Evaluative Meanings and Disciplinary Values

This volume explores an important aspect of research on academic discourse and disciplinary culture, with examples given from corpus-assisted discourse analysis. The analysis proceeds through a detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of the use of language patterns in two large corpora of authentic texts. The empirical focus of the study will be on two 'soft-applied' disciplines (Becher & Trowler, 2001), Applied Linguistics and Business Studies, as represented by two corpora of research articles drawn from 16 leading journals in each field. Comparison of the results for each corpus shows that there are many differences in form and meaning between the two disciplines: it is argued that the features revealed by analysis shown are indicative of the epistemological characteristics of these two different disciplinary discourses. This volume argues that these differences reflect the different academic cultures and norms of Applied Linguistics and Business Studies.

Autorentext

Yasunori Nishina is currently a Lecturer in the Center forLanguage Education at the Ritsumeikan University in Japan. Hisresearch interests include corpus linguistics, English forspecific purposes, (critical) discourse analysis, andlexicography. His current research focuses on the pedagogicalapplications of corpus linguistics.

Klappentext

This volume explores an important aspect of researchon academic discourse and disciplinary culture, withexamples given from corpus-assisted discourseanalysis. The analysis proceeds through a detailedquantitative and qualitative analysis of the use oflanguage patterns in two large corpora of authentictexts. The empirical focus of the study will be ontwo 'soft-applied' disciplines (Becher & Trowler,2001), Applied Linguistics and Business Studies, asrepresented by two corpora of research articles drawnfrom 16 leading journals in each field. Comparison ofthe results for each corpus shows that there are manydifferences in form and meaning between the twodisciplines: it is argued that the features revealedby analysis shown are indicative of theepistemological characteristics of these twodifferent disciplinary discourses. This volume arguesthat these differences reflect the different academiccultures and norms of Applied Linguistics andBusiness Studies.