{"title":"Stance and engagement in OASIS and scientific abstracts: A comparative study","authors":"Xiaoyan Wang , Ting Zeng , Ju Wen","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2025.04.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esp.2025.04.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Open Accessible Summaries in Language Studies (OASIS) summaries are concise, one-page summaries written in accessible, non-technical language to facilitate the dissemination of language-related scientific research to a broader audience. The emergence of OASIS summaries represents a shift from traditional academic discourse found in scientific abstracts to a more inclusive and accessible format. This study presents a cross-genre analysis comparing OASIS summaries with their corresponding scientific abstracts in language-related studies. Drawing from two self-compiled corpora comprising OASIS summaries and scientific abstracts sampled from six journals, we examined the prevalence of stance and engagement markers across both genres. Our analysis revealed that hedges were the most prevalent stance marker, while directives were the most frequent engagement markers in both corpora. Notably, OASIS summaries showed an overall higher occurrence of both stance and engagement markers compared to scientific abstracts. These findings not only shed light on the distinctive rhetorical features of OASIS summaries but also offer valuable insights for researchers and practitioners developing accessible research summaries for language studies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"79 ","pages":"Pages 56-69"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143895953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Could you send us your latest catalogue?’: A local grammar of requesting in English business letters","authors":"Lei Zhang , Fuzhi Tong","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2025.04.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esp.2025.04.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study introduces a local grammar approach to investigating discourse acts in English business texts, demonstrating this with the discourse act of requesting in English business letters. Previous studies on request language in business letters have focused on its pragmatic, rhetorical, and lexical features, paying less attention to the exploration of how concrete meanings are expressed in making requests. Based on a one-million-word English business correspondence corpus, this study adopts a local grammar approach to analyze the semantic patterns for requesting. The results show that requesting in English business letters involves eight specific meanings, forming 16 semantic patterns, i.e. local grammar patterns. These patterns represent the most typical ways of meaning expression for request making in English business letter writing in an easy-to-read and systematic manner, demonstrating local grammar's added methodological value for exploring characteristic patterning of language in ESP/EBP (English for Business Purposes) contexts. The findings of this study can also provide important pedagogical insights for improving ESP/EBP learners' pragmatic competence.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"79 ","pages":"Pages 43-55"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143863627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The value of interactional metadiscourse in university level writing: Differences between high and low performing undergraduate business students","authors":"Randy Appel , Ruth McKay","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2025.03.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esp.2025.03.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the use of interactional metadiscourse within a third-year Human Resources course at a large North American university. Analysing final individual writing assignments, higher-performing (grades 80 and above) and lower-performing (grades 74 and below) students were compared in terms of how they differ in their use of interactional metadiscourse. The Authorial Voice Analyzer (Yoon, 2017) was employed to extract interactional metadiscourse features, including hedges, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, and engagement markers. Intergroup differences were then assessed using Cohen's <em>d</em>. Key findings include higher-performing students employing a greater variety of hedge types and using self-mentions more frequently, while lower-performing students relied more heavily on reader engagement markers, particularly by way of reader pronouns. These results suggest that higher-graded students in business courses may be more adept at managing interactional metadiscourse to present an appropriate authorial stance, while lower-graded students tend to over-engage with the reader. Pedagogical implications include the need for writing instructors to focus on teaching students how to strategically employ hedges and self-mentions to improve the quality and authority of their writing in business-related disciplines. These insights can help shape targeted writing interventions aimed at improving student performance in content-focused courses, such as Human Resources.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"79 ","pages":"Pages 30-42"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143800203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rhetorical distinctions: Comparing metadiscourse in essays by ChatGPT and students","authors":"Feng (Kevin) Jiang , Ken Hyland","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2025.03.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esp.2025.03.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the use of metadiscourse in argumentative essays generated by ChatGPT compared to those written by British university students. Using Hyland's (2005) framework, we analysed interactive and interactional metadiscourse to uncover rhetorical and linguistic distinctions. The findings reveal that ChatGPT essays, though structurally coherent and logically organised, exhibit a significantly lower frequency of interactional metadiscourse, such as hedges, boosters, and attitude markers, leading to a more impersonal and expository tone. Conversely, student essays demonstrate higher rhetorical engagement, employing nuanced stance markers and personalised expressions to foster reader interaction. ChatGPT prioritises clarity and structural coherence through transitions and endophoric markers, reflecting its algorithmic nature and training. The variability in student writing highlights the influence of individual style and instructional practices. These differences underscore the complementary roles of AI and human authorship in academic writing, with implications for pedagogy. This research advances our understanding of the rhetorical strategies employed by large language models and their potential in academic contexts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"79 ","pages":"Pages 17-29"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143724157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A cross-disciplinary study of value arguments in doctoral theses submitted to universities in Hong Kong","authors":"Guangwei Hu, Emmanuel Mensah Bonsu","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2025.02.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esp.2025.02.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The doctoral thesis is a key academic genre that documents doctoral students' socialisation into their disciplinary knowledge-making practices and their contributions to disciplinary knowledge. However, little attention has been paid to how doctoral students promote the value of their research in their theses. Using Carter's value arguments (VAs) framework, this study explored how doctoral students construct VAs strategically to underscore and promote the significance of their research. Analyses of 90 doctoral theses in the disciplines of applied linguistics, psychology, and physics, submitted to UGC-funded Hong Kong universities, revealed disciplinary differences in the formal and functional classes of VAs. Formally, applied linguistics theses employed explicit VAs significantly more frequently than those of psychology and physics did. Functionally, significant disciplinary differences were found in the use of VAs to narrow the focus of a study, intensify the importance of research gaps, justify the importance of gaps in literature, demonstrate the overall value of the research, and demonstrate the value of research findings. These findings highlight disciplinary influences on VAs as a promotional strategy for doctoral students to persuade readers of their research's value and merits. Based on these findings, implications are derived for English-for-academic-purposes pedagogy, doctoral supervision, and further research on promotion.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"79 ","pages":"Pages 1-16"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143591715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Meeting the needs of EAP students in Canadian colleges: Insights from a needs analysis study","authors":"Valerie Smith , Sheila Windle , Leanne Johnny","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2025.01.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esp.2025.01.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article presents the findings of a mixed-methods study conducted on the writing needs of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) students at a Canadian college. While numerous studies have explored the writing needs of EAP students entering university programs, this study examines the unique needs of EAP learners who transition into the more vocationally oriented Canadian college system. The study draws primarily on a sample of 44 participants enrolled in a college post-secondary program who had completed the college's EAP program prior to beginning their program of study. Participants completed surveys examining the usefulness and alignment of the skills and genres learned in EAP for their college programs. Focus group data from 11 student participants and 7 professors was also collected and used for triangulation purposes. The findings offer insights into students' perceptions of the most critical skills and assignment types within a Canadian college milieu, which include the prevalence of vocational writing types, research assignments and group writing. The study also revealed that participants believed there was a strong connection between completing an EAP program and success in later college programs of study. Pedagogical implications for EAP college writing programs are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"78 ","pages":"Pages 139-155"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143162633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Authorial identity construction through implicit stance-taking in the introduction of research articles","authors":"Yajing Wu","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.12.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.12.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Stance is an important resource for the construction of authorial identity. However, much attention has been paid to explicit self-mentions (e.g., <em>I/we</em>), and very little is known about how authorial identities are constructed through implicit stance resources across disciplines. Drawing upon an adapted stance model from Hyland (2005a), this research explores authorial identities constructed through implicit stance resources in 120 introductions of research articles from both soft (i.e., philosophy and linguistics) and hard (i.e., bioscience and materials science) disciplines by using mixed methods. Findings show that: (1) In the construction of opinion holders, with the exception of linguistics, all disciplines tend to employ certainty-indicating boosters rather than fact-asserting boosters to express their opinions; authors of soft disciplines tend to employ commitment hedges, while authors of hard disciplines tend to employ accuracy-oriented hedges. (2) In the construction of evaluators, all disciplines predominantly employ assessment markers and rarely use emotional markers; authors of linguistics use less significance markers than those of hard disciplines to highlight the research value. These nuanced findings are beneficial for teaching students to construct discipline-recognized authorial identities in academic writing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"78 ","pages":"Pages 88-108"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143162290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assessing the language needs of L2 English student pilots preparing for flight training in English-speaking countries","authors":"Maria Treadaway, John Read","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.12.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.12.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>After COVID-19, pent-up demand for worldwide travel is driving recruitment of commercial pilots from non-English-speaking backgrounds who need to speak English as the language of international aviation. However, within aviation training environments, organisations delivering flight training programs to student pilots often use English language tests not designed to target their specific needs. Therefore, this study offers an investigation into the language training needs of English L2 student pilots about to undertake practical flight training in an English-speaking country. A quantitative survey collected data from 56 student pilots while semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 subject-matter experts. Findings revealed that the language proficiency required by the student pilots should be situated within the specific communicative events of this target language use (TLU) domain. This investigation enabled the creation of diagnostic language tests, tailored to this specialised context. As such, the study contributes to an understanding of the test tasks that could be incorporated by ESP specialists into their assessment of student pilots undertaking practical flight training. It also sheds light on the linguistic specificity of the aviation training environment and its challenges, made more complex by attitudinal and cultural influences, which impact ESP teaching and learning within this domain.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"78 ","pages":"Pages 125-138"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143162632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"","authors":"An Cheng","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.12.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.12.005","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"78 ","pages":"Pages 85-87"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143162070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Examining promotional strategies and trends in successful grant application abstracts: Moves and appraisal resources","authors":"Ying Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.12.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.12.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Grant application abstracts represent a high-stakes academic genre, serving as a sales pitch targeting broad audiences. Using an approach that considers both rhetorical structure and appraisal resources, the present study contributes to our understanding of this under-researched genre, with a particular focus on its promotional nature. Through a manual analysis of a corpus of 120 abstracts of grant applications spanning a 12-year period in the domain of humanities, which have successfully secured funding from the largest governmental research funding body in Sweden, the study reveals a clear move structure, which seems stable across time. In addition, it provides evidence for the interaction between moves and appraisal resources. The implications for all stakeholders are discussed in the current context of scientific communication, which has become increasingly promotional.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"78 ","pages":"Pages 70-84"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143162071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}