Academic and professional written

genres in disciplinary communication

Theoretical and empirical challenges

Giovanni Parodi

Introduction

• one way to access the disciplinary written genres employed by academia and professional workplaces is to start from the assumption that all materials read in these contexts reveal relevant data about written communication means and knowledge organizations.

• He believe that specialized written discourse literacy at academic university and professional fields has just begun to be explored in most countries of the world.

The research challenge

One of the main challenges for discourse studies and their future projections to empirically founded genre research is to find ways to reach robust results, based on large corpora as a way of describing linguistic and discourse variations in greater detail; also, constructing a wide overview of similarities across languages, across disciplines, and across different institutions and workplaces. It is highly important to overcome the study of fragmented texts or exemplary documents, just focused on one single variable.

Corpora

• Linguistic Corpora: A collection of linguistic data, either written texts or a transcription of recorded speech, which can be used as a starting-point of linguistic description or as a means of verifying hypotheses about a language (corpus linguistics).

• It is difficult to find research into Spanish genre classifications and descriptions, based upon large corpora of texts which are fundamental reading material in university programs and in professional organizations on the same disciplinary domains.

Genres

• Essentially, genres are social, cognitive, and linguistic constructions that help group texts together and represent how writers/speakers and readers/listeners communicate and use language to interact in recurring situations (Parodi, 2008a).

• Genre descriptions must be based on sufficient texts of naturally occurring language use to ensure that the regularities and patterns observed reveal actual characteristics of the genres under study.

• Genre research has capitalized enormously from data gathered based on corpora analysis, and new areas and procedures are being explored from these principles, sometimes combining qualitative and quantitative methods.

ExamplesFive different genres: Glossary, Instructive, Textbook, Regulation, and Technical Description.The next examples belong to Commerce and maritime engineering.

• a) TEXTBOOK (CTC-COM-ma1)

I. THE ACCOUNT“It is a systematic grouping of the charges and payments related to a person or situation of the same nature,registered under a heading or title that identifies them.”II. CONCEPTSa) Entries registered as credit in the account are called payments.b) The total sum of all the Charges is called: Debitc) The total sum of the Payments is called: Creditd) The difference between Debits and Credits is called: BalanceREMEMBER:PROFITS > LOSSES = PROFITS OF THE EXERCISEPROFTIS < LOSSES = LOSSES OF THE EXCERCISE

• b) INSTRUCTIVE (CTC-MAR-in42)INSTRUCTIONS TO FILL IN THE CONTINUATION OF THE IMPORTING REPORTWhenever the use of this form is required, it should be issued with import’s report. The latter will have no validityunless attached to the corresponding “Continuation of import Report”.1. Presentation (Number and date)The same number and date of presentation of the Import Report should be stated.2. Company presenting the Import Report and the Code Import.Same should be stated for Import Report.3. Number, date and authorized signature of issuing entity.Number, corresponding date and authorized signature with which the National Customs Service issues theImport Report.

• c) REGULATION (CTC-MAR-rg45)III. TRANSFER OF MERCHANDISE FROM THE PORT OR AIRPORT TO THE PLACE OF DEPOSIT.The norms contained in the section will only apply when storage is located out side the primary zone of theport or airport of arrival of the vessel.1. The shipping company must deliver the merchandize to the head of the warehouse within the 2 hours followingdeparture time from the port or airport primary zone of arrival of the vehicle2. Responsibility before customs services for delivery of the merchandize to the head of the warehouse lies onthe shipping company, which transferred the goods from the primary zone to the warehouse.

• d) TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION (TC-COM-dt 16)I. HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF CONTAINERSThe Container, as a new transportation device, has revolutionized maritime transportation; Vessels beganto adapt for more efficient operation, until the stage when vessels were built specially for container handlingand ports have been forced to purchase elements that help handle the process.II. DEFINITIONS OF CONTAINERS1. Containers for general use are completely closed units, surrounded by rigid walls, a rigid floor and ceiling,with a door in one of the extreme walls, as thus also the ceiling, the floor and in addition one of its extremewalls is provided with a door.2. Containers for specific use are those units destined to the transportation of general merchandize, whichhave been built with special characteristics so as to facilitate loading or unloading,

Research methodMulti-feature and multi-dimensional analysis: Methodological steps.There are 12 steps1. Design, collection, organization, and digitalization of a corpus.2. Selection of a set of linguistic features based on a specialized bibliography and according to the registers considered in the analysis.3. Functional characterization of the linguistic features selected.4. Availability of computer programs that can automatically tag the texts in plain format (ASCII or txt).5. Automatic tagging and parsing of the texts in the corpus.6. Manual or (semi)automatic database queries to each text to determine the occurrence of the features under study.

7. Elaboration of normalized data tables, given the different number of words between texts.8. Application, with the aid of computer programs, of factor analysis to the frequency of feature occurrences. The reason for this is the need for a reduction of the variables involved and for the determination of co-occurrence patterns in the linguistic features.9. Establishment of a set of factors (each factor is made up of a set of linguistic features) through factor analysis with some kind of rotation (Varimax, Cuantrimax, Oblimin, etc.).10. Functional interpretation of the factors, resulting from the factor analysis, from the co-occurrence of features, thus constituting an underlying dimension of variation.11. Confirmation or refutation of the interpretation of the factors through the estimation of the factor loadings.12. Estimation of the dimension scores. In this step, the scores for each register in each dimension are compared, and the linguistic and functional similarities and/or differences are studied

Linguistic features

• In order to select features for analysis, a bibliographical search must be initially carried out with the purpose of identifying representative categories that show functional, we identified a total of sixty-five

Table 1. Sixty-five linguistic features in Corpus PUCV-2003

A. Verb tense markers1. Indefinite Past (indicative)2. Imperfect Past (indicative)3. Perfect Past (indicative and subjunctive)4. Present (indicative and subjunctive)5. Future (indicative and subjunctive)6. Periphrastic Future

C. Verb Inflections12. First singular13. Second singular14. Third singular15. First plural16. Second plural17. Third plural

B. Verb Markers7. Indicative/imperative8. Subjunctive/imperative9. Indicative mood10. Subjunctive mood11. Imperative mood

D. Personal pronouns18. First person singular19. First person plural20. Second person singular21. Second person plural22. Third person singular23. Third person plural24. Demonstratives

E. Nominal Forms25. Nominalizations26. Nouns (common and proper)

I. Verb Types35. Public36. Private37. Persuasive38. Perceptive

F. Passive Forms27. Passive with se≪ ≫28. Passive with “ser” without agent29. Passive with “ser” with agent30. Passive with “estar”

J. Modal Verbs39. Possibility40. Necessity41. Obligation42. Volition

G. Lexical Specificity31. Type/token per form relation32. Type/token per lemma relation

K. Modality Markers43. Hedges44. Boosters

H. Stative Active Forms33. Ser34. Estar

L. Adverbs45. Place46. Time47. Manner48. Quantity

M. Subordination Markers49. Noun clauses with que≪ ≫50. Relative adjective clauses51. Adverbial clauses of reason or cause/effect52. Adverbial clauses of concession53. Adverbial clauses of condition54. Adverbial clauses of time55. Infinitive phrases in nominal function

Ñ. Coordination Markers61. Adversative, additive and disjunctive conjunctions

N. Prepositional phrases and adjectives56. Prep. Phrases (noun complement)57. Attributive adjectives (descriptive)58. Predicative adjectives59. Demonstrative adjectives60. Participles with adjectival function

O. Negation Markers62. Negation adverb63. Adverbs of temporal negation64. Negation conjunction65. Negation pronouns

Table 2. Academic Corpus of PUCV-2006: Number of words and percentages

Number of Texts

% Number of Words

%

Psychology 227 46 22,163,379 39

Social Work 142 29 16,343,175 30

Construction Engineering

69 14 8,813,663 15

Industrial Chemistry

53 11 9,304,407 16

Total 491 100% 56,624,624 100%

communicative-functional and textual-discursive linguistic taxonomy

Nine genres are identified along with figures of the number of texts collected

Table 3. Professional genresProfessional Genres in PUCV-2006 Corpus

Bidding Specification Brochure Calculation Log Call for bids CertificateCommercial Catalogue Development PlanDictionary Disciplinary TextLaw Lectura Medical Order Medical Report Memorando

BS BROCM CBCERT CC DP DIC DT LAW LECT MO MR ME

News Observation Guideline Operating Manual Plan Quotation Record Regulation Report Research Article Research Project Statement Test Textbook Thesis

NEWOGOMPLAQUOTRECREGREPRARPSTATESTBTHE

The teaching implications

Research studies like the one described here also have pedagogical implications concerning: (a) the selection of written genres, (b) the elaboration of teaching materials, and (c) the preparation of language tests of a different nature, such as the assessment of disciplinary contents and of specialized discourse comprehensionThis is because the genres detected in each discipline help describe the characteristics of the type of language use employed in written communication students and professionals are exposed to.

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