Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Educational Leadership, 2006. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-96).

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Student Preparedness for Academic Writing examines perceptions of student preparedness for academic writing in the first-year literary studies course, English 178, located in the English Department at Stellenbosch University. The research was conducted during 2011 and 2012 making use of a survey which was completed by the 2011 first-year English 178 class, and also utilising a series of interviews with students, tutors and lecturers in 2012. Preparedness for English 178 is framed in terms of Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of socially constructed habitus. In addition to the thought of Bourdieu the thesis draws on the writings of Peter Elbow, Arlene Archer and Pamela Nichols, among others, to analyse and frame the quantitative and qualitative information yielded by the study. The dissertation assesses multiple interlocking elements that comprise student preparedness and finds striking discrepancy between student perception of their preparedness and that of the lecturers and tutors. While tutors, lecturers and the report of the National Benchmark Test all suggest that at least half of all first-year students are poorly prepared for academic writing, only about 21% of students perceive themselves to be poorly prepared. Possible reasons for the difference in views between students and other sources are explored. The thesis concludes by asking if the English 178 course at Stellenbosch University truly tests the students’ academic writing abilities and if the course is balancing its “obligations to students [with the]… obligation[s] to knowledge and society” (Elbow 327). / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie verhandeling ondersoek persepsies van studentevoorbereidheid vir akademiese skryf in die eerstejaars-letterkundekursus, Engels 178, gesetel in die Departement Engels aan die Universiteit Stellenbosch. Die navorsing is gedurende 2011 en 2012 gedoen deur gebruik te maak van ’n vraelys wat deur 2011 se Engels 178-eerstejaarsklas voltooi is, asook van ’n reeks onderhoude met studente, tutors en lektore in 2012. In hierdie verhandeling word voorbereidheid vir Engels 178 in terme van Pierre Bourdieu se konsep van sosiaal gekonstrueerde habitus beskryf. Benewens Bourdieu se denke word daar ook na die werke van onder andere Peter Elbow, Arlene Archer en Pamela Nichols verwys om die kwalitatiewe en kwantitatiewe inligting wat uit die studie voortgekom het, te ontleed en te situeer. Die verhandeling assesseer die veelvuldige ineengeskakelde elemente wat studentevoorbereidheid omvat, en bevind ’n opvallende teenstrydigheid tussen studente se persepsie van hulle eie voorbereidheid en lektore en tutors se persepsie van studente se voorbereidheid. Terwyl tutors en lektore se ervaring en die Nasionale Normtoetsverslag alles daarop wys dat ten minste die helfte van alle eerstejaarstudente swak voorbereid is vir akademiese skryf, beskou slegs ongeveer 21% van studente hulself as swak voorbereid. Moontlike redes vir die verskil in beskouings tussen studente en ander bronne word ondersoek. Die verhandeling sluit af met die vraag of die Engels 178-kursus aan die Universiteit Stellenbosch werklik studente se akademiese skryfvaardighede toets, en of die kursus wel ’n ewewig handhaaf tussen verpligtinge teenoor studente en ’n verantwoordelikheid teenoor kennis en die samelewing (Elbow 327).

Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Linguistics)

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / In this study an attempt was made to explore the challenges with regard to publications experienced by academic women at three selected Historically Black Universities (HBUs). Although based predominantly within a feminist qualitative metholodogical framework, both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used in this study. Based on the findings of the study, the recommendations illustrated participants' responses. Some of the recommendations illustrated participants' expressed need of staff development with a specific focus on training in publication skills; mentoring and support networks; assistance and support for their publishing venture at both institutional and departmental level and the development of strategies that would assist academic women in 'juggling' their personal and academic roles. / South Africa

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:07:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MariaASM_DISSERT.pdf: 1460778 bytes, checksum: 50433adcded0c09e79ffdf9aaac62167 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-12-16 / Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte / Esta disserta??o, cujo t?tulo ? Efeitos de sentido das n?o coincid?ncias do dizer na escrita acad?mica , originou-se de estudos e reflex?es desenvolvidos no interior do Grupo de Pesquisa em Estudos do Texto e do Discurso Departamento de Letras da UFRN. A escolha da tem?tica da pesquisa surgiu a partir de trabalhos desenvolvidos pelo grupo, motivada por estudos realizados por Fabiano (2004; 2007). Tais estudos problematizam quest?es relativas ? escrita como produ??o de conhecimento na universidade e t?m como base te?rica a An?lise do Discurso de linha francesa. Nesta pesquisa, partimos dos conceitos de heterogeneidade enunciativa de Authier-Revuz (1990; 1998; 2004; 2011) no que concerne ? heterogeneidade constitutiva e ? heterogeneidade mostrada, marcada e n?o marcada na materialidade lingu?stica do enunciado, representada linguisticamente por express?es em que o enunciador se desdobra em dois, um que diz e outro que se pronuncia de algum modo sobre esse dizer, produzindo formas lingu?sticas inventari?veis , reveladoras da reflexividade em torno da pr?pria enuncia??o. Trata-se de momentos pontuais do enunciado nos quais, normalmente, uma comunica??o transparente d? lugar ao outro na materialidade do texto, faz revelar a n?o coincid?ncia do dizer, princ?pio constitutivo de todo discurso. Nesse contexto, nos interrogamos: como um pesquisador em forma??o se relaciona com a teoria ao mobilizar um conceito de ?rea e coloca-lo em funcionamento? O objetivo geral desta pesquisa ? analisar marcas lingu?sticas que indiciem como um sujeito em forma??o se relaciona com a(s) teoria(s). Os objetivos espec?ficos s?o: a) verificar, por meio da an?lise de express?es lingu?sticas, o modo como o pesquisador interpreta conceitos bakhtinianos, organizando-os e reformulando-os em seu texto; e b) analisar como um conceito de ?rea ? mobilizado nos dados. O corpus ? constitu?do por um conjunto de dez disserta??es de mestrado da ?rea de Lingu?stica que abordam conceitos bakhtinianos, defendidas no per?odo de 2001 a 2009, em diferentes universidades do pa?s, dispon?veis no Portal de Dom?nio P?blico CAPES. Das dez disserta??es, selecionamos tr?s para compor o recorte metodol?gico, as quais s?o assim identificadas: D1 2001; D2 2006; D3 2008, das quais foram retirados excertos para as an?lises dos dados. A hip?tese ? que, ao mobilizar um conceito te?rico, o pesquisador se utiliza de procedimentos lingu?sticos nos quais ? poss?vel identificar marcas lingu?sticas que podem demonstrar a rela??o que ele estabelece com as leituras realizadas ao longo de sua forma??o. Essas express?es lingu?sticas inventari?veis revelam, no fio do dizer, a lida do sujeito com o legado cultural que o precedeu

FundaÃÃo Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Cientifico e TecnolÃgico / This thesis investigates, from a rhetoric-contrastive perspective, the uses and functions of rhetoric mitigation metadiscursive marks (here hedging devices) in research articles produced by Brazilian and German authors and understood as specialized texts (HOFFMANN, 1998), inserted in the expert-expert communicative context (PEARSON, 1998). To achieve this goal, the present study aims at answering the following questions: (a) how often are hedging strategies employed in the introduction and conclusion sections? (b) what is the relationship between the number of hedges in each subcorpus and the rhetorical characteristics of each analyzed section? (c) how often do the lexico-grammatical items performing the role of hedges appear in each subcorpus? The starting point for the investigation was the assumption that texts belonging to the same genre but written in different languages present striking rhetorical distinctions. Such differences in academic writing can be described by the use of hedges as discourse-pragmatic elements which characterize the "modus dicendi" of a given knowledge area; in the present case, Medicine. A corpus of 120 research articles from national and international medical journals was built, including texts written in German and Portuguese; the articles were collected from the CAPES periodics website. This corpus consists of 60 Medicine articles written in Portuguese and 60 articles written in German, divided into two subcorpora, namely, Corpus 1: Medicine-German and Corpus 2 : Medicine-Portuguese. The former is made of two subcorpora, (i) German Medicine Introduction (MAI) and (ii) German Medicine Discussion (MAD); the latter is also subdivided into two parts, (i) Portuguese Medicine Introduction (MPI) and (ii) Portuguese Medicine Discussion (MPD). The data were analyzed and processed in accordance with the Corpus Linguistics methodological principles, in an instrumental application of its methods. The data were treated with the help of a linguistic analysis software called WordSmith Tools (SCOTT, 1997), version 3.0, especially the Wordlist and Concord tools. In order to investigate and analyze the uses and functions of the hedges, from the Interactional Metadiscourse (HYLAND, 2005) and Intercultural Rhetoric (CONNOR, 2008) perspectives, given the corpora collected, we have proposed a classification model, in accordance with the taxonomies proposed by Hyland (2005), Cabrera (2004) and MartÃn-MartÃn (2008). The results of the analysis have pointed to the occurrence of a largest number of hedges, in both languages, in the discussion section of the articles, followed by the introduction section. Both present a high number of occurrences of indetermination devices (epistemic expressions, such as modal verbs, lexical verbs, semi-auxiliary verbs, and modal adjectives / adverbs) and disagentivization (impersonal expressions, passive voice).We can therefore conclude that the authors of the Medicine research articles, both those in Portuguese and in German, employ the same amount of hedges in order to achieve the communicative purposes of the research paper genre, given the position the authors occupy in the academic community and the interpersonal relationship they wish to establish with the audience. This research contributes to minimize the gap in the studies on hedging under a contrastive perspective, based on corpora of scholarly texts in Portuguese and German in the Medicine area. / Esta tese investiga sob uma perspectiva retÃrico-contrastiva, os usos e as funÃÃes das marcas metadiscursivas de atenuaÃÃo retÃrica (hedges), em artigos de pesquisa, considerados, aqui, textos especializados (HOFFMANN, 1998), pertencentes ao contexto comunicativo: especialista-especialista (PEARSON, 1998), produzidos por autores (as) brasileiros (as) e alemÃes (as). Para cumprir tal objetivo, a pesquisa intenciona responder aos seguintes questionamentos: (a) qual a freqÃÃncia das estratÃgias de atenuaÃÃo retÃrica utilizadas nas seÃÃes introduÃÃo e conclusÃo? (b) qual a relaÃÃo existente entre o nÃmero de marcas metadiscursivas de atenuaÃÃo retÃrica em cada subcorpus e as caracterÃsticas retÃricas de cada seÃÃo em anÃlise? (c) qual a freqÃÃncia dos itens lÃxico-gramaticais que realizam as marcas metadiscursivas de atenuaÃÃo retÃrica em cada subcorpus. Para tanto, parte-se do pressuposto de que textos pertencentes a um mesmo gÃnero discursivo, porÃm escritos em lÃnguas distintas apresentam diferenÃas retÃricas marcantes. Tais diferenÃas no discurso acadÃmico escrito podem ser descritas pelo uso das marcas de atenuaÃÃo retÃrica como elemento discursivo-pragmÃtico caracterizador de um âmodus dicendiâ de uma determinada Ãrea do conhecimento, no caso, a Medicina. Para a investigaÃÃo dessas marcas de atenuaÃÃo, selecionamos um corpus composto por 120 artigos de pesquisa em Medicina de periÃdicos nacionais e internacionais, coletados, no site de periÃdicos da CAPES, escritos em lÃngua alemà e em lÃngua portuguesa. O referido corpus de estudo compÃe-se de: 60 artigos em Medicina escritos em portuguÃs e 60 artigos escritos em lÃngua alemÃ, divididos em dois subcorpora, a saber, Corpus 1- Medicina AlemÃo, composto por dois subcorpora: (i) Medicina AlemÃo IntroduÃÃo (MAI) e (ii) Medicina-AlemÃo DiscussÃo (MAD) , Corpus 2- Medicina PortuguÃs, com dois subcorpora: (i) Medicina PortuguÃs IntroduÃÃo (MPI) e (ii) Medicina PortuguÃs DiscussÃo (MPD). Na anÃlise e tratamento dos dados, utilizamos os princÃpios metodolÃgicos da LingÃÃstica de Corpus, aplicando seu carÃter instrumental. Para avaliar os dados dessa pesquisa, utilizamos o programa computacional de anÃlise lingÃÃstica, WordSmith Tools (SCOTT, 1997), versÃo 3.0, as ferramentas Wordlist e o Concord. Para investigar e analisar os usos e as funÃÃes das marcas metadiscursivas de atenuaÃÃo, sob uma perspectiva do Metadiscurso Interacional (HYLAND, 2005) e da RetÃrica Intercultural (CONNOR, 2008), tendo em vista os corpora em anÃlise, propomos um modelo classificatÃrio, em conformidade com as taxonomias propostas por Hyland (2005), Cabrera (2004) e MartÃn-MartÃn (2008). Conforme os resultados, a seÃÃo de discussÃo concentra o maior nÃmero de ocorrÃncias das marcas de atenuaÃÃo retÃrica nas duas lÃnguas, seguida da seÃÃo de introduÃÃo. Ambas apresentam um elevado nÃmero de ocorrÃncias das estratÃgias de indeterminaÃÃo (as expressÃes epistÃmicas, como verbos modais, lexicais, semi-auxiliares) e os adjetivos/advÃrbios modais,) e desagentivaÃÃo (as expressÃes impessoais, voz passiva). A partir desses resultados, conclui-se que os autores tanto em portuguÃs como em alemÃo nos artigos de pesquisa na Medicina fazem uso na mesma proporÃÃo de estratÃgias de atenuaÃÃo para atender aos propÃsitos comunicativos do gÃnero textual-artigo de pesquisa, como tambÃm pela posiÃÃo que ocupam na comunidade acadÃmica e pela relaÃÃo interpessoal que desejam estabelecer com a audiÃncia. Essa pesquisa contribui para minimizar a lacuna existente com relaÃÃo aos estudos sÃcio-retÃricos das marcas metadiscursivas de atenuaÃÃo, sob uma perspectiva contrastiva, em corpora escritos em portuguÃs e alemÃo de artigos acadÃmicos na Medicina.

Previous comparative studies of usage of contrast markers have found that Swedish non-native speakers of English underuse and overuse different individual items compared to native speakers. This paper compares the use of the contrast markers however, nevertheless/nonetheless, yet and still in essays in linguistics to determine how and why they might be used differently. Essays are taken from the Stockholm University Student English Corpus and are equally represented by examples from King’s College and Stockholm University. Random samples are analyzed for type of contrast signalled and repeated collocational patterns. The findings show that the Swedish students underuse however and overuse nevertheless/nonetheless, yet and still in signalling concessive relationships. The research suggests that the Swedish students have a weaker grasp of prototypical frequency of usage than native speakers, which may result from native language transfer. It is argued that it would be beneficial for Swedish learners of English, and by extension other L2 learners, to improve awareness of constructing effective contrastive relationships.

This master’s essay presents a study designed to investigate twelve police students’ability to handle academic writing conventions and to show critical-analyticalcompetence in their degree projects, which are written as part of the education atSweden’s three police academies. The education of police officers is not an academicone, and the students’ main focus is therefore on writing texts in the field of policediscourse. At the same time, scientific principles and critical thinking are emphasized intheir syllabus, but the question of how students handle the encounter with academicdiscourse has so far not been investigated. This, therefore, is the aim of the presentstudy. The texts have been analyzed according to the academic writing conventions ofreferencing, citation, hedging and boosting. By studying how these conventions areapplied, the writers’ stances become visible, which makes it possible to discern in whatways they remain critical-analytical to person, theory and content. The study shows thatpolice students can handle academic writing conventions to varying degrees, whichmeans that their texts differ in how well they function in an academic context. The factthat they do not fully master these conventions also makes it more difficult for thestudents to signal a critical stance, and only occasionally does their critical-analyticalcompetence show. The difficulties displayed by the police students can thus be viewedas general within the field of academic discourse. At the same time, the study showsthat the students do acquire a certain competence in textual as well as writingconventions, which they are able to transfer from police discourse. This, in turn,constitutes the didactic consequence of the study. If this were to be brought up as part ofthe educational program, the writing of a degree project might raise police students’awareness of different genres and further develop the competence necessary in theirprofession.

Esta dissertação teve por objetivo estudar o desenvolvimento das capacidades de linguagem ligadas à escrita acadêmica em francês dos alunos da graduação em Letras (habilitação em língua francesa) ao longo de um semestre, por meio da análise de suas produções textuais. Para tal, tivemos como objetivos específicos a produção do modelo didático (SCHNEUWLY; DOLZ, 2004) do gênero textual artigo científico em francês da área de estudos literários e, a partir dele, a elaboração de uma sequência didática (SCHNEUWLY; DOLZ, 2004) visando a ensinar as características do gênero textual em questão para os alunos inscritos na disciplina de graduação Monografia. Com vistas a entender de que forma a atuação do professor, no momento da aplicação da sequência didática (SD), contribui para o desenvolvimento das capacidades de linguagem dos alunos, as aulas da SD foram filmadas e transcritas. Além disso, analisamos a influência dos comentários realizados pela professora-pesquisadora às primeiras versões dos artigos no desenvolvimento das capacidades de linguagem dos alunos. Para desenvolver nossa pesquisa, adotamos o quadro teórico-metodológico do interacionismo sociodiscursivo (ISD) (BRONCKART, 1999/2012, SCHNEUWLY; DOLZ, 2004 e MACHADO, 2009), que tem suas bases nos estudos de Vigotski (1998; 1997; 2010; 2011; 2013) sobre o desenvolvimento humano. Servimo-nos dos conceitos de instrumento e zona de desenvolvimento proximal (VIGOTSKI, 1997; 2010; 2011; 2013) para entender o desenvolvimento das capacidades de linguagem dos alunos; de modelo didático (DI PIETRO et al., 2004) e sequência didática (DOLZ; NOVERRAZ; SCHNEUWLY, 2004) para realizar a didatização do gênero textual; de gestos didáticos (SCHNEUWLY, 2009) para compreender como se deu a atuação da professora na aplicação da sequência didática. Apoiamo-nos, igualmente, em alguns estudos ligados à escrita acadêmica e às dificuldades de escrita encontradas pelos universitários e pós-graduandos. Para tanto, usamos a noção proposta por Bazerman (2009; 2013) de que os gêneros textuais funcionam como frames para o desenvolvimento de tipos de pensamentos ligados às disciplinas; e, com base nas categorias de análise do ISD e nas pesquisas realizadas por Matencio (2003) e Pollet (2004) sobre as dificuldades de produção textual encontradas em textos de universitários e pós-graduandos quanto à inserção de vozes de outros autores, elaboramos as categorias de retextualização para realizar as análises dos textos produzidos pelos alunos. As produções dos alunos foram analisadas, primeiramente, de acordo com o modelo da arquitetura textual (BRONCKART, 1999/2012; 2006) para verificar se houve desenvolvimento das capacidades de linguagem e se ele poderia ser atribuído à sequência didática, à atuação da professora e/ou ao comentário da professora-pesquisadora. Em nossas análises, pudemos constatar que houve desenvolvimento das capacidades de linguagem dos alunos ao longo do semestre, especialmente, das capacidades de ação e discursivas, sendo grande parte desse desenvolvimento ligado às atividades dos módulos da sequência didática, aos gestos didáticos regulação local e institucionalização usados pela professora ao aplicar a sequência didática e ao comentário da professora-pesquisadora. / This dissertations goal was to study the development of language capacities of Language Studies undergraduate students related to academic writing in French throughout a semester by analyzing their written works. To this end, our specific objective was to create a didactic model (SCHNEUWLY; DOLZ, 2004) of the textual genre academic paper in French at the department of literature studies in order to elaborate a didactic sequence (SCHNEUWLY; DOLZ, 2004) aiming at teaching the characteristics of that textual genre to the students enrolled in the course Monografia. Aiming at understanding how the teachers performance contributes to the development of the students language capacities when applying the didactic sequence (DS), the classes were recorded and transcribed. Furthermore, we analyzed the influence of the remarks given by the researcher-teacher to the first versions of the papers in the development of the students language capacities. In order to develop our research, we adopted the socio-discursive interactionism (SDI) theoretical and methodological framework (BRONCKART, 1999/2012, SCHNEUWLY; DOLZ, 2004 e MACHADO, 2009), which is rooted in Vigotskis (1998; 1997; 2010; 2011; 2013) studies on human development. We employed the concepts of instrument and zone of proximal development (VIGOTSKI, 1997; 2010; 2011; 2013) to understand the development of the students language capacities; of didactic model (DI PIETRO et al., 2004) and didactic sequence (DOLZ; NOVERRAZ; SCHNEUWLY, 2004) to accomplish the didactization of the textual genre; and of fundamental teaching gestures (SCHNEUWLY, 2009) to comprehend how the teachers performance in the application of the didactic sequence took place. We also rely on studies related to academic writing and writing difficulties experienced by undergraduate and graduate students. To do so, we used the idea proposed by Bazerman (2009; 2013) that the textual genres work as frames to develop the kinds of thoughts related to the courses; and based on the SDI analyses categories and on the research accomplished by Matencio (2003) e Pollet (2004) about the difficulties of writing experienced by undergraduate and graduate students regarding the insertion of other authors voices, we elaborated categories of retextualization to accomplish the analysis of the students texts. The students texts were first analyzed according to the textual architecture model (BRONCKART, 1999/2012; 2006) in order to verify if there was development of the language capacities and if it could be attributed to the didactic sequence, to the teachers performance and/or to the remarks given by the researcher-teacher. In our analysis we could observe the development of the students language capacities throughout the semester, specially of the action and discursive capacities, a great part of which connected to the didactic sequence activities, to the fundamental teaching gestures of local regulation and institutionalization used by the teacher when applying the didactic sequence and to the researcher-teacher remarks.

This research identifies what proficient writers know and do by the end of their freshman year in college and raises the kind of questions that improve the articulation of English instruction.