{"title":"“Maybe, but probably not”: A cross-disciplinary study of negation in Three Minute Thesis presentations","authors":"Shuyi Amelia Sun , Feng Kevin Jiang , Yanhua Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.02.001","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Three Minute Thesis (3MT) presentations have received global popularity, which develop the discursive competence of postgraduate students to communicate their disciplinary research to a wide audience. Despite increased research into aspects of 3MT presentations, little is known about how student presenters react to the audience's knowledge base and recognize the possibility of rejecting their arguments. Therefore, this study focuses on the use of negation in 3MT presentations, suggesting how presenters introduce an alternative positive position into the dialogue, and hence acknowledging it, so as to reject it. We explored the frequencies, forms, and functions of negation at the discourse-semantic level with other appraisal resources in a corpus of 124 3MT presentations across hard and soft disciplines. Our results revealed that <em>not</em>, <em>no,</em> and negative contractions were the most frequent, and notably preferred by soft-disciplinary speakers. We also identified intriguing cross-disciplinary variations in the way negation was used alongside pronounce resources that expressed explicit authorial emphases to co-articulate the rhetorical effect in discourse. Pedagogical implications are raised as to the strengthening of students' rhetorical awareness of linguistic resources to achieve effective academic presentations and wide communication of disciplinary knowledge.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"English for Specific Purposes","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889490624000061","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Three Minute Thesis (3MT) presentations have received global popularity, which develop the discursive competence of postgraduate students to communicate their disciplinary research to a wide audience. Despite increased research into aspects of 3MT presentations, little is known about how student presenters react to the audience's knowledge base and recognize the possibility of rejecting their arguments. Therefore, this study focuses on the use of negation in 3MT presentations, suggesting how presenters introduce an alternative positive position into the dialogue, and hence acknowledging it, so as to reject it. We explored the frequencies, forms, and functions of negation at the discourse-semantic level with other appraisal resources in a corpus of 124 3MT presentations across hard and soft disciplines. Our results revealed that not, no, and negative contractions were the most frequent, and notably preferred by soft-disciplinary speakers. We also identified intriguing cross-disciplinary variations in the way negation was used alongside pronounce resources that expressed explicit authorial emphases to co-articulate the rhetorical effect in discourse. Pedagogical implications are raised as to the strengthening of students' rhetorical awareness of linguistic resources to achieve effective academic presentations and wide communication of disciplinary knowledge.
期刊介绍:
English For Specific Purposes is an international peer-reviewed journal that welcomes submissions from across the world. Authors are encouraged to submit articles and research/discussion notes on topics relevant to the teaching and learning of discourse for specific communities: academic, occupational, or otherwise specialized. Topics such as the following may be treated from the perspective of English for specific purposes: second language acquisition in specialized contexts, needs assessment, curriculum development and evaluation, materials preparation, discourse analysis, descriptions of specialized varieties of English.