‘Table 1 shows that…’: A local grammar of graphic data commentary in discourse of Economics

Abstract

This paper analyzes discourse acts in an ESP context from a local grammar perspective. We illustrate this analysis by constructing a local grammar for the discourse act of commenting on information in graphics, i.e., graphic data commentary in the discourse of Economics. Based on a corpus of research articles of Economics, we extracted instances of graphic data commentary that contain lexical items indicating different types of graphics (e.g., table, figure). Eight functional terminologies (e.g., ‘Graphic’, ‘Data’) were identified from the instances for the subsequent local grammar analysis, which in turn led to 17 frequently occurring semantic patterns, i.e., local grammar patterns. Each pattern has been observed to have a distinctive way to organize meanings and a corresponding communicative function, fitting the variation of the context. The study indicates that local grammar can provide a precise and systematic description of the lexical-semantic means that economists rely on to communicate graphic information and can offer pedagogical insights into the teaching of academic writing in an ESP context.