university 1/n

chapter?
Introduction
?.?The student perspective:Language in the university
Students who are beginning university studies face a bewildering range of obstacles
and adjustments,and many of these difficulties involve learning to use language in
new ways.The high school experiences of English-educated students help to facil-
itate these adjustments to some extent,especially through exposure to classroom
teaching and textbooks.However,all students–whether native speakers of English
or non-native speakers–need to adjust to a wide range of tasks in the university
accomplished through language.
The most obvious of these tasks is the ability to understand complex aca-
demic discourse,especially academic research articles and books,as well as course
lectures.However,there are also a slew of requirements and other expectations
that students must figure out,including:university catalogs,program descriptions
and requirements,instructions for registration,advising recommendations,and
course requirements as specified in syllabi or described in class sessions.Clearly,
students must understand the language used for these purposes to succeed in the
university.
At present,universities do relatively little to prepare students to cope with this
wide range of‘registers’.In fact,most universities do not even introduce students
to the linguistic demands of written academic prose.Instead,the only required
English language course at most American universities is English Composition,
which often emphasizes personal narrative and personal opinion writing,with
little exposure to the kinds of language typically required in university courses.
ESL/EFL programs have been more innovative in matching language instruc-
tion to the actual language tasks required in university courses.Many programs
adopt an ESP/EAP approach(English for Specific Purposes/English for Academic
Purposes).ESP programs emphasize the different linguistic patterns used for dif-
ferent registers(e.g.,conversation vs.writing),while EAP programs emphasize
the different vocabulary and linguistic patterns associated with specific academic
disciplines.
To provide the basis for ESP/EAP instruction,we need full linguistic descrip-
tions of the registers that students encounter,and as a result,there have been
numerous research studies that document the important linguistic characteris-?University Language
tics of academic registers(see Section 1.2 below).For the most part,these studies
have focused on written academic registers,especially the academic research ar-
ticle.Surprisingly,there have been only a few studies of textbooks or classroom
teaching.Other university registers have been virtually ignored;these include reg-
isters like study groups,office hours,and course packs.The‘institutional’registers
might be the most important of these for students.These include written regis-
ters like handbooks,catalogs,program web pages,and course syllabi.There are
also important spoken institutional registers,like service encounters with depart-
mental staff,or the classroom management talk provided by instructors at the
beginning of class sessions.To better understand the tasks that in-coming students
encounter in the university,and ultimately to help students develop the language
skills required for those tasks,we need a comprehensive linguistic description of
the range of university spoken and written registers.The present book is a first
attempt to provide such a description.
?.?A short case study:Textbooks versus classroom teaching
ESP/EAP instructional approaches are motivated by the assumption that there are
important linguistic differences across language tasks and academic disciplines,
and that language instruction should prepare students to deal with those dif-
ferences.In fact,empirical research shows that the differences across academic
registers are even more important than most of us would expect.
For example,it might be expected that academic lectures and textbooks on the
same topic would be similar in their linguistic characteristics.However,it turns out
that this is usually not the case.If you are reading the present book,you are already
well familiar with the language of university textbooks.Text Excerpt 1.1,from an
accounting textbook,illustrates many of the typical linguistic characteristics of
this register.
Text Excerpt 1.1:Introductory accounting textbook:‘Auditing Concepts and
Applications’
Components of Internal Control.
In this section,the five internal control components,as identified in the COSO
report,are defined and described.They are as follows:
1.Control environment;
2.Risk assessment;
3.Control activities;
4.Information and communication;and
5.Monitoring.
The first component,the control environment,forms the foundation for the oth-
ers(see Fig.6.2[Components of Internal Control]).The absence of one or moreChapter 1.Introduction
significant elements of this component will cause the system to be ineffective,
notwithstanding the strength of the remaining four components.
Control Environment.
The control environment is defined by the attitudes of the persons in charge
of the internal control system.Management’s attitude toward control can have
a significant impact on control effectiveness.To this end,management must
be strongly supportive of internal control and must communicate that support
throughout the organization.
Conversely,management that does not possess a control-conscious attitude will
serve to undermine the system.Internal control is only as strong as the ethics
and competence of the persons who are responsible for it.Achievement of sound
internal control,therefore,requires a commitment to high integrity and strong
ethical values.If internal controls are to be properly designed and implemented,
these values must start at the top with the chief executive officer and permeate
the organization.Many companies have established written codes of corporate
conduct as means of communicating the entities’ethical values to their em-
ployees.A written code of conduct typically defines conflicts of interest,illegal
acts,improper payments,and other behavior considered unacceptable to the
entity.Penalties for violations of code provisions also may be specified in the
written document.
The language of this textbook excerpt seems‘normal’to us:what we expect aca-
demic language to be like.The excerpt relies on technical vocabulary to express
specific shades of meaning;the sentences are all complete and employ complex
syntax;the text has obviously been carefully crafted and edited,resulting in a
formal,‘academic’style.
Surprisingly,the language of classroom lectures in American universities dif-
fers in almost every respect.In fact,classroom lectures tend to use many linguistic
characteristics that are more typical of conversation than academic writing.The
following excerpt,from a business lecture on accounting,deals with the same gen-
eral topic as the textbook excerpt above.However,despite the topical similarity,
the lecture illustrates strikingly different linguistic characteristics:
Text Excerpt 1.2:Lower Division Accounting Lecture
Instructor:
OK,now,um,I handed out,something that looks like this,did everybody get
one of these?did you get one of those?chapter eight is gonna seem um,a little
tough,unless you keep some things in mind.it really isn’t all that hard.and so,
and as I was thinking about what I was going to talk to you about,about how
to approach this chapter,I thought well,I’ll type them out,and that might help.
in chapter eight they introduce,um,a way of thinking about costs that’s called
variable costing.now,it’s something you really know a lot about already,because?University Language
you’ve done the contribution margin income statement.you know that that’s
sales minus variable costs is contribution margin minus fixed costs is net income.
well now we’re going to use that with a company making product.um,you know
that,when in our former chapters,when we were talking about product costs,
we talked about direct materials,direct labor,and overhead,as being product
costs.[...]fixed overhead,in one piece,is considered a variable cost.OK?so,if
you look at this piece of paper that I gave you,the first thing to remember,is that
variable costing is not generally accepted accounting principles,it’s not G.A.A.P.,
and because it’s not G.A.A.P.,we can’t use it for external disclosures.OK?um,and
for variable costing we use the contribution margin for that income statement,
sometimes variable costs contribution margin minus fixed cost is net income.
Excerpt 1.2 illustrates many of the typical colloquial characteristics of university
classroom teaching.These include features that directly acknowledge and engage
the audience,including questions(did everybody get one of these?),comprehension
checks like ok?,and the pronouns I,we,and you.In contrast to the informational
focus of textbooks,the instructor in this lecture describes his own attitudes and
thought processes using mental verbs like think and know;stance adverbials like
really and a lot;and modal and semi-modal verbs like can and be going to.In
fact,the language produced is in some ways a direct reflection of the instruc-
tor’s thought processes.That is,the instructor is thinking and producing language
at the same time,resulting in repetitions,‘false starts’,pauses(e.g.,um),and the
frequent use of‘discourse markers’like well,so,and ok.The discourse often con-
sists of a loosely connected sequence of ideas,with many utterances functioning to
provide personal background for the main ideas,as in the following sequence of
utterances:
and so,
and
as I was thinking about what I was going to talk to you about,
about how to approach this chapter,
I thought
well,
I’ll type them out,and that might help
The basic grammar of class lectures tends to be clausal:the text is made up of
a series of relatively short clauses.Some of these are main clauses,and some are
dependent clauses,but the net effect is a text composed of many clauses in a series.
For example,the following excerpt repeats the opening utterances of this lecture
with the verbs highlighted:
OK,now,um,I handed out,something that looks like this,did everybody get
one of these?did you get one of those?chapter eight is gonna seem um,a lit-Chapter 1.Introduction
tle tough,unless you keep some things in mind.it really isn’t all that hard.and
so,and as I was thinking about what I was going to talk to you about,about
how to approach this chapter,I thought well,I’ll type them out,and that might
help.in chapter eight they introduce,um,a way of thinking about costs that’s
called variable costing.now,it’s something you really know a lot about already,
because you’ve done the contribution margin income statement.
In contrast,university textbooks rarely refer directly to the author or the student;
authors rarely express their own attitudes or feelings explicitly,and they almost
never use language that indicates their actual thought processes.Authors think
and plan their language before they write it down,and the final version that we
read in a textbook has been subsequently revised and edited.Thus,textbook lan-
guage never includes the production features or dysfluencies that are common in
classroom teaching(like repetitions,‘false starts’,pauses,or‘discourse markers’
like well,so,ok).
The language of textbooks differs from classroom teaching in other ways that
are less obvious.In terms of their typical sentence structures,textbooks rely heavily
on complex phrasal syntax rather than clausal syntax.The following excerpt is re-
peated twice;once highlighting the verbs,showing that there are only four clauses,
and once highlighting the nouns and prepositions,showing the heavy reliance on
phrasal syntax:
Textbook excerpt with verb phrases marked in bold:
The control environment is defined by the attitudes of the persons in charge
of the internal control system.Management’s attitude toward control can have
a significant impact on control effectiveness.To this end,management must
be strongly supportive of internal control and must communicate that support
throughout the organization.
Textbook excerpt with noun phrases marked in bold;prepositions are
underlined:
The control environment is defined by the attitudes of the persons in charge
of the internal control system.Management’s attitude toward control can
have a significant impact on control effectiveness.To this end,management
must be strongly supportive of internal control and must communicate that
support throughout the organization.
The verbs used in textbooks are often‘weak’verbs with minimal lexical meaning
(e.g.,have,be),but they connect long and complex noun phrases with embed-
ded prepositional phrases(e.g.,the attitudes of the persons in charge of the internal
control system).
The primary goal of the present book is to identify and describe linguistic
differences of this type.The discussion above merely provides an indication of?University Language
the scope of these differences.The following chapters show that university lectures
and textbooks differ in many additional ways,ranging from vocabulary to complex
syntactic constructions.
?.?Previous research on academic language
Over the past 20 years,we have witnessed an explosion of research on academic
discourse.Much of this research has been motivated by applied concerns:as lin-
guists have come to recognize that language characteristics differ dramatically
from one register to the next,they have also argued that we should teach the spe-
cific kinds of language that a learner will need.For learners with educational goals,
the most important target registers are the various kinds of speech and writing
found in schools and universities.Obviously,the linguistic characteristics of these
target registers must be fully described before we can develop adequate teaching
materials and methods.Towards this goal,there have been numerous descriptive
studies focusing on the linguistic characteristics of particular academic registers
(see,e.g.,the extensive survey of research in Grabe&Kaplan 1996).The journal
English for Specific Purposes has been one of the major forums for descriptive re-
search of this type over the past two decades,while more recently,the Journal of
English for Academic Purposes has focused more on the pedagogical implications
of these descriptive studies.
Most studies of academic language have focused on written academic registers
(see,e.g.,the papers in J.Flowerdew 2002;Hewings 2001;Markkanen&Schroder
1997;see also the survey of research in L.Flowerdew 2002).These studies have
described the distinctive use of linguistic features at many different levels.For ex-
ample,Halliday(1988)provides a useful survey of features that are characteristic
of physical science writing.Biber et al.(1999)describe the range of grammatical
features in academic prose,in comparison to conversation,fiction,and newspaper
reportage(as part of a corpus-based reference grammar;see 1.3 below).Multi-
Dimensional studies describe the characteristics of academic written registers with
respect to a large number of co-occurring linguistic features(e.g.,Biber 1988;
Atkinson 1992,1996,1999,2001;see 1.2.1 below).
The expression of evaluation and stance in academic research writing has been
an especially popular area of research(e.g.,Charles 2003;Crompton 1997;Grabe
&Kaplan 1997;Holmes 1986;Hyland 1994,1996a,b;Meyer 1997;Myers 1989,
1990;Salager-Meyer 1994;Silver 2003;Varttala 2003;see also Biber et al.1999,es-
pecially Chapter 12).Many of these studies have focused on the use of hedging
devices.Hyland(1996a,b,1998)is one of the most important studies in this area
of research,documenting the range of functions and grammatical devices used
to express tentativeness and possibility in academic research articles.For exam-Chapter 1.Introduction
ple,content-oriented hedges have two major functions:indicating the accuracy
of a proposition(e.g.,adverbials like generally,approximately,partially,possibly),
or limiting the writer’s commitment to a proposition(e.g.,the present work in-
dicates...,the model implies...).Hyland(2002a)extends this line of research by
investigating the ways in which authors refer to themselves(and when they do
not refer to themselves)in academic prose.One of the themes that Hyland has
developed over recent years is that academic research articles are interactive,in
that authors actively try to involve the reader in the communication process.Spe-
cific studies in this line of research have investigated the use of addressee features
(Hyland 2001),questions(Hyland 2002d),and directives(Hyland 2002c).
Several other studies of academic research articles have focused on special
classes of verbs(e.g.,Hunston 1995;Williams 1996).These verbs often function
to express evaluation or stance;for example Thompson and Ye Yiyun(1991)and
Hyland(2002b)describe the use of reporting verbs(like state,consider,find)and
the different kinds of stance meanings expressed by those verbs(e.g.,‘factive’:ac-
knowledge,identify,prove;‘counter-factive’:confuse,disregard;and‘non-factive’:
claim,propose).
A second line of research has focused on the complex types of noun phrase
structures typical of academic prose(e.g.,Halliday 1988;Varantola 1984;Biber
&Clark 2002;Biber et al.1999:Chapter 8).The use of inanimate(abstract)noun
phrases as subjects with dynamic verbs is also prevalent in academic prose(e.g.,the
development of capitalism[produces]a larger reserve army;see Master 2001;Biber
et al.1999:378–380).At the other extreme,Chih-Hua(1999)describes the use of
personal pronouns to mark role relations in academic prose.
Other studies have focused on the use of more specialized linguistic features.
Many of these features are used for information packaging functions,signaling
topic,focus,or overall discourse organization.Studies of this type include:Swales
et al.(1998)on imperatives;Ferguson(2001)on conditionals;Huckin and Pe-
sante(1988)on existential there;and Hewings and Hewings(2001)on construc-
tions with anticipatory it.Citation patterns(Salager-Meyer 1999)are used for a
different kind of discourse framing,situating a study relative to the body of pre-
vious research.Procedural vocabulary and the structure of definitions(Marco
1999;Williams 1998)is similarly important for providing required background
knowledge.
The study of academic vocabulary is also a rapidly expanding area of research,
with considerable interest in the development of word lists based on corpora of
academic texts that might reasonably be encountered by students(e.g.,Coxhead
2000).Additionally,much attention is now focused on the act of learning special-
ized vocabulary(including academic vocabulary;see Huckin,Haynes,&Coady
1995;Nation 1990,2001;Schmitt 2000;Schmitt&McCarthy 1997).Several stud-
ies have approached academic vocabulary from the perspective of collocations:the?University Language
systematic ways in which words tend to occur together in texts(Williams 1998;
Gledhill 2000;Marco 2000;Oakey 2002;Biber et al.1999:Chapter 13).
Finally,many studies of written academic prose have adopted a rhetorical or
social/historical perspective,describing the rhetorical structure of academic texts
and how the conventions of academic genres are shaped by the practices of re-
searchers in particular discourse communities.Most of these focus on written
scientific or medical prose(see,e.g.,the book-length studies by Atkinson 1999;
Bazerman 1988;Berkenkotter&Huckin 1995;Gilbert&Mulkay 1984;Halliday&
Martin 1993;Swales 1990;Valle 1999).
Most of the above studies have focused on scholar-to-scholar written commu-
nication,rather than on the types of discourse encountered by and used by stu-
dents in colleges and universities.More recently,though,applied researchers have
become interested in task-based syllabi and in needs-based analyses of the com-
munication required of students in their college study(e.g.,Carson 2001;Crookes
&Gass 1993;Long&Crookes 1992).Task-based syllabi and realistic assessment of
language proficiency cannot be achieved without identification and analysis of the
language demands of the college-university setting.Studies of this type have in-
vestigated a variety of topics:the nature of the teacher-lecture,communication
patterns in the college classroom,academic vocabulary,academic writing,and
the linguistic and/or rhetorical characteristics of published textbooks and other
written materials assigned by teachers for student use.
The literacy demands of academic writing have also been studied,especially
considering the growth of student control over academic writing conventions(e.g.,
Braine 2002;Carson et al.1992;Johns 1997;Parkinson 2000;Silva&Matsuda
2001).Hale et al.(1996)study academic writing from a task-based point of view.
One result of these studies has been a growing awareness of the limited and spe-
cialized writing required of undergraduates in most U.S.universities,especially
during entry-level courses(Carson,Chase,&Gibson 1993).Studies of academic
reading are often connected to academic writing(e.g.,Belcher&Hirvela 2001).
University textbooks are the focus of an expanding number of studies.Conrad
(1996,2001)uses a multidimensional approach to analyze biology and history
textbooks,while Carkin(2001)focuses on lower division textbooks and lectures
in economics and biology.Other studies investigate specialized aspects of textbook
language in college and university settings.For example,Byrd(1997)describes the
use of naming practices in textbooks.Love(1993)shows how the use of selected
subject noun phrases and verbs are used to mark different rhetorical sections of ge-
ology textbooks.For example,nominalizations and general nouns are common as
clause subjects in process sections,while more specific nouns tend to occur as sub-
jects in product or circumstance sections of the text.Hyland(1999)contrasts the
use of metadiscourse in textbooks vs.academic research articles.Finally,studies
like Love(2001)investigate the overall discourse organization of textbooks.Chapter 1.Introduction
Although earlier ESP/EAP studies usually focused on written academic dis-
course,more recently researchers have begun to turn their attention to univer-
sity classroom discourse.Several of these studies describe how specific linguistic
features are used to signal the overall organization and coherence of a lecture,
providing a discourse frame for the content and therefore aiding comprehen-
sion.For example,Chaudron and Richards(1986)and Flowerdew and Tauroza
(1995)describe the use of discourse markers for these purposes,while Strodt-
Lopez(1991)shows how‘asides’are used for similar functions.A related line of
research describes how longer lexical phrases and chunks serve to signal discourse
organization and coherence in classroom teaching(e.g.,DeCarrico&Nattinger
1988;Nattinger&DeCarrico 1992;Khuwaileh 1999).Camiciottoli(2004)sim-
ilarly describes the use of discourse structuring expressions,while Thompson
(2003)describes the interaction of metadiscourse and intonation in relation to the
overall organization of lectures.Flowerdew(1992)describes the structure and use
of definitions in lectures.Other studies describe the overall discourse organization
of university lectures,including the papers by Benson,Dudley-Evans,Young,and
Hansen in a book edited by Flowerdew(1994).
The MICASE project(Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English;see
Powell&Simpson 2001)has been one of the most productive efforts to describe
spoken university registers(including lectures).This project has already resulted
in a series of published studies describing the functions of specific linguistic char-
acteristics in‘academic speech’.For example,Poos and Simpson(2002)describe
the uses of kind of and sort of as hedges.Lindemann and Mauranen(2001)de-
scribe the functions of just for metadiscourse and hedging,while Mauranen(2004)
compares the functions of a number of hedging devices in spoken academic dis-
course.Swales(2001)analyzes the collocations of the general purpose nouns point
and thing,describing how they are used for information packaging and empha-
sis.Swales and Malczewski(2001)document the structure and function of‘new
episode flags’for discourse management purposes,while Swales and Burke(2003)
focus on the functions of evaluative adjectives and intensifiers.Fortanet(2004)in-
vestigates the functions of the pronoun we in university lectures.Mauranen(2001)
looks at the use of reflexive language in academic speech,while Mauranen(2003a,
b)describes the expression of evaluation and other kinds of metadiscourse(see
also Mauranen&Bondi 2003).Finally,Simpson and Mendis(2003)and Simpson
(2004)discuss the use of idioms and other formulaic expressions in academic
discourse.
While most MICASE studies describe the general characteristics of‘academic
speech’,a few other studies focus on specific spoken registers that are common in
university life(apart from lectures).For example,Cutting(1999)analyzes the con-
versations of a group of post-graduate students,and Basturkmen(2003)studies
the conversational exchange structure of study groups,with and without a tutor.??University Language
Farr(2003)describes the linguistic signals of‘engaged listnership’in student-
tutor meetings.
Rather than considering how a single language skill is used in college and
university classes,some studies consider academic communication patterns that
require the integration of speaking and writing.Carson et al.(1992)discuss how
undergraduates are required to integrate written and spoken registers,specifi-
cally reading textbooks to prepare to listen to lectures,while Carrell et al.(2002)
demonstrate the effectiveness of note-taking during lectures,as students combine
writing with listening(see also Benson 1994).
Academic language poses special problems for language learners,and there
have been several studies focused on those issues.For example,several of the pa-
pers in Granger(1998a)systematically investigate and compare English language
learners’academic language to that of native speakers.DeCock(1998)and Granger
(1998b)describe the use of formulaic language for academic purposes by learners
of English.Leki and Carson(1997)describe observations by non-native speak-
ers of English about the differences between ESL and“regular”academic courses.
In addition,some studies have focused on the spoken communication of inter-
national teaching assistants as well as the cultural issues involved in interactions
between ITAs and U.S.undergraduates(e.g.,Madden&Myers 1994).
Taken together,these studies provide important insights into the use of partic-
ular linguistic characteristics in particular spoken and written university registers.
However,no previous study sets out to describe and compare the patterns of lan-
guage use across the range of spoken and written university registers:the registers
that students regularly encounter as part of a university education.The present
book is a first step towards filling this gap.
?.?.?“Register”and“genre”perspectives on academic language
The terms‘register’and‘genre’have been central to previous investigations of aca-
demic language.Both terms have been used to refer to varieties associated with
particular situations of use and particular communicative purposes.Most studies
simply adopt one of these terms and disregard the other.In some cases,these au-
thors might be assuming a theoretical distinction between the two terms,but that
distinction is usually not explicitly noted.For example,studies like Bhatia(2002),
Samraj(2002),Bunton(2002),Love(2002),and Swales(2004)exclusively use the
term‘genre’.In contrast,studies like Ure(1982),Ferguson(1983),Hymes(1984),
Heath and Langman(1994),Bruthiaux(1994,1996),Conrad(2001),and Biber et
al.(1999)exclusively use the term‘register’.
A few studies attempt to define a theoretical distinction between the constructs
underlying these two terms.For example,Ventola(1984)and Martin(1985)re-
fer to register and genre as different‘semiotic planes’:genre is the‘content-plane’