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Analysing Structure in Academic Writing

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Authors:
  1. Tomoko Sawaki

    1. School of the Arts and Media, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

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  • Establishes a new model for analysis of the basic structure shared across different types of academic writing, regardless of the influence of diverse ideologies
  • Argues that disciplinary constraints alienate marginal individuals from academic activities
  • Increases awareness that different conceptualisations of academic writing are not necessarily superior or inferior

Part of the book series: Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse (PSDS)

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xix
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Tomoko Sawaki
    Pages 1-30

  3. Prototype Theory and Genre Analysis

    • Tomoko Sawaki
    Pages 31-67

  4. Revisiting Structuralism

    • Tomoko Sawaki
    Pages 69-98

  5. The Binary Model

    • Tomoko Sawaki
    Pages 99-137

  6. Conceptualisation of Generic Structure Components

    • Tomoko Sawaki
    Pages 139-177

  7. Diversity in Academic Writing

    • Tomoko Sawaki
    Pages 179-199

  8. Identifying Generic Structure Components

    • Tomoko Sawaki
    Pages 201-219

  9. In the Midst of Globalisation in Academic Writing

    • Tomoko Sawaki
    Pages 221-247

  10. Conclusion

    • Tomoko Sawaki
    Pages 249-260

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 261-275
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Keywords

About this book

This book breaks through formalistic traditions to propose a new generic structure analytical framework for academic writing. The integrated approach, taking lessons from cognitive linguistics and structuralism, offers a foundation for establishing research and pedagogy that can promote diversity and inclusion in academia. The simplicity of the flexible structure analytical model proposed by Sawaki enables the user to analyse diverse instances of genre. Further innovation is made in the analysis of generic structure components by integrating George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s metaphor analysis method, so that the model can account for cultural and ideological patterns that structure our abstract thinking. Using these integrations, the author has established a structure analytical model that can take into account linguistic, cognitive, and pragmatic aspects of genre. Researchers in the fields of linguistics, discourse studies, cultural studies, education, and English for Academic Purposeswill be able to use this model to identify whether an atypical instance in academic texts is a result of the writer’s individual failure or a failure to understand diversity in academic writing.

Reviews

“One of the greatest challenges for genre studies is to explain how it is that texts which are each unique and individual can somehow be explained as being of the same underlying type. Models which rely on formal features alone are inevitably limited by the individual variation which is necessarily found in real texts. In this original and scholarly re-imagining of genre theory, Tomoko Sawaki combines multiple theoretical frameworks which normally operate in isolation from each other. The key insight of Greimas’ “semiotic square” is used as the basis of a new model, one which can demonstrate the underlying unity of potentially infinitely diverse instances. Applied to the domain of academic writing, Sawaki’s analytical methods reveal the hegemonising practices of institutionalized discourses, and create methods for ESP/EAP researchers to allow for marginalized perspectives to be accommodated.” (Louise Ravelli, Associate Professor, University of New South Wales, Australia)

Authors and Affiliations

  • School of the Arts and Media, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

    Tomoko Sawaki

About the author

Tomoko Sawaki is an independent researcher and holds a Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales, Australia. Her research interests include English for Academic Purposes, genre analysis, semiotics, cognitive linguistics, and corpus linguistics. Her research has been published in such journals as Journal of English for Academic Purposes and English Text Construction.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Analysing Structure in Academic Writing

  • Authors: Tomoko Sawaki

  • Series Title: Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54239-7

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-54238-0Published: 17 October 2016

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-54239-7Published: 14 September 2016

  • Series ISSN: 2946-5990

  • Series E-ISSN: 2946-6008

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIX, 275

  • Number of Illustrations: 13 b/w illustrations, 4 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics, Cultural Studies, English, Literacy

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