English for Academic Purposes - Literature review Example

WAYS ACADEMIC WRITERS NEED TO BRING VOICES/SOURCES INTO THEIR TEXTS Student’s Name Professor City and State Course Date Introduction Academic language differs from everyday kinds of language in that it is language needed to perform in academic situations. The everyday kind of language encompasses language used in situations outside the context of formal learning. Students’ proficiency in everyday communication does not imply that they are proficient in using academic language to perform more cognitively demanding and abstract tasks, for instance using appropriate language in the classroom and school environment. Academic language takes considerably longer time to learn than everyday kind of language. It is also more formal, more abstract and has more definite vocabulary than everyday language and it is much less common. Academic language has discipline-specific vocabulary, punctuations and grammar as well as the application of metaphorical devices and conventions, which are typical for a content area, for instance lab reports, essays or controversial issue discussions (PACT 2007). “English for Academic Purposes (EAP)” emerged out of the broad field of “English for Specific Purposes (ESP)”, which is defined by its focus on teaching purposely to assist learners’ research or study through the medium of English. It has rapidly developed in the last 25 years to become a major force in English language teaching as well as research (Hyland & Hamp-Lyons 2002). The larger field of ESP is a pedagogically and theoretically assorted parent; however, one committed to shaping instruction to particular as opposed to general purposes. Hyland and Hamp-Lyons (2002) define the EAP scope as the linguistic, sociolinguistic, and psycholinguistic description of English as it takes place in the academic study context and scholarly exchange itself. EAP thus consists of diverse practices and domains. EAP refers to language instruction and research, which focuses on particular communicative practices and needs of specific groups in the academic context (Hood 2007). It is a pragmatic and eclectic discipline: a wide range of applied linguistic, linguistic, as well as educational topics can be considered from the perspective of EAP or drawn in to inform EAP methodologically (Jordan 2002). These disciplines include teaching methodology, classroom language, assessment of language, teacher education, materials development and evaluation, needs analysis, discourse analysis, acquisition studies in the contexts of EAP, research speaking and writing at all academic levels, language planning and the socio-politics of English in academic uses. According to Hyland and Hamp-Lyons (2002), EAP entail grounding of instruction in comprehension of the social, cognitive, and linguistic requirements of particular academic disciplines. This means that the practitioners are taken further than preparation of learners to study in English to developing new types of literacy, which equips learners with the communicating skills to take part in specific cultural and academic contexts. This is the reason why it is differentiated from the general English language programs. EAP reflects most of ESP strengths as well as weaknesses; nonetheless, it is characterized by an emphasis on strong inter-disciplinary research, which illuminates the social contexts constrains on language use as well as the manners learners can have control over the constrains (Hyland & Hamp-Lyons 2002). EAP has similar clear commitments like ESP to linguistic analysis, to contextual importance and to the classroom reproduction of communicative events specific for a certain community. This paper will focus on the ways in which academic writing differs from other kinds of writing. It will also focus on the manner in which academic writers are required to bring other ‘voices’ or sources into their texts as opposed to representing only their own voice –heteroglossia. Academic vocabulary is an important component of academic language whereas in everyday language it is not. Academic language involves vocabulary, which is much less common than the ones found in interpersonal dialogue. The grammar or syntax is also another feature of academic language characterized by an increased usage of embedded clauses and by the use of pronouns as clause subjects, which make the written discourse or text much denser in content and more abstract in concept. The use or function of the language is founded in the particular norms or conventions, which apply to a particular function. It also has grammatical constructions, which are exclusive to texts and significantly more intricate than the one evident in dialogue. There are essential differences between academic language use and everyday language in terms of vocabulary, grammar, cognitive demands, and discourse. There are also other language aspects, which are important predictors of academic success (Hood 2007). Academic language compresses larger ideas into few words and connects the ideas with untried connectives. It also consists of discourse patterns – an expectation which learners are familiar with the structure of argumentative, persuasive, and informative texts. In addition, learners are expected to be able to write and speak in a more formal, however undefined manner. Proficiency in academic language entails the ability of knowing and using content specific and general vocabulary, complex, or specialized grammatical structures. The text discourse structure or organization is determined by its function, whether to entertain, inform or persuade, etc. The combination of features such as grammar, vocabulary, and function in academic language results in texts that are more explicit in their vocabulary use, but simultaneously more abstract for the reader because of the organization and grammatical choices. One of the main differences between academic language and everyday kinds of language is the syntactical features of academic language. The composition of sentences or syntax in academic language or texts contributes to the density and abstractness of content. Sentences in academic text include numerous clauses where the clause subject is mostly a pronoun, which makes the link between the subject and the information less direct. While everyday language heavily depends on a heavy use of conjunctions (but, and, or) to connect thoughts, academic texts depend more on embedded clauses with less dependence on the use of conjunctions. This generates much longer sentences in academic language and necessitates readers to keep more concepts or ideas in their head as is they are reading. Additionally, there are writing conventions which are particular to various writing genres (persuasive, expository or narrative) and particular content areas (social studies, sciences and mathematics). Academic writing is linear; it has one central themes or point with every section contributing to the main argument without repetitions or digressions. Academic writing is to some extent formal, complex, explicit, objective, hedged, and responsible; these are some of its features. Academic writing is significantly more intricate that everyday language: it has diverse vocabularies and it is lexically denser. Academic writing is also reasonably formal: colloquial expressions and words are avoided and figures and facts are given in a precise manner. Objectivity is also an important feature of academic writing; texts are general and not personal and hence fewer words refer to the reader or the writer. For this reason, the texts tend to focus on adjectives or nouns and not verbs or adverbs. Academic writings are also explicit and use vocabularies accurately. Hedging is also an important in academic writing; it is important for the writers to make decisions about their stand on a specific subjects or the strength of the claims that they are making. Heteroglossia refers to the notion that diverse forms of language can exist in a single cohesive text. It is important for piece of writings to have numerous forms of language or dialects mixed together: in heteroglossic writings, the text engages and recognizes alternative voices and alternative (White 2003). Heteroglossic writing requires correct use of knowledge and skills on the writers’ part. Using Heteroglossia successfully is part of a greater task of the writers to offer and authentic and realistic context for the readers. Failure to use heteroglossia correctly leads to a breaking down of a piece of writing and might even become offensive, for instance an exaggerated or poorly researcher attempt at reproducing dialectal speech can be interpreted by some people as a sign of prejudice (Waugh 2006). Bailey (2007) defined ‘heteroglossia’ as the concurrent use of diverse types of signs or forms, and the conflicts and tension among those signs, rooted in the socio-historical connections they carry with them. It covers all kinds of linguistic difference across all the levels of discourse and linguistic structure. It is imperative for learners to draw on other sources in their academic writing because of their dialogic functionality and to show the types of insights the dialogic perspective offers into the matters of rhetorical positioning (Waugh 2006). Language functions as a discursive plurality (Heteroglossia). Its stratification as well as the coexistence of numerous socially diverse languages makes it hardly advisable to talk only in terms of national languages, as there is always tension among the multiple discourses, which coexist in a particular time. As a result, Heteroglossia means the coexistence of ideological and social contradictions between past and present discourse, between diverse past discourses, those of diverse social groups, geographical variants and between academic or theoretical schools. EAP teachers can use skills approach, creative approach, process approach, genre approach, social practices approach, and socio-cultural approach to assist student to incorporate other sources effectively into their academic writing. A text, which honors the main conditions of Heteroglossia, has the capacity to portray a wide array of social dialects and hence create a fictional world full of rational and socially diverse language groups, conflicting worldviews, as well as the kind of inflectional meaning, which results from people dialogue. Academic writers interweave important data in their narrative; they include charts, tables as well as quotes from interviews and their reflections and observations. They use their data to illustrate their ideas and to offer the readers the freedom to draw their own conclusions. They explain how to interpret the data and support the interpretations with examples. This entails using numerous data sources to support major ideas or assertions: they include multiple perspectives and voices and include other voices such as those of critical colleagues, important personnel, colleagues, and students. They deconstruct their work, and offer counter examples as well as alternative interpretations (Giltrow 2002). The four resources of heteroglossia, which academic writers use to bring other voices or positions into the text, are projecting verbs, modality, and negation and counter expectations. Projection resources introduce other voices into texts to expand their heteroglossic space. Projecting verbs introduce the voice of other people in a text; for instance, “he said” “she tells”. The following paragraph shows these projecting verbs in use, “It was truly fascinating when he said, “I wanted to be very careful at this point” where they are about to write the letter, and she tells the students to write a strong letter but without ideas from structure”. “I got a lot of greater response from the audience" in the name of speech acts. Projection is also done within clauses “Students think the teachers should know what they’re talking about”. Projection verbs are also evident in direct quotations, for instance, She said “ Oh, it went so fast”, “It went so quickly.” Modality refers to a category of linguistic meaning, which expresses necessity and possibility. A sentence which is modalized locates a prevalent or underlying proposition in the space of possibilities, for instance it contains phrases and words such as ‘it may’ ‘might’ ‘must’. The following extract from Hood (2010) depicts modality ‘So, for example, we may recognise a tension between the following two instances- ‘It is an interesting question for research’ and ‘We are interested in researching this question’. Modality in this sentence suggests that there is a possibility that the reader might detect tension. According to Halliday (2004), modality is the area of meaning, which lies between no, and yes, that is the halfway ground between negative and positive polarity. Negation refers to the process, which turns an affirmative sentence into its opposite denial. It also refers to introduction of other people vices in a dialogue. White (2001) argued that “the negative is not the simple logical opposite of the positive, since the negative carries with it the positive, while the positive does not reciprocally carry the negative” (p.3). Negation facilitates opening up, closing down and rejection of other possible voices in a heteroglossic space. For instance, negation is evident in the following statement from Hood (2010) “This is not to say that any reading of a text is equally justified” (p.107). This sentence opens up heteroglossic space to show that all readings of are not equally justified. Counter expectations closes down heteroglossic space in academic texts; options such as but, however, while, only, although, yet and only among others limit the possibilities of other voices. White (2001) argued that these options invoke various expectations. Counter expectation thus generates additional dialogic space for alternatives. For instance counter expectations are evident in the following statements from Hood (2010), “The examples so far have involved some kind of pre-modification of the inscribed attitudinal term, but it is possible to grade attitude by other means” (p. 109). Also, “I return to this issue of the patterns of inscribed attitude in the research warrant in the next chapter, but first there are some additional explanations needed in relation to the ways in which attitude can be encoded” (p. 113). The word ‘but’ in these sentences in an example of counter expectation. According to Hood (2010), “a writer may be advised to avoid explicit subjective projection of ideas as in ‘I think/ in my opinion the causes lie elsewhere’’ perhaps to be replaced with more objective expressions of modality as in “it is likely that the causes lie elsewhere,” or with bald factual claims” (p.1). The textual voice in the extract depicts a pronouncement by the writer. According to White (2003), under pronouncement, there are authorial emphases, intensification, or explicit authorial interpolations. Through such, the textual voice in the extract depicts an intense investment and hence confronts a differing position. Also the ending statements, for instance “It's not only the votes that count, it's who counts the votes” shows an evaluative formulation and the textual voice depicts its endorsement of the current perspective, indicating that it stands with the given source in advancement of the proposition. There are proclamations of endorse, concur and pronounce in the extract which are dialogically contractive in that, in so doing, the textual voice demonstrates its individual investment in the point of view being advanced and consequently enhance the interpersonal cost for any person who might advance a dialogic option (White 2003). It is imperative for learners to be capable of managing the writing of multi-voiced texts as it is the duty of a writer to clarify every time whose ‘voice’ is speaking, whether it is one’s own voice or that of other sources. Academic texts are also multi-voiced, built from references to other texts. This also means that there is need for transparency in written assignment- transparency of sources used means that the students have to cite adequately, drawing in perspectives from other persons, and must clarify when they are paraphrasing or quoting and establish a connection between the source and their own text (Martin & Rose 2003). It is critical to comprehend the reasons behind the need for transparency of sources used. Every academic text and other students’ essays usually have multiple voices, which mean that they are full of references to other texts. As a result, students should be able to manage multi voice so that rather than endeavouring to synthesize the voices into a single narrative account, they should make it clear whose argument or interpretation that they are using at any one time (for instance, whose voice they are speaking) (Martin & Rose 2003). Students should be able to employ multi-vice texts in which both textual forms and analytical claims become topics of critical discussion in a natural way. These kinds of texts enable change of the anonymous, unitary, and socially authorial voice with an interpretative interplay in the text (Martin 2001). The students need to realize that as cognition processes change from interpersonal to intrapersonal, cognition increasingly become multi-voiced or dialogical. The students may be acting in solitary setting, in a room by themselves with a word processor; however, the things they write or utter should be multi-voiced as content or process (Martin & Rose 2003). It is composed in a sort of dialogue between themselves as authors and themselves as anticipated readers and between them as reflecting on other people’s utterances and texts and those people as represented by their texts and utterances. The process or content should be full of other people’s ideas and utterances, at times not modified and at times, abbreviated and occasionally transformed. Academic writers encourage their readers to align or to dis/align with what the other sources have to say through the three sub systems of appraisal-attitude, graduation, and engagement. Attitude refers to the manner how people express how they feel and the way they evaluate other things, people and events. Graduation refers to adjusting feelings and values by degree. Engagement refers to evaluation of what others think and say by creating less or more space for them in their own writing. Through engagement, the writer or speaker negotiates alignment or disalignment in relation to the different value positions referenced by text (Hood, 2010). According to Martin and White (2005), when writers or speakers make known their individual attitudinal stands, they self expressively “speak their personal mind”, but concurrently encourage other people to approve and to share their tastes, thoughts as well as normative evaluations they are proclaiming. Academic writing enables language to deal with meaning, which is culturally situated or contextualized. This system enables writers to perform tasks. Predications in functional grammar represent linguistic expressions, which have content and descriptive functions. One of the strategies learned in this subject, which support students to develop their control of writing heteroglossic texts is through the four resources of heteroglossia- projecting verbs, negation, and modality and counter expectations. These resources are important in bringing other voices or positions into their texts. Through these four resources, it is possible for the students to acquire an important viewpoint on their professional learning through engaging varied textual practices from the ones normally associated with academic knowledge production. Projecting verbs can support students in developing control of their heteroglossic writing by bringing in other people voices in a text by expanding the heteroglossic space. Students can include projecting verbs, names for speech acts, project within clauses and direct quotation to expand the heteroglossic space. Secondly, modality enables students to bring in additional voices into the text, either as attributing proposition to other sources or as entertaining a possibility. Thirdly, negation allows the introduction of additional voices in a dialogue and opening up, closing down and rejection other possible voices in a heteroglossic space. Counterexpectancy enables students to limit the chance of alternative vices hence creating more dialogic space. Conclusion It is evident that academic language differs from everyday ways of meaning as it takes academics as not yielding texts, which possibly characterize an external certainty and uses language to construct, acknowledge, and negotiate social relations. Academic writers often endeavour to provide a convincing account of themselves as well as their work through asserting cohesion with the readers, assessing their materials as well as recognizing alternative point of views, in order for managing the personality level in texts develops into important in building a persuasive case. This is possible through the four resources of heteroglossia- projecting verbs, negation, modality and counter expectations, which enables introduction of additional voices in a text. This is in line with development of specific EAP programs. EAP programs ensure the practitioners are taken beyond preparation of learners to study in English to developing new types of literacy, which equips learners with the communicating skills to take part in specific cultural and academic contexts. Reference List Bailey, B 2007, Heteroglossia and boundaries, in M. Heller (ed.), Bilingualism: A Social Approach, 257-274, Palgrave, New York. Giltrow, J2002, Academic Writing: writing & reading in the disciplines, 3ed, Broadview Press ltd, New York. Halliday, M2004, An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 3ed, Arnold, London. Hood, S 2010, Appraising research: evaluation in academic writing, Palgrave, London. Hood, S 2007, ‘Arguing in and across disciplinary boundaries: legitimizing strategies in applied linguistics and cultural studies’, in McCabe, A., O’Donnell, M., and Whittaker, R. (eds) Advances in Language and Education, Continuum, London. Hyland, K & Hamp-Lyons, L 2002, EAP: Issues and Directions, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, vol. 1, pp. 1-12 Hyland, K 2005, Stance and engagement: a model of interaction in academic discourse, Discourse Studies, Jordan, R 2002, The Growth of EAP in Britain, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, vol. 1, pp. 69-78 Martin, J & White, P 2005, The language of evaluation, Appraisal in English, Palgrave Macmillan, London. Martin, J & Rose, D 2003, Working with discourse: Meaning beyond the clause, London, Continuum. Martin, J 2001, ‘Technicality and Abstraction: Language for the Creation of Specialized Texts’. In A. Burns and C. Coffin (eds) Analyzing English in a Global Context, Routledge, London. PACT 2007, Academic Language, viewed September 8, 2012, http://www.csun.edu/science/ref/language/pact-academic-language.html Waugh, P2006, Literary Theory and Criticism, Oxford University Press, New York. White, P 2003, Beyond Modality and Hedging: A dialogic view of the Language of Intersubjective Stance. White, P2001, “Appraisal: An Overview”, viewed September 9, 2012, www.grammatics.com/appraisal Read More