Proceedings of The 6th International Conference on Research in Teaching and Education
Year: 2022
DOI:
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Navigating Academic Writing and International Publishing: A Study of Discourse Variations in Novice and Experienced Scholarly Works
Anam Nawaz, Naila Akram
ABSTRACT:
The soaring power of English in academia and the growing demand to ensure worldwide readership contribute to the undeniable significance of studying underlying causes and developing an appropriate pedagogical application of discourse studies in EAP for non-natives. Deficient knowledge of academic writing conventions and inadequate linguistic expertise have been the major causes behind the disadvantage of L2 novice academic writing in terms of securing publication in high-tier international journals. The present study, in this regard, aims at conducting an extensive comparative analysis of research papers produced by novice L2 academic student writers in comparison with published research work of experienced writers. The researchers intend to study the variations between unpublished papers and the papers accepted by high-tier international journals in the disciplines of English studies. 3 papers, each from the selected three sub-disciplines of English studies- Linguistics, Literature, and TESOL would be carefully chosen from novice student writers. A detailed bi-level comparison would then be made using John Swales’ models in combination with Hyland’s metadiscourse model. At the macro-level, the organizational coherence will be examined by studying discourse moves and setting the move boundaries in the rhetorical structure of the research articles, using Swales (1990b, 2004)’s model. Whereas the micro-level word choices and their contextual relevance will be studied through a meticulous clausal-level linguistic analysis of grammatical units using Hyland’s metadiscourse model. The research is expected to produce some useful findings that may help the researchers propose interventions in teaching academic writing to the L2 student writers, enabling them to produce research works worthy of international journals’ standards in terms of their linguistic and organizational quality.
keywords: intra-disciplinary variations, interactional and interactive meta-discourse markers, research discourse