‘X can be classified into … ’: A local grammar of classification in academic discourse and its implications for EAP pedagogy

Abstract

This study employs the local grammar approach to account for classification in academic writing and discusses the implications and applications for EAP writing pedagogy. Instances of classification were extracted from the Database of English for Academic Purposes (DEAP) Baby Corpus using classificatory phrases, nouns, and verbs (e.g., fall into, type, classify). Based on the retrieved instances, nine functional terms for classification (e.g., ‘Subclass’, ‘Superclass’, ‘Classifying’) were identified for performing local grammar analyses. The subsequent analyses produced 24 local grammar patterns of classification, each representing the lexical-semantic regularities of a group of instances in the corpus. A comparison between the local grammar patterns and previous patterns of classification indicates that the former can more accurately describe the linguistic regularities of academic discourse acts. Furthermore, local grammar patterns with different levels of complexity can be used to gradually improve students’ academic writing skills. This study also sheds new light on terminology identification for local grammar analyses of discourse acts that involve complex semantic relations, such as hyponymy and meronymy.