{"title":"Ideational interplay of textual and visual elements in graphical abstracts of biology research articles","authors":"Junqiang Ren , Jiajin Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2025.01.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esp.2025.01.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Academic journals in a wide range of disciplines are increasingly requiring graphical abstracts (GAs). A commonly noted feature of this emerging genre is the simultaneous use of textual and visual elements within a single-panel multimodal text. This dimension, however, has not been described in sufficient detail in available GA studies. To advance the discussion on textual-visual interactions in GAs, we focused on the interplay of ideational meanings created by these two distinct semiotic sources. We collected the GAs of all 129 open-access research articles published in the journal <em>Cell</em> throughout 2023. Using edge detection and manual checks, we decomposed these GAs into basic textual and visual units. Each basic textual unit (BTU) was paired with its visual correlates through an analytical procedure that considers both visual and semantic clues. We categorized the ideational interplay within each textual-visual pair using a framework adapted from Unsworth's (2007) taxonomy. Our findings reveal that textual elements are integral to this visually prominent genre, and the ideational textual-visual interplay exhibits several realization patterns that can serve as practical references for effective GA design. These insights may inform future research and practices in the design of graphical abstracts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"78 ","pages":"Pages 156-179"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143162634","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":"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":"When Methods and Results intertwine: An exploration from congruent and metaphorical construal","authors":"Yingyu Wang (瑛宇王)","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.12.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.12.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Structural variation in research articles is a significant challenge in the pedagogy of academic writing. One crucial reason for this is our limited understanding of how changes in one section can lead to a series of adjustments in other sections. To address this issue, this paper investigates the rhetorical impact on Results when the Methods is placed at the end of the articles. It is found that to clarify the process of generating results and demonstrate rigor, Researchers’ action often intertwine with Finding presentation in 10 distinct patterns. Of these, six patterns (three congruent and three metaphorical) are responsible for construing consequential relation between the categories; four patterns (two congruent and two metaphorical) are responsible for construing proving relation between the categories. The congruent and incongruent patterns are different subtly: the logical relations in the congruent patterns tend to be simple and vague, whereas metaphorical patterns significantly enrich and clarify the relation by using material verbs, relational verbs, and prepositions. More importantly, the metaphorical patterns construe a more abstract scientific world than the congruent patterns do. The findings have implications for academic discourse research and pedagogical practice.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"78 ","pages":"Pages 109-124"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143162631","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}
{"title":"Investigating students’ academic language-related challenges and their interplay with English proficiency and self-efficacy on EMI success in Transnational Education (TNE) programs in China","authors":"Xiao Cui , Ishamina Athirah Gardiner","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.12.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.12.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article reports a quantitative study that investigates students' academic language-related challenges in the context of English Medium Instruction (EMI) in Transnational Education (TNE) programs at a Chinese public university. The study examines the predictive impacts of students' reported linguistic challenges, general English proficiency, and self-efficacy on their EMI success. Descriptive statistical analyses of data collected from 316 Chinese undergraduate students in two TNE engineering programs (Chemical and Electrical) show that students experience considerable language-related difficulties across each academic English skill, with speaking and listening found to be the most challenging in their EMI classes. Further statistical analyses using Pearson's correlation and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) verify that both students' self-efficacy beliefs and general English proficiency can positively predict their academic success. Moreover, it was found that the students' reported language challenges indirectly predicted their EMI academic success through the direct effect on self-efficacy. These findings highlight two critical pedagogical implications for EMI in Chinese TNE settings: (1) continuous and collaborative ESP courses, with a particular focus on enhancing students' communicative competence, are highly necessary; and (2) the inclusion of local bilingual teaching assistants is recommended to support students' self-efficacy and enhance academic engagement by bridging linguistic gaps.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"78 ","pages":"Pages 53-69"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143162068","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":"","authors":"Edna F. Lima","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.12.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.12.006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"78 ","pages":"Pages 50-52"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143162291","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":"Towards LLM-assisted move annotation: Leveraging ChatGPT-4 to analyse the genre structure of CEO statements in corporate social responsibility reports","authors":"Danni Yu","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.11.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.11.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent studies have explored the potential of large language models (LLMs) in annotating rhetorical moves in academic genres such as research article abstracts and research article introductions. Extending this line of research beyond academic contexts, this study investigates the feasibility of using ChatGPT-4 to automate move annotation in a professional genre: CEO statements from corporate social responsibility reports. The study proceeded in two phases. First, 30 CEO statements were used for move identification, prompt design and validation, resulting in a prompt optimized for the move annotation task. Subsequently, a corpus of 50 CEO statements was used to further test the efficacy of the model conditioned by the established prompt. The assessment showed that the model's annotation outputs yielded an accuracy of 87.14 %. However, the double annotation rounds revealed an intra-model inconsistency rate of 32.87 %, indicating the need for human verification in inconsistent cases. This study demonstrates that LLMs can effectively support the development of move-annotated corpora through reduced workload and enhanced methodological duplicability. These annotated corpora serve as valuable pedagogical materials for ESP practitioners in genre-based instruction. Furthermore, the integration of LLMs can aid in improving researchers' own thinking, thereby contributing to potential theory refinement in the field.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":"78 ","pages":"Pages 33-49"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143162072","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}