Linguistic variation in research articles : when discipline tells only part of the story

237 Pages·2015·2.65 MB·English

by  Gray

Linguistic Variation in Research Articles
Studies in Corpus Linguistics (SCL)
issn 1388-0373
SCL focuses on the use of corpora throughout language study, the development
of a quantitative approach to linguistics, the design and use of new tools for
processing language texts, and the theoretical implications of a data-rich
discipline.
For an overview of all books published in this series, please see
http://benjamins.com/catalog/books/scl
General Editor Consulting Editor
Elena Tognini-Bonelli Wolfgang Teubert
The Tuscan Word Centre/ University of Birmingham
The University of Siena
Advisory Board
Michael Barlow Graeme Kennedy
University of Auckland Victoria University of Wellington
Douglas Biber Michaela Mahlberg
Northern Arizona University University of Birmingham
Marina Bondi Anna Mauranen
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia University of Helsinki
Christopher S. Butler Ute Römer
University of Wales, Swansea Georgia State University
Sylviane Granger Jan Svartvik
University of Louvain University of Lund
M.A.K. Halliday John M. Swales
University of Sydney University of Michigan
Yang Huizhong Martin Warren
Jiao Tong University, Shanghai The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Susan Hunston
University of Birmingham
Volume 71
Linguistic Variation in Research Articles
When discipline tells only part of the story
by Bethany Gray
Linguistic Variation
in Research Articles
When discipline tells only part of the story
Bethany Gray
Iowa State University
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Cover design: Françoise Berserik
Cover illustration from original painting Random Order
by Lorenzo Pezzatini, Florence, 1996.
doi 10.1075/scl.71
Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from Library of Congress:
lccn 2015026291 (print) / 2015028545 (e-book)
isbn 978 90 272 0379 3 (Hb)
isbn 978 90 272 6804 4 (e-book)
© 2015 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
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John Benjamins Publishing Co. · https://benjamins.com
Table of contents
Acknowledgements ix
List of tables xi
List of figures xv
chapter 1
Introduction 1
1.1 Academic research writing: One register or many? 1
1.1.1 A note on ‘register’ 6
1.1.2 Goal of the present book 7
1.2 The linguistic characteristics of academic writing 8
1.3 Linguistic variation and disciplinary writing 10
1.4 Trends and gaps in the study of disciplinary writing 14
1.5 Overview of the book: Applying corpus analytical
approaches to disciplinary register variation 21
chapter 2
Describing the domain of academic journal writing 27
2.1 Introduction 27
2.2 Surveying the domain of disciplinary journal writing 29
2.2.1 Procedures 29
2.2.2 A taxonomy of academic journal registers 31
2.2.3 Some issues in applying a taxonomy of research articles 35
2.3 Journal registers in the disciplines 36
2.4 Implications for corpus design 38
chapter 3
Building and analyzing the Academic Journal Register Corpus 41
3.1 Introduction 41
3.2 Corpus collection procedures 41
3.2.1 Formation of operational definitions for journal
registers in specific disciplines 42
3.2.2 Journal and article selection 43
3.2.3 File conversion and clean-up 44
3.3 Corpus description: The Academic Journal Register Corpus 45
vi Linguistic Variation in Research Articles
3.4 Corpus annotation 46
3.4.1 ‘Tagging’: Part of speech annotation 46
3.4.2 Accuracy of automatic tagging 46
3.5 Overview: Procedures for quantitative corpus analysis 50
chapter 4
The situational characteristics of the Academic Journal Register Corpus 53
4.1 Introduction 53
4.2 Motivating a new situational framework for journal registers 53
4.3 A framework for the situational characteristics of journal registers 55
4.3.1 Participants 57
4.3.2 Textual layout and organization 57
4.3.3 Setting 59
4.3.4 Subject/topic 59
4.3.5 Purpose 61
4.3.6 Nature of data or evidence 62
4.3.7 Methodology 63
4.3.8 Explicitness of research design 64
4.4 The situational characteristics of the Academic Journal Register Corpus 65
4.4.1 Common characteristics across journal registers 65
4.4.2 Theoretical articles in philosophy 70
4.4.3 Qualitative articles in history 72
4.4.4 Qualitative and quantitative articles in political science 74
4.4.5 Qualitative and quantitative articles in applied linguistics 75
4.4.6 Quantitative articles in biology 76
4.4.7 Quantitative and theoretical articles in physics 78
4.5 Trends in the situational characteristics of the Academic
Journal Register Corpus 80
chapter 5
A lexical and grammatical survey 83
5.1 Introduction 83
5.2 Grammatical variation in academic prose 84
5.3 Carrying out a lexical and grammatical survey 85
5.4 Distribution of core grammatical features 87
5.4.1 Nouns 89
5.4.2 Verbs 94
5.4.3 The verb phrase: Passive voice 100
5.4.4 The verb phrase: Tense and aspect 103
5.4.5 Personal pronouns 106
5.5 Summing up: Lexical and grammatical variation 110
Table of contents vii
chapter 6
Structural complexity in journal registers 113
6.1 Introduction 113
6.2 Features of elaboration and compression in academic prose 114
6.3 Carrying out a study of structural complexity 116
6.4 The use of features of structural elaboration and compression 118
6.4.1 Clausal elaboration 119
6.4.2 Phrasal compression 123
6.4.3 Intermediate features: Clausal modifiers in the noun phrase 125
6.5 Summing up: Clausal elaboration and phrasal compression 127
6.6 Conclusions 131
chapter 7
A multi-dimensional analysis of journal registers 133
7.1 Introduction 133
7.2 Background: Multi-dimensional analyses of academic language 134
7.3 Carrying out a new multi-dimensional analysis 137
7.3.1 Initial factor analyses to determine linguistic variables 137
7.3.2 Final factor analysis 141
7.3.3 Calculating and comparing factor scores across
disciplines and registers 142
7.4 Dimensions of variation in academic journal registers in 6 disciplines 143
7.4.1 Dimension 1: Academic involvement and elaboration vs.
informational density 143
7.4.2 Dimension 2: Contextualized narration vs.
procedural discourse 154
7.4.3 Dimension 3: Human vs. non-human focus 159
7.4.4 Dimension 4: ‘Academese’ 164
7.5 Conclusions 166
chapter 8
A Synthesis: What do we know? 169
8.1 Introduction 169
8.2 Summing up: Linguistic variation in the Academic Journal
Register Corpus 170
8.2.1 How does language use vary across discipline? 170
8.2.2 How does language use vary across academic journal registers? 174
8.3 Three grammatical analyses and future directions 179
8.3.1 What have we learned from three complementary approaches? 180
8.3.2 Future research using corpus analytical techniques to
investigate variation in academic journal registers 181
viii Linguistic Variation in Research Articles
8.3.3 Implications: Future linguistic features of interest 182
8.3.4 Implications: Corpus design for studies of disciplinary writing 184
References 187
appendix a
Journals examined during taxonomy development 199
appendix b
Reliability of automatic tags 201
appendix c
Semantic classes of nouns, verbs and adjectives 205
appendix d
Full factorial structure matrix for the four-factor solution 209
appendix e
Scree plot of the four-factor solution 213
appendix f
Significance testing for four-factor solution 215
Index 221
Acknowledgements
The research reported on in this book has benefited from the support of many
individuals. Doug Biber provided limitless support, encouragement, and guidance
throughout the project, helping me to focus the analyses and keep the scope of
the project within reason, and encouraging me to carry the project through to
publication. I also wish to thank Viviana Cortes, Randi Reppen, Susan Conrad,
and William Grabe for their advice and feedback on the project from the start.
I have learned so much from all of you that goes well beyond conducting linguistic
research.
Several faculty members at Northern Arizona University deserve particu-
lar thanks, as they served as disciplinary experts at various stages in the proj-
ect: Dr. William Grabe (Applied Linguistics), Dr. Ron Gunderson (Economics),
Dr. George Lubick (History), Dr. Timothy Porter (Physics), Dr. George R udebusch
I (Philosophy), Dr. Maribeth Watwood (Biology), and Dr. Stephen Wright (Politi-
cal Science). These individuals spent valuable time helping me to understand
more fully the nature of their respective disciplines and publication practices
within the field, and informed many stages of the analysis – from corpus design
to interpretation.
I could not have accomplished this book without the support of my family.
Chris, Noah, and Ellie – thank you for your patience, your comic relief, and your
confidence in me. Chris, thank you for talking through programming logic and
linguistic variables with me, helping me through the growing pains of learning to
program.
I would also like to thank my colleagues at Iowa State University for their
encouragement and support, and an anonymous reviewer who provided detailed
feedback on a draft of the manuscript.