Becky Kwan | City University of Hong Kong (original) (raw)

Papers by Becky Kwan

English for Specific Purposes, Jul 1, 2023

Ibérica

The Literature Review (LR) section is an integral part of a research article (RA) where the autho... more The Literature Review (LR) section is an integral part of a research article (RA) where the author needs to develop a theoretical groundwork to anchor his/her own study. However, the part-genre always eludes novice writers, which involves deciding what to cite from relevant past literature and what goals the cited knowledge serves therein. Insights are thus necessary into how experienced/expert writers address such issues. Unfortunately, there has been a dearth of research into this topic, with existing work focusing mainly on the formal features and generic functions of source use. Motivated by the missing gap and the pedagogical need and grounded in Swales’s (1990) CARS model and Authors’ (2014) semantic typology of citations, the present study is an attempt to examine the semantic attributes of source ideas that get cited in different parts of the LR sections of Information Systems RAs following a behavioral science research (BSR) paradigm. Findings reveal that distinct types of ...

6th International Conference of Asia-Pacific LSP & Professional Communication Association (LSPPC6): Multimodality and Beyond: Addressing complexity and emerging needs in LSP, Jun 5, 2021

Asian Journal of English Language Teaching Vol. 13, 107-117 © 2003 The Chinese University Press R... more Asian Journal of English Language Teaching Vol. 13, 107-117 © 2003 The Chinese University Press REPORT Tackling the "Independent Clause as Subject" Problem. Alice YW CHAN, Becky SC KWAN, & David CS LI City University of Hong Kong. ...

2014 Cross-Straits International Conference on English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Oct 3, 2014

Ibérica, 2021

One major purpose of the Introduction of a research text is to announce the direction of the stud... more One major purpose of the Introduction of a research text is to announce the direction of the study (DoS). Yet, formulating a DoS can be quite a demanding task for the novice writer. This explains why it is a common topic covered in research manuals and guidebooks of English for research and publication purposes (ERPP), with both offering advice on the use of three generic linguistic resources: the purpose statement, the research question and/or the hypothesis - collectively referred to by Lim (2018) as directional determinants (or the determinants hereafter). The coverage of the trio, however, varies greatly between the two types of literature. research manuals often emphasize the epistemological orientation of an inquiry as a key shaper of the use of the determinants, paying little attention to their textual realizations. In contrast, ERPP guidebooks tend to provide instructions concerning often overly-general linguistic conventions while downplaying how they may be constrained by ...

Inleiding ÏÊF'. HHH Afb. 2 (links) De Rede van Kanton voor behandeling (inv. nr. RV 360-338).

English for Specific Purposes, 2017

The study presented in this paper examined the macro-structures (MSs) of research articles (RAs) ... more The study presented in this paper examined the macro-structures (MSs) of research articles (RAs) in Information Systems (IS). Unlike most previous MS studies, which have tended to look for a single unified MS model to represent the discipline under investigation and have provided post hoc explanations of intra-disciplinary variability, this study set out to examine how MSs of RAs in IS may vary with the epistemological paradigms they follow. Thirty articles of behavioural science research and thirty design science research articles were collected from eight IS journals. Their main sections were subjected to a series of analyses. Results show distinct macro-structural variations across the two corpora. Implications for teaching and future research of MS will be discussed.

Research into thesis-writing began about a decade ago. However, theorizing and research into the ... more Research into thesis-writing began about a decade ago. However, theorizing and research into the task of literature reviewing (LR) to date is still underdeveloped. The two-part genre analysis presented in this thesis is an attempt to fill the theoretical and research voids. The first part of the study is a textual analysis (also called the thin analysis), which investigates the schematic pattern of LR chapters in doctoral theses organized in the traditional format (i.e., Introduction-Literature review-Methodology-Results-Discussion; abbreviated as ILrMRD). Based on the assumption that LRs and Introductions in research writing share similar rhetorical purposes-as alluded to in thesis instructional literature, the analysis employed, as a starting analytical framework, the 3-move CARS model (Swales 1990) and especially that posited for thesis introductions (Bunton 2001). The LR chapters analyzed are drawn from 20 theses which were produced by a group of Chinese doctoral students based in Hong Kong and cover a wide range of social science and humanity topics. It was found that many of the LR chapters display an Introduction-Body-Conclusion structure. The body segments of most chapters comprise thematic sections which display highly cyclical move patterns that suggest the presence of the 3 moves and their respective elements postulated in the CARS model. The occurrence of Move 1 and Move 2 is notably higher than that of Move 3. There is also a preponderance of Move 1-2 pairing. Elements within each of the moves do not co-occur regularly. When they do co-occur, they do not appear in any predictable order. Three new elements (making confirmative claims, relevancy claiming and abstracting-synthesizing theoretical frameworks /theoretical positions) were also identified in some instances of Move 2. Taken together, the findings suggest that the CARS scheme for introductions may not be entirely applicable to describe the patterns found in the LR chapters. A revised model is thus postulated in the present thesis.

In this paper we describe our audience study of some career women’s viewing practices of Korean T... more In this paper we describe our audience study of some career women’s viewing practices of Korean TV dramas in Hong Kong. Using the snowballing method, we have conducted indepth interviews with fifteen Korean TV drama fans in Hong Kong. The interview results indicate that four themes have emerged: psychological realism and Asian subtlety; modern workplace rationality vs. Chinese ‘qing’; conflicting discourses of femininities in Hong Kong; pleasure from vicarious experience of romance and the appeal of images of weak crying men. In our data analysis, we attempt to understand women’s viewing pleasure and the ways in which Korean TV dramas might provide modern working women in Hong Kong with resources to negotiate real life tensions between deep-rooted Confucianist sociocultural values and new modern working conditions in a rapidly westernizing and globalizing Hong Kong society. Implications for women’s TV drama viewing practices and the (re)production and negotiation of women’s feminini...

EJ673206 - Misplacement and Misuse of "Very": Helping Students Overcome the "Very ... more EJ673206 - Misplacement and Misuse of "Very": Helping Students Overcome the "Very + Verb" Problem.