8. Vocabulary-based discourse units in university class sessions

Csomay, Enikó

doi:10.1075/scl.28.11cso

Cited by 6 publications

(23 citation statements)

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“…It has been employed in various areas of research including ESP studies (Biber, Conrad, & Reppen, 1998), first and second language acquisition (Biber et al, 1998), diachronic studies of stylistics (Biber et al, 1998), language testing (Connor-Linton & Shohamy, 2001), discourse analysis on university registers (Biber, Csomay, Jones, & Keck, 2004;Csomay, 2007;Gardner, Biber and Nesi 2015), taxonomies of web pages (Biber & Kurjian, 2007), and rhetorical moves in research articles (Kanoksilapatham, 2007). At least five of the seven dimensions of register variation originally proposed by Biber (1988) are often still called upon to account for diachronic, regional, or functional difference.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Dimensional Analysis, text constellations, and interdisciplinary discourse

Thompson

Hunston

Murakami

et al. 2017

IJCL

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Although corpus research, and multi-dimensional analysis, has long been used to investigate the discourse of academic research, it is usual to compare strictly discrete disciplines and to focus on that which is maximally distinctive about each discipline. The project reported in this paper instead investigates an interdisciplinary journal (Global Environmental Change) and establishes Text Constellations comprising papers from the journal that share a dimensional profile. The dimensions are established by applying the multidimensional method to the Birmingham-Elsevier Environment Corpus, a 50 million word corpus consisting of papers from 11 journals. The corpus was tagged using the Biber tagger, and factor analysis was used to identify six dimensions that are unique to this corpus. The paper discusses the statistical and phraseological characteristics of six Text Constellations. It argues that the concepts of divergence and convergence are useful in conceptualizing interdisciplinary research discourse.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Dimensional Analysis, text constellations, and interdisciplinary discourse

Thompson

Hunston

Murakami

et al. 2017

IJCL

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“…Many of these studies take a functional perspective and treat written discourse as a dynamic process of development of discourse units which have particular communicative purposes. These discourse units are pieced together to appropriately deliver content and facilitate interactions between readers and authors (Biber, Upton, & Connor, 2007;Csomay, 2007Csomay, , 2013Parodi, 2010Parodi, , 2014Selinker, Todd-Trimble, & Trimble, 1978;Trimble, 1985). In these studies, the researchers consider natural discourse to consist of sequences of discourse units such as sentences, paragraphs, vocabulary-based discourse units (VBDUs), rhetorical moves and steps, and macro-moves (Alternberg, 1998;Cortes, 2013;Csomay, 2007Csomay, , 2013Parodi, 2010;Selinker et al, 1978;Swales, 1990;Trimble, 1985).…”

Section: The Links Between Lexical Bundles and Discourse Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among the various types of discourse units examined in these studies, VBDUs can be referred to as subtopics coherently contained in a text (Hearst, 1997). TextTiling (Hearst, 1997), a computer software, has been used for automatic identification of VBDUs Csomay, 2005Csomay, , 2007Csomay, , 2013Jones, 2007). The algorithm can identify coherent subtopics contained in a text and mark the boundary between two subtopics after detecting a clear vocabulary change (Hearst, 1997).…”

Section: The Links Between Lexical Bundles and Discourse Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…VBDUs of the same text types share similar linguistic features and can have one or multiple communicative purposes (Csomay, 2013). The further examination of VBDUs of various text types allowed the researchers to identify the internal discourse organization of academic spoken and written discourse (Biber et al, 2004;Csomay, 2007Csomay, , 2013Jones, 2007).…”

Section: The Links Between Lexical Bundles and Discourse Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The third research issue is that the quantitative approach adopted in previous studies of VBDUs tends to yield only general descriptions of communicative purposes of VBDUs. In these studies, the quantitative approach of investigating communicative purposes of VBDUs in large collections of texts (Biber et al, 2004;Csomay, 2005Csomay, , 2007Csomay, , 2013Jones, 2007) has offered general descriptions of how VBDUs internally structure texts and achieve particular communicative purposes in academic spoken and written discourse. The general descriptions of VBDUs and their communicative purposes can possibly make it hard for language material developers and language educators to apply the research findings to teaching practice and material development.…”

Section: Existing Research Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lexical Bundles in Vocabulary-based Discourse Units: A Corpus-based Study of First Year Core Engineering Textbooks

Chen¹

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The present study analyzes the use of lexical bundles in first year core engineering textbooks, identifies vocabulary-based discourse units (VBDUs) in the textbooks, and further explores the connections between lexical bundles and the VBDUs. A first year core engineering textbook corpus (FCETC) of 995,672 running words was compiled with materials drawn from seven textbooks required for first-year engineering undergraduates at a Canadian university. A total of 95 lexical bundles were identified in the FCETC.Grammatical structure analysis of these bundles indicates that lexical bundles in the core engineering textbooks are more often phrasal than clausal. There are three functional categories of lexical bundles in the FCETC: referential bundles, discourse organizers, and stance bundles. The use of lexical bundles in the FCETC allows authors to take on the role of experts who precisely present and explain foundational knowledge and concepts in a professional way. These bundles also enable the authors to act as facilitators who make the content accessible for readers and involve them in the learning processes. The comparison of the use of lexical bundles in first year core engineering textbooks, electrical engineering introductory textbooks, university teaching, and university textbooks highlights the use of lexical bundles in these registers and suggests that disciplinary specificity and genres impact the use of lexical bundles in the four registers.The findings also support that vocabulary use is discipline bound in academic registers. A total of 665 VBDUs were identified in 14 chapters randomly selected from the FCETC.There are five main types of VBDUs, including explaining VBDUs, presenting VBDUs, solving VBDUs, introducing VBDUs, and bridging VBDUs. The findings of this analysis of VBDUs demonstrate that the authors of the engineering textbooks play dual roles of ii experts and facilitators but tilt more towards the role of facilitators. The author/reader relationships of the core engineering textbooks affect the structuring and negotiation of knowledge in these textbooks. The chapters in the engineering textbooks consist of sequences of VBDUs with various communicative purposes. Single or multiple VBDUs construct four types of macro-processes for knowledge construction, which suggest that academic textbooks do not only focus on concepts and theories but also the procedures and steps that learners need to follow to appropriately approach the theories and understand problem-solving operations. Further exploration of the relationships between lexical bundles and VBDUs shows that the communicative purposes of VBDUs determine the distribution of lexical bundles in these discourse units while the use of lexical bundles varies in categories and subcategories of VBDUs and helps achieve the communicative purposes of these discourse units. These bundles provide referential information on specific topics, indicate consideration for readers, and express authoritative stances in these VBDUs. This study contributes to the st...

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Corpora in Language for Specific Purposes Research

Cortes¹

2012

The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics

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Among the various approaches that are often used to study language for specific purposes (LSP), those focusing on the analysis of the genres used by the target discourse communities have attracted a high degree of attention in the last decade. The members of different discourse communities develop specific communicative practices and conventions to communicate with one another and with other communities. Language learners who need to acculturate to a new community that uses a specific language type need to become aware of the forms of discourse used by those communities. For many decades, the description of these discourses was done by analyzing a single text or a very limited number of texts, in an attempt to provide language learners with a framework of reference for the acquisition of this specific language and to help materials designers develop materials that could be used for the teaching of LSP. With the advancements in computer technology and the collection of language corpora (large collections of machine‐readable language texts) that have been taking place in the past two decades, the use of recurrent features of language that mark the tendencies of a discourse community can now be easily identified and analyzed. Technology now allows for the collection and storage of hundreds of thousands or millions of texts that provide data to describe language in detail, basing that language description on empirical findings instead of mere intuition.

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8. Vocabulary-based discourse units in university class sessions

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Multi-Dimensional Analysis, text constellations, and interdisciplinary discourse

Multi-Dimensional Analysis, text constellations, and interdisciplinary discourse

Lexical Bundles in Vocabulary-based Discourse Units: A Corpus-based Study of First Year Core Engineering Textbooks

Corpora in Language for Specific Purposes Research

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