (2). The assessment of Master Thesis is performed by a Supervisor, by a Reviewer and by the members of the examination board. The assessment can be reduced in case of violation of the terms of Thesis submission to a Supervisor or a Reviewer.

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Excellent The performance clearly displays excellent insight into the academic theories and methods in the field and knowledge at a high level. The goals of the Thesis are clearly defined and easy to understand. A student has an excellent ability to analyze. He / She displays an excellent capacity for critical reflection, and can clearly distinguish between own contribution and the contributions made by others. The thesis demonstrates independent thinking and self-contained points of view. An author contextualizes the topic well and discusses key studies nicely. The thesis may introduce results that could be published in a scientific journal in the field. The language of Thesis and presentation are excellent. Good The performance clearly displays good insights into the academic theories and methods in the field. The goals of the Thesis are defined. The methods are used well. The work is good and Thesis represents a normal scope of work. An author presents findings stereotypically or interprets them slightly superficially. The thesis has good form, structure and language. Scientific presentation is suitable and clear but there are minor mistakes. Satisfactory The satisfactory performance displays satisfactory insight into the academic theories and methods in the field. The goals of the Thesis are not clearly defined. Methods are used to a satisfactory degree. The work appears to have required a modest amount of work. A student has some ability to analyze different sources of information independently but depends on relatively close supervision in order to structure and articulate academic arguments. He / She displays a capacity for critical reflection but has difficulty in distinguishing well between his/her own contribution and the contributions made by others. There are mistakes in Thesis and presentation. Poor The performance does not satisfy the minimum requirements. The goals of the Thesis are described but appear unclear or are not described at all. The thesis has insufficient insight into the academic theories and methods in the field. A student has chosen irrelevant and incorrect methods for research. The work seems fragmented. A student is clearly dependent on supervision in order to complete delimited research. The presentation shows significant deficiencies in its form, structure and language. There are mistakes.

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REFERENCES 1. Abduh A., Rosmaladewi R. Language policy, identity, and bilingual education in Indonesia: a historical overview. In XLinguae, Vol. 12 Issue 1, 2019. – P. 219-227. 2. Abdul–Razzaq A.T. Person deixis as a cohesive device of narration in Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering heights” …Master thesis / South Ural State University, 2017. – 70 p. 3. Aimenova M., Ospanova A., Rakhimova A., Sarsembayeva A., Mazhit Z. Phraseological terminology in the English economic discourse. In XLinguae, Vol. 12 Issue 1, 2019. – P. 228-238. 4. Akhmetova L.A., Shaimardanova M.R., Zorina A.V., Nikishina S.R., Nazmutdinova M.A., Gatin R.G. The word-formation category "displacement causation": mutational and modification semantics of German, Russian and Tatar verbs. In XLinguae, Vol. 12 Issue 1, 2019. – P. 21-36. 5. Aldulaimi H.E.H. Image of education in the language consciousness of Russian and Arabic students…Master thesis / South Ural State University, 2018. – 90 p. 6. Al-Gharrawi B.K. Cognitive Basics of Euthemisation in the British Mass Media…Master thesis / South Ural State University, 2017. – 68 p. 7. Al-Graiti E.H.S. Linguistic Terminology: Formation Principles and Modern Trends…Master thesis / South Ural State University, 2019. – 77 p. 8. Balandina E., Peredrienko T. The model of psycholinguistic image analysis. In XLinguae, Vol. 12 Issue 2, 2019. – P. 3-16. 9. Creswell J.W. Educational Research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2008. 10. Gandziy Y.Y. Linguistic manipulation strategies in the genre of pre-election debates (using the example of the USA) …Master thesis / South Ural State University, 2017. – 95 p. 11. Khabirova E. Metaphorical terms in the context of linguistic research articles. In XLinguae, Vol. 11, Issue 2, 2018. – P. 499-507. 12. Olomskaya N.N., Patyukova R.V., Kudinova T.A., Demina L.I., Cherkasova M.N. Lexico-semantic analysis of the emotion “grief and suffering”: crosscultural overlapping of linguistic worldviews (on the material of Russian and English languages). In XLinguae, Vol. 11 Issue 1, 2018. – P. 242-250. 13. Paltridge, B., Starfield, S. Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language. Routledge, 2008. 14. Ponomarenko E.B., Vasilkova N.N., Volskaya N.N., Kasperova L.T., Nikolaeva A.V. Female political media discourse in American and English linguocultures: speech strategies and tactics. In XLinguae, Vol. 11, Issue 2, 2018. – P. 625-638. 15. Popova T.G., Sausheva Y.V., Surikova T.I., Yusupova R.R., Dzyubenko A.I. Linguistic peculiarities of feminine and masculine political media discourse in English-speaking countries. In XLinguae, Vol. 11, Issue 2, 2018. – P. 147-157. 16. Roberts, C. M. The Dissertation Journey. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press, 2004. 55

17. Salieva R.N., Konopleva N.V., Mirgalimova L.M. Phraseological units in American and Russian governmental blogs. In XLinguae, Vol. 9 Issue 4, 2016. – P. 58-67. 18. Swales, J., Feak, Ch. B. Academic Writing for Graduate Students. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 19. Инструкция о порядке подготовки и издания внутривузовской литературы / сост.: Н.П. Цырикова, Ю.В. Подкорытова, Е.В. Гераскина. – Челябинск: Издательский центр ЮУрГУ, 2013. – 51 с. 20. Учебно-исследовательская работа студентов: как успешно организовать выполнение курсовых и выпускных квалификационных работ: метод. рекомендации для преподавателей / составитель Т.Н. Хомутова. – Челябинск: Издательский Центр ЮУрГУ, 2012. 21. https://www.unk.edu/academics/gradstudies/admissions/gradfiles/Grad%20Files/ThesisGdlnsFinal08.pdf 22. https://student.uis.no/getfile.php/13242348/02.%20Nye%20student.uis.no/Stu diehverdag/Vedlegg/M%C3%98AHOV%20Veiledningshefte%20engelsk.pdf 23. http://www3.kau.se/kurstorg/files/m/C10B9A7018b5a233DDvmFF0698AD/ Master%20Thesis%20Guideline%20I.pdf 24. https://www.jyu.fi/hytk/fi/laitokset/yfi/en/studies/guidelines-forstudying/masters-thesis/masters-thesis-guidelines-yfi-2014.pdf 25. http://www3.kau.se/kurstorg/files/m/C10B9A7018b5a233DDvmFF0698AD/ Master%20Thesis%20Guideline%20I.pdf 26. http://www2.hw.ac.uk/sml/postgraduate/downloads/dissertations/dissertationg uide.pdf 27. https://uit.no/Content/492305/Guidelines%20for%20Writing%20Master's%20 Thesis%20at%20the%20School%20of%20Business%20and%20Economics%20Oct %202016.pdf 28. https://www.sfu.ca/~jcnesbit/HowToWriteAbstract.htm 29. https://digilib.k.utb.cz/bitstream/handle/10563/26214/Guide_to_Writing_Mast er_Thesis_in_English.pdf?sequence=6 30. https://www.nmbu.no/en/students/administration/master-thesis/guidelinesmaster-thesis 31. https://www.unk.edu/academics/gradstudies/admissions/gradfiles/Grad%20Files/ThesisGdlnsFinal08.pdf https://www.tru.ca/__shared/assets/MSc__EnvSci__Thesis_Guidelines31573.pdf 33. http://www.bibme.org/citation-guide/apa 34. https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/skills/plagiarism?wssl=1 35. https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/writing/style 36. http://intranet.yorksj.ac.uk/learnteach/epax/paraphrasing/Para3tryme.pdf 37. https://www.eslwriting.org/wp-content/paraphrase-synonyms-c.pdf 38. https://academic-englishuk.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/reporting-verbsAEUK.pdf 39. https://www.tcd.ie/CAPSL/assets/pdf/Academic%20Practice%20Resources/D eveloping%20your%20academic%20writing%20skills.pdf 56

PICTURES 1. http://ndc-bd.com/services/supervision 2. https://designyourthesis.com 3. http://exploringacademia.com/challenges-in-selecting-an-interesting-researchtopic 4. https://www.academic-englishuk.com/academic-style 5. https://timeline-info.princeton.edu 6. https://www.google.ru/search?newwindow=1&biw=1366&bih=589&tbm=isch &sa=1&ei=zPVW7nyJK3rrgSbq66oCA&q=introduction&oq=introduction&gs_l=img.3..0l10.387 7.10621.0.11766.14.9.1.4.4.0.138.896.6j3.9.0....0...1c.1.64.img..0.14.959....0.lOP7jTt W9FI#imgrc=Lz6FaMSmVKA7UM: 7. https://www.compilatio.net/en/plagiarized-theses-russian 8. https://sacramentodentistry.com/oral-hygiene/reviewing-gum-butlerweave-floss 9. https://www.sodapdf.com/blog/how-to-prepare-professional-powerpointpresentation

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Учебное издание

Баландина Екатерина Сергеевна, Передриенко Татьяна Юрьевна WRITING A RESEARCH WORK IN LINGUISTICS Учебное пособие

Техн. редактор А.В. Миних Издательский центр Южно-Уральского государственного университета Подписано в печать 17.03.2020. Формат 6084 1/16. Печать цифровая. Усл. печ. л. 3,49. Тираж 30 экз. Заказ 69/321. Отпечатано в типографии Издательского центра ЮУрГУ. 454080, г. Челябинск, проспект Ленина, 76. 58