Local grammar, discourse acts, and disciplinarity: A case study of definition

IF 3.1 1区文学 Q1 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Journal of English for Academic Purposes Pub Date : 2025-02-08 DOI:10.1016/j.jeap.2025.101485

Yimin Zhang , Huan Wang

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Abstract

This study employed the local grammar approach to explore disciplinary variations in the use of the discourse act ‘definition’ in research articles in Linguistics, Education, Physics, and Civil Engineering. The study aimed to unveil the intricate connection between language use and disciplinarity, and to offer an alternative approach to examine disciplinary discourses. Four corpora, i.e., LinDEAP, EduDEAP, PhysDEAP, and CivDEAP from the DEAP (Database of English for Academic Purposes) Corpus, were used for the study. Instances of definition were retrieved by searching for a set of lexico-syntactic markers, and the subsequent local grammar analyses of these instances identified 37 relatively frequent patterns associated with definition. We then deliberated on the similarities and differences in the distribution of local grammar patterns of definition between the soft and hard sciences as well as between the pure and applied disciplines. It was argued that the variations in the use of definition not only reflect but also construct the disciplinary epistemologies. The implications for EAP/ESP writing research and pedagogy were also discussed.

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地方语法、话语行为和纪律：定义的个案研究

本研究采用地方语法方法来探讨语言学、教育学、物理学和土木工程研究论文中话语行为“定义”使用的学科差异。本研究旨在揭示语言使用与纪律之间的复杂联系，并提供另一种研究纪律话语的方法。研究使用了来自DEAP（学术英语数据库）语料库的四个语料库，即LinDEAP， EduDEAP， PhysDEAP和CivDEAP。通过搜索一组词典-句法标记来检索定义实例，随后对这些实例的本地语法分析确定了37种与定义相关的相对频繁的模式。然后，我们讨论了软科学和硬科学之间以及纯学科和应用学科之间本地定义语法模式分布的异同。定义使用的差异不仅反映了学科认识论，而且建构了学科认识论。本文还讨论了对EAP/ESP写作研究和教学的启示。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of English for Academic Purposes Multiple-

CiteScore

6.60

自引率

13.30%

发文量

审稿时长

57 days

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.