A corpus-based study of analyzing the lexical specificity in the Preface section of Pakistani academic textbooks

Abstract

A preface is the author’s endeavor to describe the text and indicates why the text has been written. It also underlines some of the author's references and the text's relevant point of concern. Thus, the preface functions as the author's introduction to the book. It is the section of the book in which the authors guide the reader about the text and share their opinions and beliefs on the text's content. Due to the importance of prefaces in textbooks, the present study attempts to explore the linguistic specificity in the preface section of the Pakistani academic soft discipline textbooks at Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSSC) and Bachelor’s level. As specificity in writing is a crucial concept in using English for academic purposes. In a mix-method study, we have used the quantitative method (statistical percentage) in which the frequency along with percentage is recorded and further qualitatively interpreted with the help of concordance lines via AntConc software. The data of this study is compiled with the assistance of text fixer and file converter software. For the analysis of the corpus, Ken Hyland’s (2009) model of lexical Specificity is adopted. The self-mention and hedges categories of the lexical specificity model have been analyzed for the preface section. The findings showed that there has been frequent use of the first-person pronoun ‘I and we’ to build the authorial stance in the preface section. Further, the hedges like ‘will and would’ used in the preface section of the textbooks manifested the positive attitude of the authors by establishing solidarity for their readership and increasing the communicative tendency of the text. Thus, it is concluded that the preface of soft sciences textbooks would act as the mean with having dual communicative purposes, either to present the book and to publicize it to the potential readers.