VERB TENSES A N D H E D G IN G IN PUBLISHED A N D UNPUBLISHED APPLIED LINGUISTICS RESEARCH PAPER ABSTR ACTS
INTRODUCTION
A bstracts are short summaries of longer academ ic papers. They include references to the research topic, aims and methods, and often also indicate previous research, own results and conclusions. It is im portant how these pieces of information are constructed linguistically to ensure clarity and unambiguity, to show the author’s intentions and to indicate the certainty of their assertions. Lores (2004, p. 281) concludes that “there seems to be general agreem ent on three w ays in which research abstracts differ from RAs [research articles]. They differ in their function, in their rhetoric structures and in their linguistic realizations”. In the last forty y e ars m any researchers have analyzed the structural and linguistic contents of RAs and other published or unpublished academ ic papers. Studies which have compared papers across disciplines have pointed to some universality, but m ainly discovered discipline-specific rhetorical features (e.g., Pho, 2008; S an & Tan, 2012;
Stotesbury, 2003).
Due to this specificity it is difficult to compare results based on corpora draw n from different fields, journals, authors and languages. R elatively few studies have analyzed research article abstracts (RAAs) in applied linguistics and less is known about the differences between abstracts w ritten b y expert and novice w riters. Ac
cording to the APA m anual, a research article abstract w hich is “accurate, succinct,
q u ic k ly com prehensible, an d inform ative w ill increase the audience and the future re trie v ab ility ” of an article (APA, 2003, p. 15). G ate-keeping bodies, such as ed i
tors, review ers, conference organizers, m ay decide on the dissem ination o f a re search pro ject b ased on a q u ick screening of th e ab stract, an d published articles also find th eir read ers thro ugh the ab stracts th a t are often open-access even w hen the articles them selves are not. It m ay be arg u e d th at thesis ab stracts serve a differ
ent purpose as th e y do not ex ist in d ep en d en tly from the m ain text, an d th eir au d i
ence is restricted to the sup ervisors an d in-house review ers. N evertheless, students a re expected to follow academ ic conventions an d sum m arize th eir thesis in an ab stract sim ilar to those o f published pap ers. As K outsantoni (2006) rig h tly points out, R A A s an d thesis ab stracts m ay be co nsidered tw o sim ilar b ut d istin ct genres, esp ecially due to the status of the authors in the academ ic discourse com m unity of th e ir fields. S h e also backs up this proposition b y show ing the p ow er asym m etry betw een student w rite rs an d supervisors.
H ow ever, I w o u ld argu e th at a sim ilar k in d o f pow er asym m etry exists betw een auth ors o f RA s w ho w ish to publish an d the editors or independent review ers w ho m ay reject th eir pap ers. I b elieve th at ab stract w ritin g is a m argin al p art o f academ ic w ritin g instruction at all levels, an d both novice and experienced w rite rs learn it im p licitly w h ile th e y re ad published articles. I assum e th at most authors p a y less attention to ab stracts com pared to oth er sections, an d th at ab stract w ritin g rem ains the last step, often done w ith hustle due to final deadlines. For these reasons ab stracts a re good indicators of au th o rs’ ta rg e t lan guage academ ic w ritin g skills and th e ir a b ility to see an d sum m arize the k e y points of th eir pap ers b y follow ing rh eto rical an d lin gu istic conventions (D oro, 2 0 1 3 a). S tu d en t w rite rs a re expected to follow these conventions in a ll sections of th e ir pap ers, even w h en th e ir w ritin g reaches a v e ry sm all audien ce an d th eir experience as research ers an d as academ ic te x t producers is v e ry lim ited an d often insufficient. F or the reasons m entioned above, I b elieve th at these tw o ab stract gen res are close enough to be com parable an d their system atic review m ay shed ligh t on the sim ilarities an d differences in the lin gu istic realizatio n of ab stracts w ritten b y professional an d student w rite rs. A p
p lied lin guistics p ap ers have not been w id e ly studied from this point of view , an d a com parison of published pap ers an d u n d ergrad u ate E F L theses is hoped to serve as basis for a more ex p licit academ ic w ritin g instruction of abstracts.
BACKGROUND
The n ext sections provide an overview o f the literatu re concerning the follow ing areas: (a ) gen res ch aracteristics o f ab stracts an d the differences betw een R A A s and thesis ab stracts, (b) verb tense usage in R A s an d (c) hedging in academ ic discourse.
A bstracts serve an im portant role in academ ic discourse and are considered a distinct genre. Studies such as S w ales (1990) an d A skehave and S w ales (2001) point out th at genre an alysis should include both bottom-up (text based) and top- down (discourse com m unity practices, values, beliefs based) identifications. Based on their inform ation content, structure and com m unicative purpose, tw o m ain typ es of abstracts are distinguishable, nam ely descriptive an d inform ative (M artin M artin , 2005). The second one is more detailed and provides inform ation also about the results, outcomes an d conclusions of studies. The rhetoric structure of research articles an d abstracts has been b ro ad ly studied in the past. In 1981, M alcolm S w ales designed the so called C reate a R esearch Space (C A R S ) model w hich consists of the following m ain moves: establishing the territory, establishing the niche and occupying the niche (S w ales, 1990). This C A R S model has been applied b y a large num ber of studies to investigate the rhetoric structure of RA introductions (e.g., H irano, 2009; O zturk, 2007; Sam raj 2002, 2005; Sheldon, 2011). A part from research on the introduction sections, attention has also been p aid to the an alysis of R A abstracts. Santos (1996) created a model for RAA, w hich includes the following five moves: situating the research, presenting the research, describing m ethodology, sum m arizing the findings, and fin ally discussing the findings. This five-step model has form ed the basis for the an alysis of move structures of both published RAA s an d theses w ritten b y student w riters (e.g., Doro, 2013a, 2013b; Lon, Tan & Abdullah, 2012; Pho, 2008; Tseng, 2011). A sim ilar fram ew ork, referred to as the IM R D or IM R aD , has also been used b y researchers (e.g., Bhatia, 1993; Lores, 2004; Serholt, 2012; Sw ales, 1990). These acronym s stand for the introduction, methods, result and discussion sections of abstracts. The C A R S and IM R D fram ew orks are alm ost identical, but the first two moves in the C A R S model are com bined in the IM R D fram ew ork; this ensures the co m parability of research conclusions of studies th at use either of the two models or a n y of th eir m odified versions. Lores (2004) an alyzed abstracts published in applied linguistics journals and com pared the them atic distribution of moves according to both the IM R D an d the C A R S models. She found th at 61% of the abstracts followed the IM R D model, 30.5% resem bled the C A R S structure an d 8%
of them a com bination of the two.
S everal studies have pointed out the v ariab ility in the num ber of moves and the order of these moves em ployed in RAAs. Not all moves are obligatory, but w hen major moves (aim s, methods and results) are m issing, the reader m ay feel that the abstract is incom plete or less inform ative. In an earlier study (Doro, 2013a) I com pared BA -level thesis abstracts (BTA s) w ritten on applied linguistics, literature and culture topics. W h ile some kind of reference w as given to the research topic in all the theses abstracts and m ethodology w as introduced in at least 90% of the papers in the three sub-corpora, move 4 (findings) show ed a significant difference between linguistic an d non-linguistic theses. This m eans that results w ere not sum m arized in more than half of the literature, culture and history theses, w hile
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Abstract,) and their structure
90% of the authors of linguistics papers felt the need to indicate results in their abstract. The non-obligatoiy nature of referring to the findings in abstracts has also been reported in other studies (e.g., Doro, 2013b; Lon et al., 2012; Lores, 2004;
Santos, 1996).
Verb tenses in academ ic research papers
Com pared to the boom in the move structure an alysis of research articles, much less has been system atically review ed in term s of the verb tense usage in research papers, an d most of these an alyses concentrated on a lim ited num ber of science a r
ticles. M alcolm (1987) review ed studies from the 1970s and 1980s that point to the functional use of tenses in academ ic discourse. He highlights that the choice of tenses, on the one hand, reflects the genre traditions and, on the other hand, the rhetorical choices of authors to express their intentions. M oreover, he cites exam ples of o b lig ato iy and optional constraints of tense usage in various p arts and sec
tions of a paper. For exam ple, references to past research are done in present sim
ple, present perfect or sim ple past, w h ile methods and results are explained either in the present or in the past. R esearch m anuals often provide clear guideline as to w hich tenses and aspects should be used for certain sections or purposes. N ever
theless, th ey often fail to discuss the flex ib ility of tense usage found in research a r
ticles. For exam ple, the fifth edition of the APA m anual suggests the following:
Use verbs rather than their noun equivalents and the active rather than the passive voice. Use the present tense to discuss results with continu
ing applicability or conclusions drawn; use the past tense to describe specific variables manipulated or tests applied (pp. 12-13).
S alag e r-M e ye r (1992) pointed to a close relationship betw een rhetorical functions (moves) and finite verb forms an d m odals used in m edical RAA s. He reported that the three most common tenses (sim ple present, past and present perfect) m ade up 89.8% of all finite verbs. W ithin these, p ast dom inated w ith 51.4%, w hile the present constituted one-third of all verbs (32.8% ). The purpose, methods, results an d case presentation sections used m ain ly the past tense, w hile gen eral truth, in
troductory notes, conclusions, recom m endations and data synthesis w ere predom i
nan tly referred to in the present. The present perfect w as used to refer to previous research. Tseng (2011) an alyzed 90 app lied linguistic abstracts and concluded that the present tense w as app lied m ain ly to present the background, aim s and conclu
sions, w hile the past tense w as used to discuss the m ethodology an d results. This is in line w ith the results of the S alag e r-M e ye r (1992) study. Tseng also reported some variation across the three journals he used. Authors accepted for Applied L in
gu istics referred to th eir methods and results more often in the present than in the past. W hile an alyzin g differences betw een native and non-native E nglish speaking
first authors, Tseng concluded th at native speakers used the present tense more for aim s and results than did non-natives.
L i an d Ge (2009) review ed the stru ctu ral an d linguistic changes in m edical a rti
cles in a 2 0 -year tim e span and found that the frequen cy of tenses in the various sections of articles h ad sign ifican tly changed. The overall frequen cy of the four most frequent tenses had not changed much, but their roles had shifted. Sim ple past in creased in the presentation of new research, w h ile the use of sim ple present increased in the discussion sections.
In a recent study de W aard and P ander M aat (2012) exam ined how readers classify statem ents taken from various sections of biology research articles (prob
lems, hypothesis, methods, results an d im plications). T heir aim w as to see w h at happens if verb tenses are m odified in these sentences. T heir results dem onstrate th at verb forms serve as m arkers of intention and segm ent types of research pa
pers, and b y changing verb tenses the read er m ay classify the sam e sentence differ
ently. For exam ple, fact statem ents and hypotheses used w ith the past tense are in
terpreted as results. R esult sections, in contrast, are understood b y and large as re
sults either in the present or in the past. The authors of this study found that modal au xiliaries also have a crucial role, as hypothesis-type statem ents w ithout m odals are understood as facts or results, w h ereas results w ith m odal au x iliaries m ay be interpreted as hypotheses or w eak statem ents.
Hedging in academ ic ducourje
W h ile academ ic w ritin g is often referred to as im personal and objective, esp ecially w hen it reports on facts an d results, research papers go beyond the m ere recitation of definitions or gen eral truths. A uthors an alyze previous research and interpret th eir own results. W h ile doing so th e y take personal respon sibility for th eir claim s, show th eir attitudes or the strength of their claim s. H ylan d (1994, p. 240) states th at “effective academ ic w ritin g ac tu ally depends on interactional elem ents w hich supplem ent propositional inform ation in the text and alert readers to the w rite r’s opinion”. This does not m ean a h ig h ly individual or subjective voice, but is treated as a n atu ral p art of academ ic w ritin g. A uthors provide tentative an alyses through the use of epistem ic m odality which refer to their (lack of) confidence in their propositions. The degree of confidence is most often expressed through hedges (e.g., JuggeJt, Jeern to, Likely) and boosters (e.g., àtrongly, clearly ). H edges are one form of m etadiscourse th at authors use to m odify their argum ents in accordance w ith the needs and expectation of possible readers (H yland, 2004). Indeed, hedges have been found to be the m ost frequent catego ry of m etadiscourse in a large corpus of doctoral and m asters level dissertations (H yland, 2000). H ylan d (1996a, 1996b, 2000) w arn s us th at the usage o f hedges is troublesom e for most authors, esp ecially non-native researchers, w ho do not c le a rly feel the m eaning and function of hedges or boosters. He states the following:
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Effective academic writing always carries the individual's point of view.
Writers also need to present their claims cautiously, accurately and modestly to meet discourse community expectations and to gain accep
tance for their statements. Such pragmatic aspects of communication however are vulnerable to cross-cultural differences and L2 students are rarely able to hedge their statements appropriately. (2000, p. 477)
M ilton an d H ylan d (1999) com pared native and non-native students' essays w ritten in E nglish and concluded that non-natives used epistem ic modifiers (such as usu ally, actu ally, m ay) less often and th at 75% of such w ords w ere restricted to the ten most often occurring ones. On the contrary, Koutsantoni (2006), w hile an alyzin g engineering journal articles and theses, found that student w riters hedge more often than experienced authors, but also docum ented th at students use different typ es of an d a more restricted repertoire of hedges. A bdollahzadeh (2011) com pared the conclusion sections of applied linguistic RAs published in English by native and non-native, Iranian researchers. He pointed to a “rem arkable tendency b y both w rite r groups tow ards hedging their propositions” (p. 288), but found no significant differences in the overall num ber of hedges betw een the two groups.
N evertheless, the Iranian researchers used few er attitude m arkers (e.g., I fee l it it even more im portant, it Li interesting) and em phatics (e.g., certainly, tru ly ). He concluded th at the “differences are attrib uted to the degree of rhetorical sensitivity to an d aw areness of audience, purpose, cultural leanings, and the proclivities of the d iscip lin ary gen re” (p. 288). V ariab ility in the review ed research results are p artly due to the categorization problem s of m etadiscourse m arkers, the proficiency level of the authors, an d the section of articles under review in the different studies.
A nother im portant reason could be the fact that most studies concentrate on predeterm ined fists of m arkers (e.g., H yland, 2000, 2010; Serholt, 2012), w hile others do a m anual search of th eir corpora and include all signs of hedges or boosters (e.g., Abdollahzadeh, 2011).
THE STUDY
Research questions
B ased on the literature review ed above the following m ain research questions w ere formulated:
1. W h at is the proportion of finite verb tenses used in published and unpublished app lied linguistics research p ap ers?
2. W hat are the hedges used in these abstracts and w h at is the frequency of their occurrence?
3. A re there significant differences betw een applied linguistics research article abstracts an d B A thesis abstracts in term s of verb tenses an d hedging?
Corpus and methods
For this stu d y E nglish studies B A level theses, w ritten an d defended b y students at a larg e H u n garian u n iv ersity in the y e a r s 2011 an d 2012, w ere considered. Sin ce a previous stu d y u sin g these papers (D oro, 20 13 a) found results sim ilar to those voiced b y other authors, n am ely th a t m ark ed differences exist betw een research p ap ers w ritten in various disciplines, o n ly one field o f studies w as chosen. A pplied lin gu istics p ap er ab stracts w ere found to ad h ere m ore to the rhetoric structures and lin gu istic conventions of research p ap ers than theses w ritten in other fields (D oro, 2013a) an d show ed the m ost consistency, therefore th e y w ere chosen to be the ones used in p arallel w ith published R A A s. The first corpus for this stu d y consists o f 30 ap p lied lin gu istics B A thesis ab stracts an d the second one o f 30 R A A s. The 30 student p ap ers cover the m ajo rity o f theses w ritten on vario u s ap p lied lin gu istic topics in these tw o academ ic y e a rs . The R A s w ere p ub lish ed in 2012 an d ran dom ly retriev ed from th ree jo u rn als (Applied L in guistics, Jo u rn al of Second Language W riting an d System ). A ll three are p eer review ed an d prestigious, b ut cover slig h tly different topics an d include different authors. These selection c riteria resu lted in a thesis corpus (referred to as BTA) of 6,046 w o rd s an d a R A ab stract corpus (referred to as R A A ) o f 5,333 w ords. This shows that, on av erage, the student ab stracts are slig h tly longer. A ll student authors used E nglish as a foreign lan guage an d w rote th eir p ap ers as a final step for the com pletion of their 3 -y e ar B A E nglish studies. A s the native/non-native dichotom y w as not the ta rg e t of this research , it w as not a selection criterio n, although m ost of the published articles have at least one non-native author.
The tw o corpora w ere first m an u a lly screened for finite verb phrases an d w ere catego rized in the follow ing tense an d aspect com binations: present sim ple, p ast sim ple, present perfect, p ast perfect, present continuous, p ast continuous an d fu
tu re w ill. C ases o f u n u su al or infrequent verb form choices w ere also screened for the move functions th e y perform in order to better un derstan d the au th o rs’ inten
tions. As a second step the corpus w as search ed electro n ically for tw e n ty item s w h ich com m only perform h ed gin g functions in academ ic w ritin g (see Table 1 for th e list) usin g A ntConc, a te x t an alysis an d concordance program . W ith the help of th e concordance function, a ll instan ces w ere ca refu lly an alyz ed in d iv id u ally to en
sure th at th e y w ere perform ing m etadiscoursal functions. R esults w ere norm alized p er 1,000 w o rds to allo w com parison across the tw o co rpora of slig h tly different sizes. F in al figures w ere calcu lated as num ber of occurrences, p ercentages, an d also as proportions.
Table 1. L in guistic devices o f hedges u sed in this stu d y B ased on H yland (2 0 0 0 ) and
S e rh o lt (2 0 1 2 )
Taken from the BAT and R A A corpora
can tend
m ay tiy
could seek
might relatively
seem sometimes
appear m ostly
assume believe speculate indicate lik ely
possible/possibly probable/probably
generally
RESULTS A N D DISCUSSION
Verb teruej
The freq u en cy counts show the ru lin g position o f sim ple present, follow ed b y sim ple p ast. T his is in line w ith the research review ed above (e.g., de W a a rd & P an d er M aat, 2012; Li & Ge, 20 09 ). Table 2 show s the different p attern s of verb use. S im ple p resen t an d sim ple p ast together accounted for 90% o f the finite v erb s in the BTA corpus an d 98% o f the R A A corpus. F ive p ub lish ed articles an d one student p ap er u sed the p resen t tense ex clusively. P resen t p erfect w a s identified m uch less often (acco un tin g for 5% an d 3%, resp ectiv ely) a n d the other tenses o ccurred only rare ly. T here is, however, difference in the num ber of finite verb p h rases an d the distribution of verb forms betw een the tw o corpora. The BTAs u sed betw een 9 an d 27, overall 453 (75/1000) finite verbs, w h ile the RA A s em ployed betw een 7 an d 19, overall 366 (69/1000) finite verbs. This suggests th at on av erage, student w rite rs d id not o n ly w rite longer sum m aries, b u t w h ile doing so th e y used few er non-finite verb p h rases an d sub ordinate sentences th an the R A A s.
Table 2. F in ite v e rb u sage in the tw o ap p lied lin gu istics co rpora Tenses Simple
present
Simple past
Present perfect
Past perfect
Presents progressive
Past progressive
Future will
Total
BTAs 2 9 5 12 3 23 2 l 2 7 4 5 3
6 5 .1% 24.6% 5% 0.4% 0.2% 0.4% 1.5%
R A A s 2 1 2 13 9 11 0 3 0 1 3 6 6
5 7 .9% 4 0 % 3% 0.8% 0.3%
W h e n ta k in g a closer look at the functions of these verbs, results in d icate th at stu
dents use tenses lo g ic a lly an d system atically an d show good kn o w led ge of the a c a dem ic w ritin g conventions of ab stracts. This w a s also found in an exp erim en tal stu d y (D oro, 20 13 a) in w h ich ten ap p lied lin gu istics stu d en t ab stracts w e re com
p are d w ith non -lin guistic ab stracts. No u n clear verb choices w e re detected in the R A A s an d o n ly a few cases are problem atic in the BTAs. T hese include the sudden sw itch from sim ple p ast to sim ple p resen t or p resen t p erfect in the results move, an d the use of presen t perfect to refer to m ethods (see sam ple sentences 1 an d 3 ).
Tense m ixin g m ay cause confusion in the reader, e sp e c ia lly if it becom es u n clear w h eth er the reference is m ade to previo us in vestigatio n s or to the p ro ject in qu es
tion, as in sam ples 1 to 3. S ud d en ch anges m ay be the re su lt of stu d en ts’ shift b e
tw een g en eral E nglish lan g u ag e conventions a n d acad em ic w ritin g p ractices or the influence of some noun phrase/verb p h rase collocations u sed as fixed expressions (e.g., JtudieJ have jh au'n ) w ith o u t co nsidering th e ir functions in the specific sections of the ab stracts. T hese u n certain ties are m ore ty p ic a l o f students w ho are w e a k e r in th eir E nglish lan gu age proficiency.
1. ... D ifferences betw een gen d er gro up s an d faculties have been exam in ed m ore specifically. The results show eviden ce for the in itial hypothesis acco rd in g to w h ich ag e is the m ost d eterm in in g v a riab le in the H u n garian ad d re ss system . N um erous differences have been found b e tw e e n ...
2. C olor-nam ing has been in v estigated am o n g ...
3. .. . I h av e identified a n d re v ea led num erous beliefs a n d p ractices .... M o re p re
cisely, I have show ed the differences .. . The re su lts show ed t h at ...
Hedges
The freq u en cy o f the v ario u s typ es of hedges is illu strate d in Table 3. The 20 epis- tem ic m odifiers that in d icate u n ce rtain ty ap p ear 50 tim es in the BTA corpus, w h ile o n ly 36 tim es in the R A A corpus. O n ly three o f them do not occur in the tw o co r
p ora. T h eir d istrib utio n is v e ry m uch uneven , w ith the a u x ilia ry can le ad in g both
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ab stract groups (w ith 44% for BTAs an d 28% for R A A s), of w h ich the p ast form could is also u sed b y students, b ut not b y research ers. The w o rd m ay occupies sec
ond position, w ith m ight ap p earin g o n ly once. A ltogeth er the four m ost frequen t hedges are can, m ay, indicate an d tend.
Table 3: O ccurren ces o f hedges in the tw o corpora
List of hedges BTAs RAAs Total
can 22 10 32
m ay 4 6 10
could 4 0 4
might 1 1 2
seem 2 0 2
appear 1 2 3
assume 0 0 0
believe 0 0 0
speculate 0 0 0
indicate 3 2 5
likely 2 2 4
possible/possibly 1 0 1
tend 4 1 5
try 1 0 1
seek 0 2 2
should 0 2 2
relatively 0 3 3
sometimes 0 1 1
mostly 2 1 3
generally 3 3 6
Total 50 36 86
H edges are freq u en tly used to in dicate results. Som e illustratio n s for the cautious interpretatio n of results in the thesis ab stracts are provided below. E xam ples 5 to 7
are more academ ic and elegan t and could also come from published abstracts, w hile the use of can is superfluous in sentence A.
A. Findings of this p ap er can be useful not on ly in ...
5. Findings presented in this paper m ay contribute to further research ...
6. This m ight be the reason w h y ...
7 . R esults seem to indicate th at ...
To com pare, Salager-JVLeyer (1992) reported the lead in g position of m ay in m edical RAs; other modals had a m arginal position in his corpus. In contrast, the four most frequent hedges in the Serholt (2012) Sw edish student ab stract corpus are m ight, deem, could and duggedt. These differences in the results also point to the im portance of using small, specialized corpora to illustrate linguistic choices in different genres, specific fields and various author groups. L arge corpora m ay y ie ld im pressive re
sults, but m ask the individual and group differences.
CO NCLUSIO N AN D IMPLICATIONS
This stu d y an alyzed tw o sm all, specialized app lied linguistics corpora to reveal the linguistic realization of abstracts w ritten b y expert w riters and novice, BA student w riters. It focused on the sim ilarities and differences found in the linguistic realiza
tion of 30 abstracts published in app lied linguistics journals and 30 B A level ap
plied linguistics thesis abstracts w ritten by H ungarian students of English. The re
sults indicate th at thesis abstracts incorporate more finite verb clauses, but students are aw are of the genre conventions. The few instances of m isuse w ere discussed in context and in term s of the rhetoric functions th ey have. The concordance analysis of 20 epistem ic modifiers revealed that modals have a m ajor role in indicating un
certain ty in both groups of abstracts, w hile other hedges ap p ear only m argin ally.
The literature has called for the need for a careful selection of texts to be com
pared, an d these two groups of abstracts, although having different functions, proved to be good choices. The analyses of verb tenses and hedges in hum anities papers have not been in the center of attention of researchers, therefore this study aim ed to fill this gap. A future direction of research m ay be the extension of an a ly
sis to non-linguistic thesis an d to the interview and questionnaire methods used b y H yland (2000) and de W aard and P an der M aa t (2012). H yland (2000) righ tly pointed out th at the an alysis of specialized corpora is a valuable tool to assist novice w riters and teachers to take control over disciplinary-sensitive w ritin g p rac
tices. O n ly this w a y can students fu lly explore the m eaning of w o rd choices and learn the acceptable an d appropriate m eans to engage w ith their readers, to m ark their attitudes and to app ear confident and expert w riters. As there is no time for the explicit teaching of all tricks and steps of good academ ic w ritin g in the few hours of academ ic ■writing classes or thesis consultations, students should be shown
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w ay s and tools to ex tract academ ic texts w ritten about the topics th ey w ish to ex plore, analyze them w ith easy-to-use tools such as AntConc or the Complete L exical Tutor, so that th ey can check w o rd choices in context an d discover solutions that are typ ical of experienced w riters. This w a y it is hoped that student w riters do not plagiarize sections of texts m erely due to lan guage shortcom ings, but find good a l
ternatives for academ ic vo cab ulary boosters.
REFERENCES
Abdollahzadeh, E. (2011). Poring over the findings: Interpersonal authorial en
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