How specific should we be? Louis Rogers

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Specificity Vs. Transferability Current practice General academic vocabulary Beyond individual words Practicalities The broader picture

Current practices

Current practices How similar are different genres and disciplines? Academic writing - 15,559 Results How do these style guides present academic writing? Bennett’s survey 41 book’s analysed

Current practices Barrass, R. Scientists must write: A guide to better writing for scientists, engineers and students. Brown, R, B. Doing your dissertation in business and management: The reality of researching and writing. Fabb, N and Durant, A. How to write essays and dissertations: A guide for English literature students. Kneale, P. Study skills for geography students: A practical guide. Northedge et al. The sciences good study guide. Strong, S.I How to write law essays and exams. Jordan, Bailey, Northedge – wider EAP guides. From UG to Phd

Current practices General principles Text structure Grammatical issues Lexical features Other features General – clarity, economy, objectivity Text structure – advice about paragraph organisation, cohesion, coherence Grammatical recommendations – active/passive, tense use, modality Lexical features – technical jargon, diction Other features – referencing and citation, plagiarism , incorporation of theory

Current practice Large degree of consistency Evidence, caution and restraint, incorporation of sources Formal, technical, objective Structure – IMRD / IDC Impersonal IMRD – Introduction, method, results, discussion humanities - Introduction, discussion, conclusion

General Academic Vocabulary

General Academic Vocabulary The Academic Word List (Coxhead) 4 discipline areas 3.5 million word corpus 570 word families West’s 1953 General Service List

General Academic Vocabulary 75% = 2000 most frequent words 10-15% = academic vocabulary 10-15% = specialist vocabulary

General Academic Vocabulary Job Examine Quantitative Qualitative Omission Persuasion Classification Determine Awl – job qualitative

General Academic Vocabulary Multi-meaning words Volume Attribute Is one core list possible? Moving beyond individual words General Service List + AWL Address, control, means Address-issue, control-group, by-means Volume – science meaning Issue – ‘flow out’ e.g. issue shares – only in business Attribute – ‘feature’ in business verb ‘to accredit’ in science

Beyond individual words

Collocations Hyland 2008 4 word bundles 50 most frequent Electronic Engineering Biology Business Studies Applied linguistics 4 word bundles 50 most frequent On the other hand, as well as the, in the case of, at the same time, the results of the Half on one list only

Collocations Function of collocations Research-orientated = location, procedure, quantification, description, topic At the same time, the purpose of, a wide range of, the size of the, the currency board system Text-orientated = transition, results, structure, framing In addition to the, it was found that, in the next section, with the exception of Framing = limiting conditions

Collocations Participant-orientated = stance, engagement It is possible that, as can be seen Discipline Research-orientated Text-orientated Participant-orientated Biology 48.1% 43.5% 8.4% Electrical engineering 49.4% 40.4% 9.2% Applied linguistics 31.2% 49.5% 18.6% Business studies 36% 48.4% 16.6% Engagement = address the reader directly

Collocation Sciences = research-orientated Social sciences = text-orientated 90% Vs. 80% and 9% Vs. 17% Chunks not transferable Functions are transferable Relative weight of assessment type

Collocation Hyland and Tse (2007) Durrant (2009) marketing strategy learning strategy coping strategy Durrant (2009) Life Sciences, Science and Engineering, Social- Psychological, Social-administrative, Arts and Humanities 1000 two-word collocations across all 5 areas Social-Psychological – education, nursing, psychology Social-administrative – business, economics, politics, law 25 million word corpora

Collocation Three quarters grammatical Reporting pattern ‘verb + that’ Argue, assumer, conclude, confirm, demonstrate, emphasize, hypothesize, imply, indicate, note, predict, reveal, show, speculate, suggest, suppose Frequency and pattern combined Transferability of use not investigated Based on, associate with, note that, defined as, relationship between, effects on, indicate that

In favour of specificity Strong evidence for disciplinary differences Broad or subtle? Nation - theory is theory no matter what the discipline Are grammatical collocations and functions more transferable? Implications for institutions and teachers

Practicalities Time for research Contact with academics Time for materials development Financial constraints

Practicalities Broad ESAP Combined degrees EAP teacher knowledge Accountancy with; Management, Divinity, Law, IT, Economics, Spanish, Biology, Broadcast media, Geology, Psychology, HR, Finance, Leadership Mandarin, Logistics, and Maths EAP teacher knowledge

Practicalities Variability of specialist areas Management and Business Consistent areas - Finance, Accounting, Statistics and Organisational Behaviour Differences – Economics, Marketing, Computing, Enterprise, Law, Foreign Languages Challenge in defining genres

The bigger picture ‘An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less.’ Nicholas Murray Butler Bachelors, Masters, PhD The interdisciplinary nature of the Colleges as a major stimulus to teaching and learning

The bigger picture Highly flexible programme Extensive choice of subjects Acquire transferable skills Highly flexible undergraduate learning environment Cater for a variety of different student interests and career aspirations Develops analytical, quantitative, computing, presentation and other transferable skills

The bigger picture Progression through years Sandwich degrees Placements Knowledge economy

Implications Skills to deal with a wide range of texts Purpose, audience, aims Ability to identify patterns Critically analyse these features Mixed backgrounds, experiences, disciplines allows for better analysis Dovey (2006)

Conclusion Is there a core academic vocabulary? Are the differences significant enough? How specific can we be? How specific should we be?

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Bibliography Anthony, L. (2011). Products, processes and practitioners: A critical look at the importance of specificity in ESP. Taiwan International ESP Journal. Vol 3:2 1-8 Bennett, K. (2009). English academic style manuals: A survey. English for specific purposes. 8 p43-54. Biber, D, Conrad, S and Leech, G. (2002). Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Longman: Harlow. Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list. TESOL Quarterly, 34: 213-238. Coxhead, A. (2011). The Academic Word List 10 Years On: Research and Teaching Implications. TESOL Quarterly, 45: 355-361

Bibliography Dovey, T. (2006). What purposes specifically? Re- thinking purposes and specificity in the context of the ‘new vocationalism’, English for Specific Purposes, 25(4), 387-402. Durrant, P. (2009). Investigating the viability of a collocation list for students of English for academic purposes. English for specific purposes. 28 p157-169. Eldridge, J. (2008). “No, There Isn’t an ‘Academic Vocabulary’ but…” TESOL Quarterly, 42: 109 – 113 Hyland, K., & Tse, P. (2007). Is there an “Academic Vocabulary”?. TESOL Quarterly, 41: 235 – 253.

Bibliography Hyland, K. (2008). As can be seen: Lexical bundles and disciplinary variation. English for specific purposes. 27 p4-21. James, M.A. (2009). “Far” transfer of learning outcomes from an ESL writing course: Can the gap be bridged? English for Specific Purposes. 18 69-84 Jordan, R, R. (1998). English for Academic Purposes: A guide and resource book for teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ramoroka, B, T. (2012). Teaching Academic Writing for the Disciplines: How far can we be specific in an EAP writing course? English Linguistics Research. 1:2 available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/elr.vln2p33