Issues with Publishing Abstracts in English: Challenges for Portuguese Linguists' Authorial Voices (original) (raw)
Related papers
Genre Analysis and Translation - An Investigation of Abstracts of Research Articles in Two Languages
Cadernos De Traducao, 2003
This study presents an analysis of abstracts from research articles found in Linguistics and Translation Studies journals. It first presents some theoretical background on discourse community and genre analysis, then it shows the analysis carried out on 18 abstracts, 6 written in English, 6 in Portuguese and 6 being their translations into English. The analysis aims at verifying whether the rhetorical patterns of organizations and the moves found in abstracts coincide with those proposed by Swales (1993) in his study of research articles and introductions. Besides, it intends to identify the verb tenses and voice preferably used in this kind of text as well as mechanisms used to indicate presence or absence of the writer in the text. The analysis reveals that the rhetorical patterns and some moves proposed by Swales are found in abstracts, though not in the same order. It also shows a high occurrence of present simple tense and active voice in all moves and passive voice only occasionally. It argues that the absence of the writer is a distinctive feature of scientific discourse and it is obtained by means of passive voice and typical statements used as resources to avoid the use of personal pronouns.
English and French journal abstracts in the language sciences: Three exploratory studies
Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2007
This article compares French and English academic article abstracts from the language sciences in an attempt to understand how and why language choice might affect this part-genre-both in actual use and according to authors' linguistic and rhetorical perceptions. Two corpora are used: Corpus A consists of abstracts from a French linguistics journal and a corresponding English one; Corpus B contains paired French and English abstracts from the bilingual EAP journal ASp; additionally, we report on e-mail interview findings from two of the ASp authors. Differences emerged at three levels. First, it was found that certain features such as choice of voice are ascribable to general differences between the two languages. Second, it would appear that personal pronoun use, sentence length and transition word selection can be aligned with expectations as to what constitutes appropriate academic style. Thirdly, differences in the way the research reported is ''situated'' are most likely due to differences in discourse community size. The methodological implications of these studies are discussed at the close. r
2011
This paper investigates patterns of rhetorical convergence and divergence in pairs of RA abstracts (English-Spanish and Spanish-English) published in the journal Ibérica. To that end, a total of 84 pairs of author-translated RA abstracts were analyzed. Based on the results of a pilot study, the following rhetorical patterns were analyzed in the corpus: text-referring expressions, degree of epistemic commitment, amplified attitude, self-mention, and periphrastic (e.g. multi-word) expressions. In addition, selected authorial input was requested to seek further explanations about the variation across these two languages. For text-referring expressions, broad cross-linguistic convergence was found in the expressions used and the degree to which the text is given agency. By contrast, the abstracts in Spanish were found to include greater degree of epistemic commitment, more amplified expressions of attitude, more self-mention, particularly in the plural first person, and periphrastic equivalents. Authorial input indicated that some of these diverging patterns were due to collocational differences but they were also influenced by beliefs about what is more natural in Spanish. Our results suggest that there may be specific lexical bundles performing intensifying functions in Spanish that deserve further investigation. These findings may have implications for ESP pedagogy and translation studies.
JOALL (Journal of Applied Lingustics and Literature), 2018
The abstract has become the first part that will be read by readers in a research article. Some important aspects in the abstract are move structure and linguistic features. This study examines the rhetorical moves and linguistic features of English research article abstract written by three groups of authors in Applied Linguistics. The research design was mixed method design combining quantitative and qualitative method with the corpus of this study consisted of 60 abstracts by postgraduate students, national and international authors found in RA abstracts. The results show that the common moves by three groups of authors have only three moves (i.e purpose, method, and results). The common linguistic features used by three groups of authors are active voice, present tense, and simple sentence. By comparing the three groups of abstracts the differences are found in the postgraduate students authors. They were used move 1 (Background/ introduction/ situation) fewer than national and international authors. Furthur the postgraduate students used past tense more dominant than present tense and using hedges is more frequently than national and international authors. This study concludes that in writing RA abstracts a writer should adjust the commonly used rules the abstract especially in using 5 moves in the abstracts. INTRODUCTION An abstract is the first part that will be read in the publication journal, research article, thesis, and so on. The readers can overview the content of a journal by reading an abstract. Submitting an abstract is an important thing even in national or international journal. The objective can be more detail seen by reading the abstract. Abstract is beneficial for the reader to identify the keywords that will make it easier for exploring the research.
2008
The present study is a contrastive investigation of conclusions of researcharticles (RAs) written in Portuguese as a native language, English as anative language and English as a foreign language. The analysis wascarried out according to the principles of genre studies as proposed bySwales (1990). The corpus is composed of 36 conclusions of RAs in the field of applied linguistics. The findings reveal no constant pattern of rhetorical organization and no obligatory moves or steps. However,the results indicate the occurrence of a complex array of moves and steps which exhibits a cyclical structure but with differences in the threelanguages investigated. Furthermore, the samples investigated permitted the elaboration of a proposal of a model for this component of RAs. Thestudy, therefore, contributes to a richer understanding of the nature of conclusions of RAs and, as such, of academic writing
Academic Writing in Portugal I: Discourses in Conflict
In the increasingly globalised world of academic production, Portuguese researchers are under intense pressure to publish in English, generating a huge demand for translation, revision and specialised language services. However, there are considerable rhetorical and epistemological differences between the hegemonic discourse of Anglophone academia and the traditional Portuguese writing style of the humanities, which can cause serious problems not only for translators but also for Portuguese academics that wish to write their papers directly in English. This work explores those differences across a range of academic disciplines and genres by means of three complementary studies: a Corpus Analysis of over 400 Portuguese academic texts; a survey of Portuguese researchers in the humanities and social sciences; and a review of Portuguese academic style manuals. The results are of great practical interest to all those attempting to teach, write or translate English academic discourse in the Portuguese context, as well as to anyone concerned with the controversial issue of linguistic imperialism.
The Common Move and Step in Research Article Abstracts
Jurnal Pendidikan: Teori, Penelitian, dan Pengembangan
Move and step are components that can provide effective contribution to overall communicative purpose in research article. This study aims to investigate the moves and steps in 48 abstracts publication from cross-disciplinary study under UM journal website. The design of this study is qualitative research. Swales et.al (2014) and Hyland's (2000) models are used to identify moves and steps occurrence. The result shows that the majority of abstracts use M3 (46 abstracts), M4 (44 abstracts), M2 (40 abstracts). Authors mostly apply step 1 in M2 (40 times), step 1 in M4 (42 times), and step 3 in M3 (35 times). Abstrak: Moves and Steps adalah komponen yang dapat memberikan kontribusi efektif untuk keseluruhan tujuan komunikasi dalam artikel penelitian. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menyelidiki langkah-langkah dan langkah-langkah dalam 48 publikasi abstrak dari studi lintas disiplin di situs web jurnal UM. Desain penelitian ini adalah penelitian kualitatif. Model Swales et.al (2014) dan Hyland (2000) digunakan untuk mengidentifikasi keberadaan moves dan steps. Hasilnya menunjukkan bahwa mayoritas abstrak menggunakan M3 (46 abstrak), M4 (44 abstrak), M2 (40 abstrak). Penulis kebanyakan menerapkan step 1 di M2 (40 kali), step 1 di M4 (42 kali), dan step 3 di M3 (35 kali).
Cadernos de Estudos Lingüísticos, 2017
in this paper, we depart from the hypothesis that face-work is an important dimension of the construction of discourse, regardless the register (oral or written). drawing on the framework of Pragmatics, we argue that instances of nominalization can operate as politeness strategies, in the sense that they permit, on the one hand, the omission of the actor/agent of a given verbal event and, on the other hand, they contribute to establishing the boundaries of social distance and power relations, as a pervasive feature of formal texts. the empirical data analyzed in this study include academic papers taken from the Academic corpus of Brazilian Portuguese (cAPB). in the academic papers analyzed, nominalizations operated, to a large degree, as a strategy to mitigate the potential attacks on the positive face of the author himself, acting, therefore, as a strategy of positive politeness.
2016
The present study is a contrastive investigation of conclusions of research articles (RAs) written in Portuguese as a native language, English as a native language and English as a foreign language. The analysis was carried out according to the principles of genre studies as proposed by Swales (1990). The corpus is composed of 36 conclusions of RAs in the field of applied linguistics. The findings reveal no constant pattern of rhetorical organization and no obligatory moves or steps. However, the results indicate the occurrence of a complex array of moves and steps which exhibits a cyclical structure but with differences in the three languages investigated. Furthermore, the samples investigated permitted the elaboration of a proposal of a model for this component of RAs. The study, therefore, contributes to a richer understanding of the nature of conclusions of RAs and, as such, of academic writing. Key-words: Genre; conclusions of RAs; rhetorical organization; contrastive. Resumo O...