{"title":"Tracking the changing patterns of graphic data commentary in economics research articles over time: A local grammar study","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.jeap.2024.101437","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper adopts a local grammar approach to explore how the semantic patterns of the discourse act of graphic data commentary in economics research articles have changed over the recent three decades. Based on the comparable corpora of research articles of economics from three time periods (i.e. 1990-1999, 2000–2009, and 2010–2019), we extracted instances of graphic data commentary and performed local grammar analyses to obtain three groups of semantic patterns (i.e. the local grammar patterns). By comparing the frequency distributions of these patterns across the corpora, we find that over the 30 years graphic data commentary has changed to become more concise, interactive, and interpretive. Behind these changes, we argue that the changing social-cultural factors and the disciplinary epistemology of economics may have driven economists to strategically modify the semantic patterns of graphic data commentary. This study also discusses the pedagogical value of the changing patterns of graphic data commentary for current local grammar based EAP teaching.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47717,"journal":{"name":"Journal of English for Academic Purposes","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of English for Academic Purposes","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S147515852400105X","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This paper adopts a local grammar approach to explore how the semantic patterns of the discourse act of graphic data commentary in economics research articles have changed over the recent three decades. Based on the comparable corpora of research articles of economics from three time periods (i.e. 1990-1999, 2000–2009, and 2010–2019), we extracted instances of graphic data commentary and performed local grammar analyses to obtain three groups of semantic patterns (i.e. the local grammar patterns). By comparing the frequency distributions of these patterns across the corpora, we find that over the 30 years graphic data commentary has changed to become more concise, interactive, and interpretive. Behind these changes, we argue that the changing social-cultural factors and the disciplinary epistemology of economics may have driven economists to strategically modify the semantic patterns of graphic data commentary. This study also discusses the pedagogical value of the changing patterns of graphic data commentary for current local grammar based EAP teaching.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of English for Academic Purposes provides a forum for the dissemination of information and views which enables practitioners of and researchers in EAP to keep current with developments in their field and to contribute to its continued updating. JEAP publishes articles, book reviews, conference reports, and academic exchanges in the linguistic, sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic description of English as it occurs in the contexts of academic study and scholarly exchange itself.