4. Interaction, identity and culture in academic writing: The case of German, British and American academics in the humanities
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Tamsin Sanderson
Abstract
This chapter aims to illustrate one way in which corpus-linguistic methods and specialised corpora can be combined in work on academic discourse. It reports selected findings from a study of social interaction in research articles written by German, British and US-American humanities academics, based on the 1-million-word SCEGADcorpus.While the main interest of the project was in possible cultural differences in academic discourse, statistical analysis was used to examine the influence also of linguistic background, discipline, author age, status and gender on the construction of identity and the encoding of social relations in academic writing. The findings reveal significant cultural differences, but also demonstrate the influence of variables such as discipline, gender and academic status on author-reader interaction and identity construction in scholarly texts.
Abstract
This chapter aims to illustrate one way in which corpus-linguistic methods and specialised corpora can be combined in work on academic discourse. It reports selected findings from a study of social interaction in research articles written by German, British and US-American humanities academics, based on the 1-million-word SCEGADcorpus.While the main interest of the project was in possible cultural differences in academic discourse, statistical analysis was used to examine the influence also of linguistic background, discipline, author age, status and gender on the construction of identity and the encoding of social relations in academic writing. The findings reveal significant cultural differences, but also demonstrate the influence of variables such as discipline, gender and academic status on author-reader interaction and identity construction in scholarly texts.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- 1. The challenges of different settings: An overview 1
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Section I. Exploring discourse in academic settings
- 2. '…post-colonialism, multi-culturalism, structuralism, feminism, post-modernism and so on and so forth' : A comparative analysis of vague category markers in academic discourse 9
- 3. Emphatics in academic discourse: Integrating corpus and discourse tools in the study of cross-disciplinary variation 31
- 4. Interaction, identity and culture in academic writing: The case of German, British and American academics in the humanities 57
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Section II. Exploring discourse in workplace settings
- 5 . 'Got a date or something?': A corpus analysis of the role of humour and laughter in the workplace meetings of English language teachers 95
- 6. Determining discourse-based moves in professional reports 117
- 7. // --> ONE country two SYStems //: The discourse intonation patterns of word associations 135
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Section III. Exploring discourse in news and entertainment
- 8. Who's speaking?: Evidentiality in US newspapers during the 2004 presidential campaign 157
- 9. Television dialogue and natural conversation: Linguistic similarities and functional differences 189
- 10. A corpus approach to discursive construction of hip-hop identity 211
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Section IV. Exploring discourse through specific linguistic features
- 11. The use of the it-cleft construction in 19th-century English 243
- 12. Place and time adverbials in native and non-native English student writing 267
- Author index 289
- Corpus and tools index 291
- Subject index 293
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- 1. The challenges of different settings: An overview 1
-
Section I. Exploring discourse in academic settings
- 2. '…post-colonialism, multi-culturalism, structuralism, feminism, post-modernism and so on and so forth' : A comparative analysis of vague category markers in academic discourse 9
- 3. Emphatics in academic discourse: Integrating corpus and discourse tools in the study of cross-disciplinary variation 31
- 4. Interaction, identity and culture in academic writing: The case of German, British and American academics in the humanities 57
-
Section II. Exploring discourse in workplace settings
- 5 . 'Got a date or something?': A corpus analysis of the role of humour and laughter in the workplace meetings of English language teachers 95
- 6. Determining discourse-based moves in professional reports 117
- 7. // --> ONE country two SYStems //: The discourse intonation patterns of word associations 135
-
Section III. Exploring discourse in news and entertainment
- 8. Who's speaking?: Evidentiality in US newspapers during the 2004 presidential campaign 157
- 9. Television dialogue and natural conversation: Linguistic similarities and functional differences 189
- 10. A corpus approach to discursive construction of hip-hop identity 211
-
Section IV. Exploring discourse through specific linguistic features
- 11. The use of the it-cleft construction in 19th-century English 243
- 12. Place and time adverbials in native and non-native English student writing 267
- Author index 289
- Corpus and tools index 291
- Subject index 293
