Signalling coherence in Austrian students‘ seminar papers: macro- and micro-structural cues
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Helmut Gruber
Abstract
Based on a corpus of Austrian students’ texts from three disciplines (personnel management, business psychology, economic history) analysed with Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST), this paper investigates the macro-structural expectations which tables of content (ToCs) raise, the cues by which these expectations are triggered, and the “predictive quality” of ToCs. The ToCs in the personnel management group’s texts offer the best “prediction” of the actual macrostructures, whereas in the other two groups ToC and textual macro-structures diverge from each other in various ways. The analysis also shows a high degree of similarity between relation cues at the textual micro- and macro-levels. The results are discussed with respect to genre differences, student writers’ generic competence and institutional factors of students’ text production.
Abstract
Based on a corpus of Austrian students’ texts from three disciplines (personnel management, business psychology, economic history) analysed with Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST), this paper investigates the macro-structural expectations which tables of content (ToCs) raise, the cues by which these expectations are triggered, and the “predictive quality” of ToCs. The ToCs in the personnel management group’s texts offer the best “prediction” of the actual macrostructures, whereas in the other two groups ToC and textual macro-structures diverge from each other in various ways. The analysis also shows a high degree of similarity between relation cues at the textual micro- and macro-levels. The results are discussed with respect to genre differences, student writers’ generic competence and institutional factors of students’ text production.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
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Coherence and genre
- Explicit and implicit coherence relations in Dutch texts 23
- Contrastive relations, evaluation, and generic structure in science news 53
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The signalling of coherence relations
- The coding of discourse relations in English and German argumentative discourse 87
- Resolving connective ambiguity 121
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Coherence in multimodal discourse
- Multimodal coherence research and its applications 145
- Coherence in multimodal arts installations 179
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Developmental and educational perspectives
- “Why? Because I’m talking to you!” Parental input and cognitive complexity as determinants of children’s connective acquisition 209
- (Non-)signalling of coherence structures in English learner writing 243
- Signalling coherence in Austrian students‘ seminar papers: macro- and micro-structural cues 267
- Index 293
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
-
Coherence and genre
- Explicit and implicit coherence relations in Dutch texts 23
- Contrastive relations, evaluation, and generic structure in science news 53
-
The signalling of coherence relations
- The coding of discourse relations in English and German argumentative discourse 87
- Resolving connective ambiguity 121
-
Coherence in multimodal discourse
- Multimodal coherence research and its applications 145
- Coherence in multimodal arts installations 179
-
Developmental and educational perspectives
- “Why? Because I’m talking to you!” Parental input and cognitive complexity as determinants of children’s connective acquisition 209
- (Non-)signalling of coherence structures in English learner writing 243
- Signalling coherence in Austrian students‘ seminar papers: macro- and micro-structural cues 267
- Index 293
