Semantic fields of problem in business English: Malaysian and British journalistic business texts (original) (raw)
Related papers
semantic fields of problem in Business English: Malaysian and British
This paper reports on an LSP-based research project dealing with a contrastive analysis of business and management texts taken from the Malaysian business magazine Malaysian Business (MB) and its British counterpart, Management Today (MT). The objective of the research was to study the semantic fields and linguistic signals of Problem patterns in order to determine whether they display specific differences which can be ascribed to their linguistic and cultural contexts. The study adopted a corpus-based approach based on a corpus containing fifty feature-articles from each magazine. The text corpus was analysed according to Hoey's Problem-Solution textual patterns and the corpus tool, Wmatrix, was used to identify the semantic fields in the Problem patterns. Key semantic fields were found for Problem in MB and MT compared with a normative corpus (the BNC Written Informative Sampler).
Textual features are evidence of a community's routines for producing knowledge. In Language for Special Purposes (LSP), it is generally accepted that through text, it is possible to explore the activity of knowledge-making in a professional community, particularly in specialized written discourse. This activity or communicative tasks are realized as communicative acts which contains the writer's/speaker's thoughts and intentions. The assumption of the present research is that the communicative tasks that a specialist performs in the real world can be manifested in the specialized text and that business journalistic discourse contains problems and solutions. By comparing Malaysian (MB) and British (MT) business journalistic texts, this paper examines the feasibility of combining [13] and [5] theories to search for speech acts that fall into the Problem-Solution categories. Using a corpus linguistics methodology, the results indicate that 1) there are significant differences in the frequencies of communicative acts underlying the Problem and Solution in MB compared with MT and 2) there are no one-to-one mappings of communicative functions onto either a Problem or a Solution.
What is business English? Key word analysis of the lexis and semantics of business communication
Kielikeskus tutkii 4, 2019
In this article, I attempt to answer the question of whether there is a lexis specific to business English and if there is, just what it consists of. In order to do this, the Business English Corpus of Nelson (2000) is utilized, using Scott’s (1997/2009) notion of key words, to discover how business English lexis differs from that of general English. The semantic environment in which the lexis operates is also examined using the concept of positive and negative keywords; that is, words that appear in business English with unusual frequency or infrequency as compared to general English. The article shows that business English can be seen as a clearly defined entity, whilst at the same time drawing from and giving back to general English. https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-29-7847-2
Semantic Relations in Topical Sequences of English Business Discourse
Advanced Education, 2017
The article presents the analysis of the content organisation of English business discourse, which can be hierarchical and linear. The overview of scientific papers demonstrates that only hierarchical organisation of discourse has been thoroughly studied, while the linear one is still the subject of investigation. The focus of this paper is the analysis of the linear-hierarchical organisation of the realised themes and topics in it and existing semantic relations between them. The linear-hierarchical organisation of the content in English business discourse is considered as a set of models: a monotopical one, which displays the realisation of the same theme and/ or topic within the exchange, and a polytopical one, i.e. a content model that presents the unfolding of various themes and / or topics within the same exchange. The types of a polytopical model are identified as follows: first type demonstrates topical sequence, in which various topics belonging to one theme are combined; second type shows topical sequence, in which various topics belonging to different themes are combined. The types of semantic relations between the elements of the model are examined. The author has identified that in the monotopical model relations of generalisation, specification, modification, support and closing are realised, and in polytopical modelrelations of digression and change. Topic change in its turn can be sharp/ incohesive or gradual / coherent.
The current study presents the results of a discourse analysis research on the problem-solution pattern of textual organization (henceforth, the PS pattern) in a sample of English written newspaper editorials and op-eds. My main goal is to characterize the linguistic realization of the PS pattern in written opinion journalism and to describe its textual variations. The PS pattern is analyzed here as part of a wider framework, Tirkkonen-Condit's (1985) method of textual description, specifically designed to outline the global structure of argumentative texts. The application of Tirkkonen-Condit's method involves the dissection of texts into PS sequences and communicative acts. Both the PS sequences and the individualized communicative acts are assigned an illocutionary value and are analyzed in terms of the rhetorical relations holding between them. Findings reveal that the texts analyzed are complex networks of functionally arranged and interrelated PS sequences whose unmarked order can be purposely subverted with emphatic aims. In addition, an illocutionary and rhetorical analysis of each one of the PS textual components reveals di¤erent ways of addressing the reader in editorials and op-eds.
Linguistic Features in the Introduction Section of the Hospitality and Management Research Articles
Malaysian Journal of Languages and Linguistics (MJLL), 2015
This paper reports a corpus-based genre analysis of the use of linguistic features in the introduction section of Hospitality and Management research articles (HM RAs). It explores the frequently used linguistic features such as modal verbs, personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, tenses, conjuncts, hedging, citations-integral and non-integral and the use of questions. The samples used were 20 RAs taken from the Journal of Hospitality and Management and published between the years 2004-2006. The linguistic features of the introduction section were identified using the Wordsmith program (Scott, 1998) and manually recording and counting the frequency of occurrence in each move. It is noted that the modals 'can' and 'may' are used simultaneously in all the three moves identified in the HM RA introductions. Interestingly, the analysis of the linguistic features in the present study shows that it is necessary for the HM RA writers to use different linguistic features while discussing certain moves such as the use of the present tense, which is predominant in Move 1, Move 2 and Move 3 while the present perfect and past tense are found in Move 1 and 3. The study indicates that identification of the linguistic features in the introduction section of the HM RAs may be helpful for students and novice writers in the field because they may be able to use these features as an initial suggested list of choices that they can effectively use in their writing.
ODISEA. Revista de estudios ingleses, 2017
Many studies have focused on the analysis of each of the prototypical four sections of the research article (i.e. Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Swales 1990). However, whereas some sections have been subject to a great deal of analysis, especially the Introduction, others have not attracted as much scholarly attention. That is the case of the Methods section. Nevertheless, it is believed that the particular organization and content of this section plays a crucial role in the production of a successful research article. The Methods sections of 24 research articles in Business Management written in English for an international readership and in Spanish for a local audience will be contrastively analysed in terms of their rhetorical organization. When comparing the results to those from previous analyses in the fi eld of medicine, it stems that the Method sections in Business Management articles contains some specifi c steps which could be considered characteristic. Furthe...
IJASOS- International E-journal of Advances in Social Sciences, 2015
Recently, studies on rhetorical structure of research articles (RAs) have attracted a great attention of researchers. Among the sections of RA, the Introduction section has been investigated extensively while much fewer studies have been done on the Methods section. Besides, the majority of the existing studies focus only on a single discipline or on a comparison between two disciplines. Very little, however, has been conducted to compare the rhetorical structure between two sub-disciplines from one academic field. In this study, therefore, the Methods sections from Management and Marketing, two sub-disciplines of business, were analyzed and compared to identify the rhetorical variations due to disciplinary concepts and practices between these two sub-disciplines. Two sets of corpus were compiled, each with ten Methods sections from two prestigious journals in the fields of Management and Marketing, respectively. Lim"s model (2006) for the rhetorical structure of the Methods section in Management was adopted as the analytical framework. Results of the analysis showed that the chosen analytical framework could not offer sufficient explanations for the rhetorical structure of the Methods sections in the two sub-disciplines of business, even revealing some discrepancies between the framework and the actual texts. Only 30% of the Methods sections in the Management corpus appeared to fit the selected model while in the Marketing corpus, the Methods sections had a greater diversity of rhetorical patterns due to the requirements for publishing in the two selected Marketing journals. The findings in this study may have some implications for writing the Methods sections in the business discipline, such as the need for explicit instruction of writing conventions of this particular section and the guidance to realize the rhetorical differences between these two sub-disciplines for more effective sub-discipline specific writing.
Method sections of management research articles: A pedagogically motivated qualitative study
Notwithstanding the voluminous literature devoted to research genres, more investigation needs to be conducted to demonstrate the pedagogical significance of studying linguistic features in relation to communicative functions. Motivated by a concern for the pedagogical applicability of genre analysis, this paper investigates the extent to which results of an analysis may be effectively employed for the second language acquisition of syntactic structures and lexical items commonly found in the Method sections of management research articles. On the basis of the data analyzed, I suggest that writing courses in tertiary institutions should be tailored to meet the needs of students encountering difficulties in associating linguistic features with communicative functions of academic texts. Using an innovative and comprehensi-ble approach to describing the steps under each rhetorical move, I have provided relevant materials that may be usefully exploited in the teaching of the genre specifications of the Method sections of management research articles. Despite the acknowledgment that no single model can be considered entirely appropriate for learners in different academic disciplines, reasons are given to explain why constituent steps should be investigated in sufficient detail if ESP teachers are to provide a pedagogically meaningful model for second language learners in a particular discipline.