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| [ HERDSA ]
[ Proceedings Contents ] |
On entering university, students are confronted with a new discourse community, that of Academic Discourse. Mastering the discourse of this community generally requires the student to change or expand his/her literacy repertoire and skills. New habits in reading, writing and speaking must be developed. In this paper we consider the acquisition of just one of these skills: academic writing. Our study is part of a major ongoing ARC funded collaborative research project entitled: "Framing Student Literacy: cross-cultural aspects of English communication skills in Australian University settings". The universities participating are UWA, Curtin, Edith Cowan in Perth and Macquarie University in Sydney. The UWA team's task is to develop frameworks and diagnostic procedures which can assist in pinpointing areas that present problems for student writers. Our concern is also to investigate whether academic writing presents the same order of difficulty for Native Speakers (NS) and Non-Native Speakers (NNS).
Our focus is not on grammatical elements of language, or even on the often-related problem areas of spelling or punctuation. Our concerns are two-fold. At the sentence level or local level, we focus on the relationship between functional and relational elements of students' texts. At the global level, we investigate the student writer's management of content or knowledge. By considering these two levels of the discourse we can address the overall coherence of a text which, in turn, determines its readability. The concept of readability is best defined by Horning in her volume The Psycholinguistics of Readable Writing (1993:2) as "...the connection of reader expectation and writer intention".
Readable writing must not only be clear in what it communicates, but must also satisfy the demands of the discipline. While academics have an intuitive knowledge of what constitutes good academic prose, this knowledge is seldom articulated explicitly and much less often brought to the attention of students. Students are usually only instructed in general terms, if at all, as to the requirements of their written work. These instructions usually extend to advice on the required content of macrostructural components such as the following which might be required in an experimental report: Introduction, Methodology, Results and Discussion. They may require that the arguments be logical and consistent but rarely do they elaborate on how these instructions are to be carried out or advise on what kinds of sentences can carry what sort of information or on the ordering of items of information. The advice given rarely helps the student to develop textual awareness - the understanding of how the reader's task is facilitated by appropriate 'information packaging' at both the local or global level.
Although there are numerous teaching manuals available which aim at improving student writing, especially directed to non-native speakers of English (Hamp-Lyons & Heasley 1987, Trimble 1985, Swales & Feak 1994), there has not been much research by textlinguists into tertiary student writing (O'Brien, 1995). We hope that we can make a modest contribution in this field. The background to our research has been drawn from such areas of the literature as the theory of scientific writing (Halliday & Martin 1993); the theory of English texts in general (Martin 1992); genre theory (Swales 1990 ); rhetorical /relational structure theory in general (Mann & Thompson 1986 & 1988, Matthiessen & Thompson 1988, Mann & Matthiessen 1991); the theory of cohesion (Halliday & Hasan 1976); the theory of the process of writing (Witte & Cherry 1986); information structuring (Gopen & Swann 1990); and topic theory (Givon 1983).
The data base includes some 200 assignments written by 1st to 4th year students in four different disciplines: Accounting, Anthropology, Engineering and Zoology. An earlier pilot study for this research included Psychology laboratory reports.
It is our aim to provide methods to promote textual awareness in student writers and to assist discipline specialists in explaining textual inadequacies to student writers. In this report, due to the time constraints, we will concentrate on a few short excerpts from student texts in order to illustrate our approaches.
Initially students may not have the skills to utilise a wide range of sentence functions. They may simply list ideas or results rather than use such sentences as those which DEFINE, EXEMPLIFY, SUPPORT, JUSTIFY, CONTRAST, CONSOLIDATE or STATE THE CONSEQUENCE OF the information contained in an earlier sentence. Students may not recognise that some functions are restricted in terms of where they can occur, for example, INTRODUCE (the rhetorical function which presents new content) is not a function that should be found in a concluding paragraph, since the conclusion is no place for new information.
(31102 1st yr Zoology Lab report, native speaker)Here the information contained in the first sentence is relevant to the nature of digestion in living organisms. This information, together with the position of the sentence, indicates that the rhetorical function is to INTRODUCE. However, the signalling, viz. the use of the definite article and the initial subordinate temporal clause, is consistent more with a function of AUGMENTING information already introduced.
INTRODUCTION
First sentence: Once the food has been captured and ingested by an organism it must undergo a number of digestive processes to break the large molecules into smaller easily absorbed molecules.
Another example is the following:
(3202 1st yr Psychology Lab report, non-native speaker)In this example the rhetorical marker however, indicates contrast but the second sentence does not contain contrasting information.
The research done on reminiscence was conflicting at times as early investigators favoured spaced practice to massed practice especially in verbal skills. However, recent studies have found that motor tasks did benefit from spaced distribution too.
Sometimes the semantic content of sentences provides no clue to either rhetorical or relational function. The following excerpt appears to be a string of unordered units of information:
(43102 1st yr Anthropology essay, non-native speaker)By allocating sentence or rhetorical functions and tracing the relationship of each successive sentence to at least one earlier sentence, we can draw up rhetorical structure maps of larger sections of text. Such maps provide visual representation of the network of relationships which make up the text. They also enable us to locate particular areas where signalling problems occur, as in Figure 1:
Their surpluses can be stored for long periods, and may be used in times of need or when a feast takes place. Social status can be influenced by crop abundance and the surplus stored. Tropical horticulturalists are increasingly growing commercial crops due to their interaction with industrialised societies.
The above figure presents a rhetorical structure map of the introduction to an Anthropology essay (see text excerpt in Appendix I). The progression of the information in this text seems comparatively unproblematic to the reader, until sentences 8-10. The rhetorical function of the last sentence seems best labelled as a JUSTIFICATION of the argument in sentence 8, but its linguistic form, nevertheless, signals CONTRAST with sentence 9, which, in turn, is an EXPANSION of sentence 7. A phrase such as At any rate or In any case would enable the reader to perceive the rhetorical function of sentence 10 more clearly. A further improvement would be for sentence 9 and 10 to precede sentence 8, with sentence 8 being introduced by "therefore":
Clustering of related information is more conducive to readability than its random distribution throughout the text. The following example demonstrates fragmentation of content clustering throughout an Anthropology essay:
The writer of this essay introduces the central topic of the essay, "marriage" (para.1). This is immediately followed by one case history (para. 2). The next seven paragraphs discuss general features, aspects, criteria and principles relevant to the concept of marriage. Then three paragraphs (10-12) provide further case studies, followed by a concluding paragraph (13), and, finally another case study. Such fragmentation of related information results in a lack of overall coherence and hinders the clear development of an argument.
As a result of such approaches, we are hoping to be able to develop a fairly comprehensive taxonomy of typical problem areas manifest in the student texts analysed in this study. We hope that such a taxonomy will be generalisable to other discipline areas.
Some further questions we hope to address are: How can we raise text awareness in student writers? What can we do to enable them to recognise that a coherent or readable text must hold together at the local level as well as at the global level? How can the student writer be made aware of the importance of rhetorical and relational functions and content clusters? How can the results of our research be made available to and usable by the discipline specialist? What strategies can be introduced to encourage discipline specialists to provide more comprehensive feedback on text level issues in student writing?
Even at this unfinished stage of our research we are convinced that, in order to answer any of the above questions, a great deal of collaboration has to develop between text analysts and discipline specialists. This was a major point raised at a recent Tertiary Literacy Conference in Melbourne and is an issue which calls for the attention of all tertiary teachers.
| 1st yr Anthropology Non-native Speaker | |
| 42101 - | Outline some of the sociological explanations which have been advanced for the existence of racism and apply the explanations you find most convincing to one particular society, e.g. Australia, South Africa, UK or USA. |
| INTRODUCTION para 1 | |
| 1. | I would like to start off with the definition of the question. INTRODUCE (definition) |
| 2. | To answer the question adequately it is necessary to understand the terms of racism and sociology. EXPAND 1 (Two terms to be defined) |
| 3. | According to Willis (1993:49), Racism is 'the belief that one's own race or ethnic group is superior to others [and] is the most common expression of ethnocentrism'. DEFINE Term 1 (Racism) |
| 4. | He (1993:19) defines Sociology as 'the study of human social behaviour at the individual level, and human societies at the group level. DEFINE Term 2 (Sociology) |
| 5. | In other words, 'sociology is concerned with the relationship between the individual and society' (Willis 1993:60). SUPPORT/PARAPHRASE 4 |
| 6. | Today, in a time of rapid changes in economy, politics and many other areas, it is essential to find a way to explain social phenomena, and sociology provides such a way. JUSTIFY 4 & 5 |
| 7. | There are three main theories about sociological explanation: the functionalist approach of Emile Durkheim (Willis 1993:93), the conflict theory of Karl Marx (p95) and the Interactionalism of Max Weber (p.99). EXPAND 4 & 5/INTRODUCE (Theories 1, 2, 3) |
| para 2 | |
| 8. | Due to the length of the essay, I will concentrate mainly on a functionalist explanation and a Marxist explanation of racism because of their distinctiveness. RESTRICT (Task to theories 1 & 2) |
| 9. | The Interactionalist approach of Weber is, regarding capitalism, very close to Marxism (Rex 1980:118) as he is in other ways close to Durkheim (Lecourt 1980:277). EXPAND 7/JUSTIFY 8 |
| 10. | Nevertheless, in contrast to Durkheim and Marx, Weber did not write extensively about racism and when he did only in a indirect way (1980:277). JUSTIFY 8 |
| RHETORICAL/RELATIONAL STRUCTURE LABELS AND DEFINITIONS (tentative list) | |
| AUGMENT | Provides an additional aspect or angle on previous information |
| BRIDGE | Provides a bridge between major sections of a text, eg: between introduction and description of experiment/methodology |
| CITE | Provides information about a researcher's contribution to field |
| CLASSIFY | Sets up classification of a number of items which are then typically listed |
| COMMENT | Presents extraneous information which is outside the main purpose of the text |
| COMPARE | Provides comparison with previous sentence/s |
| CONCEDE | Admits the possibility of an opposing view |
| CONCLUDE | Draws conclusion from earlier passage |
| CONSOLIDATE | Draws together several items to strengthen individual ones |
| CONTRAST | Provides information which contrasts with earlier concepts/statements/assertions |
| COUNTER | Provides evidence for counterargument to previous sentence/s |
| DEFINE | Provides definition of concepts and terms relevant to field of study/assignment |
| DESCRIBE | Describes concept in detail (perhaps in more detail than necessary in introduction) |
| EXEMPLIFY | Provides examples/instances of previously introduced concept/s or statement/s |
| EXPAND ON | Expands same information with more detail |
| INTRODUCE | Introduces field of study/experiment/terms/concepts |
| JUSTIFY | Justifies claim or state of affairs, provides evidence |
| LABEL | Names previously described concept, process or state: reverse of definition |
| LIST | Lists concepts previously introduced in classification |
| LOCALISE | Restricts in terms of location |
| NEUTRALISE DISTINCTION | Collapses distinctions made earlier |
| PARAPHRASE | States in different words information already presented |
| PREDICT | Refers to expected future event |
| QUALIFY | Restricts scope of previous statement |
| RECAPITULATE | Restates one or more earlier concepts by drawing together |
| (REFER TO) PURPOSE | Links purpose and condition in preceding and following sentence/s |
| REFINE | Makes information more specific and focused |
| RESTATE | Full or partial repetition of earlier sentence/phrase |
| RESTRICT | Links earlier general statement to a specific case |
| SPECIFY | Focuses on one member (hyponym) of a previously mentioned larger class |
| (STATE) CONDITION OF | States necessary condition to achieve previously mentioned result |
| (STATE) CONSEQUENCE OF | States result/consequence of previous concept/proposal/theories |
| SUBDIVIDE | Presents subdivision not necessarily requiring subsequent listing |
| SUPPORT | Provides supporting evidence for earlier argument |
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| Please cite as: Kaldor, S., Herriman, M. and Rochecouste, J. (1996). The academic teacher and the student writer: Raising textual awareness across disciplines. Different Approaches: Theory and Practice in Higher Education. Proceedings HERDSA Conference 1996. Perth, Western Australia, 8-12 July. http://www.herdsa.org.au/confs/1996/kaldor.html |