Linking adverbials as cohesive features tie the ideas to form dynamic and satisfactory text. This study intended to investigate the use of linking adverbials in two spoken genres; student presentations (Class other than a seminar in which one or more students speak in front of the class or lead the discussion) and discussion sections (Additional section of a lecture class designed for maximum student participation; maybe also called recitation). To this end, the study was based on the data collected from a corpus including 11 student presentations and nine discussion sections. The data were taken from MICASE (the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English) corpus and then analyzed based on Liu’s (2008) taxonomy of linking adverbials. The results indicated that in both genres additive and sequential classes of linking adverbials have received similar attention while the two genres were different in the proportion dedicated to the realizations of additive and causal/resultive classes of linking adverbials. The results pointed to differences concerning the use of subclasses adversative linking adverbials in both genres. The results of this study could have a contribution in teaching these important cohesive features in ESL classes aiming to improve students in relation to these two genres. پرونده مقاله

Reporting Verbs have gained considerable attention in corpus-based studies during the previous years. It is necessary to utilize reporting verbs appropriately to establish the writer’s claims and situate them across formerly published studies. Given the importance of the reporting verbs, the current study explored the rates and the differences of reporting verbs across science disciplines. Hence, a total number of 200 Results and Discussion sections of research articles consisting of 50 excerpts from the four science categories introduced by Science Direct web of science, namely Life Science, Social Science and Humanities, Physical Science and Engineering, and Health Sciences were gathered and used as the corpus and analyzed based on Thomas and Hawes's framework. The results showed that authors in Life Science and Health Science used more reporting verbs in comparison to the other two science disciplines. Furthermore, the tentative reporting verbs had a higher frequency than certainty reporting verbs. The research findings have several implications for novice researchers within various science disciplines in reporting their claims using reporting verbs and for course designers to treat crucial problems of the students in their academic writings. پرونده مقاله

This study aimed to examine the realization of the semantic and syntactic functions and types of verbs in the introduction section of research articles (RAs) from English literary studies. The functions and types of verbs were investigated in a corpus of 20 published research articles in literary studies written by experts with English as L1. This qualitative study was built on a corpus purposively selected and analyzed from each article to specify functions of verbs by various patterns of the semantic and syntactic structures and determine the types and frequencies of verbs in the introduction sections of the RAs. The analysis of semantic and syntactic functions of verbs indicated the semantic and syntactic features and type of verbs, revealing how verbs were used in the introduction section of RAs in literary studies. Data analysis also highlighted different functions and types of verbs (syntactically and semantically) purposefully used in these studies. Students can benefit from the results of the present study to enhance their linguistic and writing skills in writing for academic purposes (EAP) and promote various strategies used in the production, comprehension, and reproduction of discourses in ELT. پرونده مقاله

Transition markers contribute as necessary metadiscoursal devices facilitating the reader’s comprehension and improving cohesion in an academic text. Transition represents a change from an idea to the other in writing, fulfilled by the use of transition terms or phrases. English writing classes are increasingly focusing on using transitional words and phrases (Lili 2021). Thus, the current paper aims to examine the frequency and functions of transition markers in students’ academic essays. Hence, 100 essays (making a total of 293.692 words) were chosen from the Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers (MICUSP) and analyzed according to Hyland's (2005) classification of transition into type and function. It was shown that transition markers had enough frequency to be considered in teaching writing. The results confirmed the links among ideas internal and external to the text. It was also indicated that transition markers mainly used signal additive, causative, and contrastive functions between the main clauses or statements. Moreover, the research results can be directly applied to syllabus design for academic essay writing. پرونده مقاله

This study aimed to investigate the realizations of verbs’ syntactic and semantic features inmoves of applied linguistics research article introductions published in international andIranian local journals. To this end, a data of 30 research article introductions (15 published inIranian local journals and 15 in high impact international journals) was selected. The researcharticle introductions were analyzed for the move structures using Swales’s CARS (1990)model. The research article introductions were also analyzed for tense, aspect, voice(Syntactic features) and semantic meaning of verbs. The results indicated that simple presentand active voice were the predominant tense and voice in both sets of research articleintroductions. Concerning the semantic meaning of verbs, the results showed that three kindsof semantic meanings of verbs were used more frequently. They are namely mental, activity,and existence or relationship verbs. This study could have implications for novice non-nativewriters in the Applied Linguistics. پرونده مقاله

In the last three decades, genre of research article, among other genres of academic writings, hasreceived the greatest attention. This attention is due to the vital role that research article plays inthe legitimating of claims and disciplines. Johns and Swales (2002) relate this attention to theintensive review process that research article goes through before getting “valorized and ratifiedby the very fact of being published” (p.13). Research article also plays a significant role in thecirculation of academic knowledge that requires meeting the often-stringent requirements of adisciplinary community. The mentioned importance has provoked this study to investigate howwriters validate the ideas, claims, arguments and findings reported in introduction and results anddiscussion sections of research articles across four disciplines namely; Applied Linguistics,Psychology, Chemistry, and Environmental Engineering. To this end, 40 introduction and resultsand discussion sections were extracted from 40 research articles published in high-impactjournals from four disciplines (10 from each discipline). The data were analyzed and the findingsreported some disciplinary differences concerning the frequency and discourse functions ofvalidation markers. The differences could be attributed to the disciplinary conventions of writingor rhetorical functions of introduction and results and discussion section of research article. Theresults of this study might act as a guide for novice writers from four disciplines to plot howsuccessful writers validate their ideas, arguments, findings and claims in introduction and resultsand discussion sections of research articles. پرونده مقاله

Hedging and boosting are significant communicative resources to construe and attain persuasion in different fields and particular genres of academic writing. Hedges allow the researcher to address possible problems, raise objections or anticipate opposition to the research claims while contributing something new to the ongoing dialogue in a research field. Boosters enormously help to achieve the essential writers’ need to convince their readership of the truth in their propositions. They are mainly used whenever writers consider it not too risky to include them in their propositions. This study aims to investigate the frequencies and functions of hedges and boosters in academic students' essays. To meet this end, 96 students' essays (a total of 269.428 words) were selected from the Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers (MICUSP), including English and Psychology disciplines. The corpus was analyzed based on Abdollahzadeh (2019)classification of hedges. The results showed that hedges and boosters were frequent enough to be considered in teaching writing, either reducing or increasing the force of written utterances. The results of this study could be used directly in the syllabus designed for academic essay writing. پرونده مقاله

There are two different trends for the study of metadiscourse, including interactive and reflexive. The reflexive model suggested by (Mauranen, 1993) and (Ädel, 2010) cares about reflexivity in language. As reflexivity plays a pivotal role in spoken genres, this study aimed to study the frequency and functions of reflexive metadiscourse markers in academic interviews. Hence, this study focused on a corpus of three academic interviews carried out in English native academic context that was taken from “The Michigan Corpus of Academe Spoken English” (MICASE). The corpus was analyzed using the model by Ädel that includes four functional categories of metalinguistic comments, discourse organization, speech act labels, and references to the audiences. The results showed that about one-quarter of the personal pronouns were metadiscourse. Besides, among the personal pronouns that perform metadiscourse function, singular first-person pronoun was the most frequent while plural first-person pronoun was very rare. It was also found that among the four functions, the interviewees and interviewers paid more attention to metalinguistic comments and references to the audience. The results of this study could add to the knowledge of those participating in interviews in general and in the academic context in particular. پرونده مقاله

The interaction between the writers and the experts while using citations is one of the main features of academic texts. For the integration of external experts into the text, writers usually use reporting verbs, which seem to function differently. Furthermore, selecting reporting verbs (RVs) by the researchers of disciplines seem to vary. This paper explored the functions of RVs across two disciplines of hard and soft sciences. To this end, a total number of 200 “Results and Discussion” section of research articles from the four sciences categories, namely Life Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities, Physical Sciences and Engineering, and Health Sciences were gathered and used as the data, and their functions of RVs were analyzed based on Hyland’s framework (2002). Hyland (2002) considered three basic RV types based on their function, including research, cognitive, and discourse acts, subsequently dividing each category into several subcategories. The results showed that the writers in Life Sciences used more research acts in comparison to the other disciplines. In terms of cognition acts, the rates of tentative verbs were high in all sciences since the researchers tried to report the results with caution as they were uncertain about the findings. The results approved this claim, indicating the high frequency of tentative verbs under the category of discourse acts, across disciplines using verbs like hypothesize, indicate, and suggest to show doubt with different rates. The obtained results can guide novice writers of the above-mentioned four disciplines to advance an authorial perspective and adjust to the expert conventions of the relevant research areas. پرونده مقاله

This study aims to investigate the semantic and syntactic features of verbs used in the introduction section of Applied Linguistics research articles published in Iranian and international journals. A corpus of 20 research article introductions (10 from each journal) was used. The corpus was analysed for the syntactic features (tense, aspect and voice) and semantic meaning of verbs. The findings showed that in both groups of introductions, the common tenses were the present and past, rather than future. In introductions published in the international journal, the present tense was used more often than in those published in the Iranian journal, whereas past tense was used twice as frequently in Iranian journal introductions. Regarding the aspect of verbs, the simple aspect was common in both groups of introductions, but more frequent in Iranian journal introductions. The perfect aspect was more common in international journal introductions. Concerning voice, the active voice was predominant in both groups of introductions. Semantically, verbs with mental, activity, communication and existence meanings were common in both groups. The semantic meanings of verbs were not significantly different in the two groups of introductions. The findings of this study can have implications for novice, non-native writers in Applied Linguistics in helping them design and write more appropriate research article introductions. پرونده مقاله

The purpose of the present study is to analyse abstracts related to Applied Linguistics, and more precisely the discourse functions of grammatical subjects and verbs. The corpus consisted of 50 PhD thesis abstracts written on the subject of Applied Linguistics. All of the abstracts were written from 2010 to 2014. The theses from which the abstracts were extracted are available in the ProQuest database. Based on the model put forth by Swales and Feak (2004), the elements of the abstracts were identified. In accordance with Ebrahimi (2014), frameworks were used to analyse discourse functions, while the realisation of grammatical subjects and verbs was analysed for tense types. The results revealed that the “introducing part of study” and “research-related objects” were the predominant types of grammatical subjects. Indeed, these performed more discourse functions in Applied Linguistics PhD thesis abstracts compared with other grammatical subject types. The results also indicated that simple past tense was predominant in aim, method, and results sections, while the simple present was predominant in the background and conclusion sections. پرونده مقاله

Abstract This study focuses on realizations and discourse functions of the organizational linkers in the writing of research article abstracts from four disciplines. To this end, 120 research article abstracts from four disciplines namely, Applied Linguistics, Economics, Agriculture, and Applied Physics (30 from each discipline) were selected. All research article abstracts were extracted from empirical research articles published in international high impact journals. The corpus was analyzed adopting Gosden (1992) taxonomy. The most striking result is that the realizations and discourse functions of the organizational linkers, to a large extent, are guided by the nature of research article abstract and discipline. This result adds substantially to the comparative understanding of research article abstract writing across disciplines and evidences the need to tailor writing according to English for specific needs. پرونده مقاله

The unity of texts and readers’ textual interpretation is achieved through cohesive relations across sentence boundaries. Cohesive relations establish links that aid in providing access to linguistic elements and activate information in the readers’ memory. Encapsulation is a cohesive relation, which is very helpful in the text’s development as it condenses and synthesizes textual segments such as sentences, sequences of sentences, and paragraphs. Thus, this study intends to investigate the frequency of encapsulator THIS and syntactic and textual structures of encapsulated segments through THIS. This study also reports on the verbs used with encapsulator THIS. Hence, two corpora of papers from the Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Paper written by Nursing and Biology students were selected. It encapsulates a variety of textual structures, including sentences, sentence chains, and paragraphs. The results also showed that encapsulated structures used verb forms with different functional processes. In addition, the results highlighted some disciplinary differences concerning encapsulation (frequencies and encapsulated structures) and verbs’ functional processes used in encapsulation. The results of this study are directly applicable in the syllabus designed for writing academic genres. پرونده مقاله

This study aimed at investigating lexical richness in the articles written by Iranian and foreign scholars. To this end, a quantitative descriptive design was used. As the corpus of this study, 34 English Language Teaching (ELT) papers were randomly selected from different ISI and Academic-Research journals. 17 papers were written by Iranian researchers and 17 by foreign researchers. The journals from which the papers written by foreign writers were selected are EAP Journal and System. The journals from which the papers written by Iranian writers were selected are Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics and Journal of Teaching Language Skills. Analysis of the corpus was done based on the framework proposed by Lei and Yang (2020), wherein lexical richness was measured in three dimensions including lexical diversity, lexical density, and lexical sophistication. To analyze the data, descriptive as well as inferential statistics were used. The findings revealed that the median score of the lexical diversity, lexical density and lexical sophistication of the papers written by the foreign researchers were higher than those of the papers written by the Iranian researchers. To examine whether this difference is significant, Mann-Whitney U test was run and the results confirmed that there is a significant difference between the three dimensions (i.e., lexical diversity, lexical density and lexical sophistication) of the lexical richness of the papers written by Iranian and foreign scholars. The findings of this study could be considered by EFL learners/teachers, curriculum planners and researchers. پرونده مقاله

Frame markers are a broad interactive subcategory, displaying the writer-reader relationships. They can be characterized as items to frame information about discourse components and functioning for argument sequencing, labelling, predicting, and shifting while offering readers more discourse clarity. How to make good use of frame markers becomes one of the focuses in English writing classes. Thus, this study investigates the frequency and functions of frame markers in academic students' essays. To this end, 56 students' essays (totally 170.760 words) were selected from the Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers (MICUSP), belonging to Philosophy and Psychology disciplines. The corpus was analysed considering Hyland's (2005) model of interactive metadiscourse into frequency and functions. The results showed that the frame markers were frequent enough to be considered in teaching writing genres. Besides, frame markers exhibited a significantly essential way, allowing writers organize their discourse according to certain audience and enabling them to observe the argument coherence and directing their thoughts toward what the author wished. Disciplinary differences concerning frequencies, types and functions of the frame markers were reported. The study results could directly be used in the syllabus designed for writing academic genres. پرونده مقاله