| 1. |
- Irvine, Aileen, et al.
(author)
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To what extent do L2 students in UK Higher Education acquire academic and subject-specific vocabulary incidentally?
- 2013
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Across the UK hundreds of thousands of international students pursue a higher degree through the medium of L2 English, attending the same lectures and reading the same texts as their L1 counterparts. Although most of these international students will have initially passed through some form of English language proficiency gate-keeping exercise (such as minimum required IELTS scores), little allowance may be made thereafter for possible gaps in necessary vocabulary knowledge. Thus, L2 students may be implicitly assumed either to have sufficient working knowledge of the required vocabulary, or to be able to “pick up” this vocabulary knowledge incidentally during the course of their studies.This paper explores whether the Academic Word List (AWL) and subject-specific vocabulary knowledge of L2 undergraduates taking a degree in Biology at a UK university is, in fact, comparable to that of their L1 counterparts. Results from a vocabulary test administered in the third week of Semester 1 of the first year of studies indicated a relatively substantial gap between the levels of vocabulary knowledge of L1 and L2 students. This gap was particularly apparent in knowledge of lower-frequency AWL vocabulary. A post-test was administered 28 weeks later, towards the end of the students’ first year at university. This paper will report on the results of the post-test and discuss to what extent this previously perceived linguistic “gap” between L1 and L2 students may have increased or decreased. The paper will also outline a follow-up investigation into the ways in which L2 students deal with unknown vocabulary encountered during the course of their undergraduate degree studies.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Maricic, Ibolya, et al.
(author)
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Mind the gap! : highlighting novelty in conference abstracts
- 2013
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The conference abstract or proposal is a promotional genre, intended to secure the acceptance of a paper at a conference and often (especially in the 'hard' disciplines) in subsequent proceedings. It is therefore, as Hyland and Tse (2005) note, a high-stakes genre, and therefore one which early-career researchers need to master. One promotional resource is to show the research to be novel and original; to demonstrate (in Swales' 1990 terms) that a gap exists in the research literature. Given that a significant proportion of space in abstracts is given over to material which corresponds to the introduction in the paper itself (Cutting, 2012), opportunities for highlighting the gap exist. However, not all authors take advantage of this opportunity. reported that Just over 40% of the TESOL abstracts were found not to contain a 'gap statement' (Halleck and Connor, 2006) . One factor driving the propensity to include a gap statement (or not) appears to be first language (Yakhontova, 2006). In addition, novice researchers may be less likely to deploy this feature which can help them promote their work. This paper will report the results of an investigation into conference asbstracts in the sciences and engineering. Two corpora, one consisting of abstracts written by postgraduates during an academic writing course, and one consisting of accepted and published abstracts were analysed for two features: the presence or absence of a 'gap' statement, and the lexical and structural routines used for describing the gap. Comparisons between the corpora will be presented, and implications for the academic writing classroom will be addressed. References Cutting, D. J. (2012). Vague language in conference abstracts. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 11, 283–293.Halleck, G. B., & Connor, U. M. (2006). Rhetorical moves in TESOL conference proposals. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5, 70–86.Hyland, K., & Tse, P. (2005). Hooking the reader: a corpus study of evaluative that in abstracts. English for Specific Purposes, 24, 123–139.Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Yakhontova, T. (2006). Cultural and disciplinary variation in academic discourse: The issue of influencing factors. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5, 153–167.
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| 4. |
- Pecorari, Diane, 1964-
(author)
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Additional reasons for the correlation of voice, tense and sentence function.
- 2013
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In: Of butterfiles and birds, of dialects and genres. - Stockholm : Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis. - 9789187235344 ; , s. 153-167
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Referring to other scholars’ work is an important component of research writing, and one which requires careful attention in order to convey the writer’s stance toward the reported propositions and their relationship to each other and to the writer’s own work. Second language writers often find it difficult to master the skill of selecting appropriate forms for reporting verbs, and this is an area in which English for Academic Purposes (EAP) materials and teachers are called upon to provide guidance. However, accounts of reporting verb usage have demonstrated that this is a complex area, and simple prescriptions or proscriptions are not suffi-cient: appropriate choices are dependent on the relationship between form and func-tion, both locally and globally in the citing text. The present paper extends the exist-ing research literature on reporting verbs by examining some of the factors which guide the citing writer’s choices. Implications for the EAP classroom are also taken up.
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| 5. |
- Pecorari, Diane, 1964-, et al.
(author)
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English for Academic Purposes at Swedish universities: Teachers' objectives and practices
- 2011
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In: Iberica. - 2340-2784 .- 1139-7241. ; :22, s. 55-77
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In a parallel-language environment the use of textbooks in English in courses otherwise in the local language is naturalized and not widely discussed or questioned. The aim of this study was to elicit the attitudes and syllabus infrastructure that underlie the practice. A large-scale survey was carried out and answers were obtained from over 20% of teachers at Swedish universities. Results confirmed that a majority regarded English as important during and/or after university studies and showed that they considered the use of English-language textbooks as providing a useful opportunity for incidental language learning. In strong contrast to the Situation in a content and language integrated learning environment, only a small minority of courses were reported to have any specified learning outcome related to English. Open answers showed awareness of the benefits and risks of parallel-language practices, but no interest in making aims explicit. In our view, there is no contradiction between incidental learning and explicit aims, and course aims which remain implicit make rational planning and constructive alignment more difficult. They also inhibit discussion of appropriate methodology.
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| 6. |
- Pecorari, Diane, 1964-, et al.
(author)
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English Textbooks in Parallel-Language Tertiary Education
- 2011
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In: TESOL quarterly (Print). - : Wiley. - 0039-8322 .- 1545-7249. ; 45:2, s. 313-333
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Tertiary education in many countries is increasingly bilingual, with English used in parallel with the national language, particularly as a reading language. This article describes the results of a survey of student attitudes toward, and reading practices regarding, English language textbooks. Over 1,000 students at three Swedish universities responded to a questionnaire asking about their experiences with English textbooks. Textbooks written in English were generally unpopular, and the perception was widespread that they placed a greater burden on students. However, respondents were divided about whether their reading behavior and their learning outcomes were affected by having a textbook in English, and about whether English texts were desirable. The findings of this study have implications for teaching practices in contexts in which students are asked to read, or are being prepared to read, in a second language. Implications for the English as a foreign language or English as a second language classroom are discussed.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Pecorari, Diane, 1964-, et al.
(author)
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Intertextuality in academic and non-academic texts : What are the sources and outcomes for EAP writers?
- 2013
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Intertextuality in its broadest sense—the relationship between two texts—is a pervasive feature of academic writing, as manifested by features such as citations to earlier texts and the sets of features such as structure and organisation which are shared by texts in a given genre and/or academic discipline. Many of the intertextual features of academic writing, such as the choice of reporting verb and verb form, have been thoroughly researched and described (e.g., Charles, 2006; Shaw, 1992). Much is also know about a specific, highly problematic form of intertextuality: plagiarism (e.g., Pecorari & Shaw, 2012). However, less attention has been given to the ways in which novice academic writers become aware of conventional intertextual practices, and less still to the transferability of this feature to writing in the workplace. This paper will present the results of a corpus-based investigation of intertextuality in two domains: the leisure-time reading which lower-division undergraduates do, and a common workplace genre. By triangulating the results from these two corpora with existing findings about the intertextual features of academic texts it will be possible to describe the extent to which these features overlap with, or diverge from, each other. This will thus provide an indication of the features which can reasonably be expected to transfer from one domain to another, and which cannot, and should therefore be the subject of explicit instruction in the English for Specific Academic Purposes classroom.
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| 9. |
- Pecorari, Diane, 1964-
(author)
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Plagiarism
- 2012
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In: The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. - Oxford : Wiley-Blackwell. - 9781405198431
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Book chapter (other academic/artistic)
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| 10. |
- Pecorari, Diane, 1964-, et al.
(author)
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Plagiarism in second-language writing
- 2014
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In: Language Teaching. - : Cambridge University Press. - 0261-4448 .- 1475-3049. ; 47:3, s. 269-302
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Plagiarism is a broad and multidisciplinary field of study, and within second-language (L2) writing, research on the topic goes back to the mid-1980s. In this review article we first discuss the received view of plagiarism as a transgressive act and alternative understandings which have been presented in the L1 and L2 writing literature. We then survey and identify salient themes in the growing body of work relating to plagiarism, primarily from an L2 writing/applied linguistic perspective. These themes include terminological distinctions; views of the role of textual plagiarism in language learning and a writer's development; a concern with students’ and teachers’ sometimes differing understanding of plagiarism; and disciplinary differences in perceptions of plagiarism. We review research into the role of the electronic media in changing orientations toward plagiarism, the potential role of culture as a cause of plagiarism in the work of L2 writers, and pedagogical approaches to guiding students away from plagiarism. Methodological issues in researching plagiarism are surveyed, and the article concludes by suggesting directions for future research.
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