Дискурсивно-стилистический анализ английской письменной научной речи. Учебное пособие

Министерство науки и высшего образования Российской Федерации

САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГСКИЙ ПОЛИТЕХНИЧЕСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ ПЕТРА ВЕЛИКОГО

Е. С. Клочкова

ДИСКУРСИВНО-СТИЛИСТИЧЕСКИЙ АНАЛИЗ

АНГЛИЙСКОЙ ПИСЬМЕННОЙ НАУЧНОЙ РЕЧИ

Учебное пособие

ПОЛИТЕХ-ПРЕСС

Санкт-Петербургский политехнический университет Петра Великого

Санкт-Петербург

2019

The Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation

PETER THE GREAT

SAINT-PETERSBURG POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY

E. S. Klochkova

STYLISTIC AND DISCOURSE

ANALYSIS OF

ENGLISH ACADEMIC TEXTS

Textbook

POLYTECH-PRESS

Peter the Great

St.Petersburg Polytechnic

University

Saint-Petersburg

2019

P e e r r e v i e w e d b y:

PhD habil., Professor, Department of Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University

A. V. Rubtsova

PhD, Associate Professor, Departments of Foreign Languages, Samara State University of Social Sciences and Education

S. A. Stroykov

Klochkova E. S. Stylistic and DiscourseAnalysis of English academic texts: textbook / E. S. Klochkova. – SPb. : POLYTECH-PRESS, 2019. – 88 p.

The textbook presents information about the salient features of the English academic style as well as basic methods of linguistic analysis of authentic academic texts written in English. The textbook also contains training tasks and exercises aimed at developing reproductive and productive speech skills, in particular the skills to write and edit English academic texts.

Printed by the Publishing Council

of the Peter the Great St. Petersburg polytechnic universityAcademic Council.

ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ

Учебное пособие «Дискурсивно-стилистический анализ английской письменной научной речи» составлено в соответствии с программой курса «Переводческие аспекты публикационной деятельности» (направление подготовки – 45.04.02 «Лингвистика», магистратура).

Настоящее пособие включает в себя описание характерных лексических, грамматических и композиционных особенностей английского научного стиля в целом и отдельных речевых жанров в частности. Теоретические положения иллюстрируются примерами из аутентичных научных текстов на английском языке. Отработка и закрепление полученных теоретических знаний обеспечивается заданиями, нацеленными на лингвистический анализ фрагментов научных текстов, написанных на английском языке. Пособие также снабжено практическими упражнениями, направленными на отработку отдельных лексико-грамматиче- ских умений.

Пособие состоит из двух частей. Часть I содержит общие сведения о характерных чертах английского научного стиля, его доминирующих стилевых чертах, особенностях отбора лексики и грамматических конструкций, а также типовой структуре абзаца.

Часть II нацелена на отработку навыка создания письменного научного текста на английском языке. В качестве образца научного текста рассматривается жанр академического эссе. Обучающимся предлагается алгоритм написания эссе, соответствующих стандартам, принятым в англоязычной образовательной среде.

Настоящее пособие предназначено для магистрантов направления подготовки «Лингвистика». Кроме того, отдельные разделы пособия могут быть использованы при обучении аспирантов английскому языку для академических целей.

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PART 1. ENGLISH ACADEMIC STYLE

1. Salient features of English academic texts

The main features of an English academic text include the following aspects:

1.Formal style.

2.Academic vocabulary and terminology.

3.Complex syntactic structures and long sentences.

4.Discourse conventions.

5.Specific patterns of text organization.

Formal style

Academic writing tends to be accurate, objective and impersonal. When writing an academic text, an author should consider thefollowing guidelines.

1.Do not use idiomatic or colloquial vocabulary; instead use standard English:

kids => children boss => manager.

2.Use vocabulary accurately. There is a difference between “rule” and “law”, or “weather” and “climate”, which you are expected to know if you study these subjects.

3.Be as precise as possible when dealing with facts or figures. Avoid phrases such as “about a hundred” or “hundreds of years ago”. If it is necessary to estimate numbers, use “approximately” rather than “about”.

4.Conclusions should use tentative language. Avoid absolute statements such as “unemployment causes crime”. Instead, use cautious phrases: “unemployment may cause crime” or “tends to cause crime”.

5.Avoid adverbs that show your personal attitude: luckily, remarkably, surprisingly.

6.Do not contract verb forms: don’t, can’t. Use the full form: do not, cannot.

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7. Although academic English tends to use the passive more than standard English, it should not be overused. Both are needed. Compare:

Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter.

The moons of Jupiter were discovered by Galileo.

In the first case, the focus is on Galileo, in the second (passive) on the moons.

8.Avoid the following:

•like for introducing examples. Use such as or for instance.

•thing and combinations with “thing”, for example nothing or something. Use factor, issue or topic.

•lots of. Use a significant/considerable number.

•little/big. Use small/large.

•“get” phrases such as get better/worse. Use improve and dete-

riorate.

• good/bad are simplistic. Use positive/negative (e.g. the changes had several positive aspects).

9. Do not use question forms such as “Why did war break out in

1914?” Instead, use statements: There were three reasons for the outbreak of war...

10. Avoid numbering sections of your text, except in reports and long essays. Use conjunctions and signposting expressions to introduce new sections (e.g. Turning to the question of detecting cancer...).

11. When writing lists, avoid using etc. or and so on. Insert “and” before the last item:

The main products were pharmaceuticals, electronic goods and confectionery.

12.Avoid using phrasal verbs if there is a suitable synonym. Go on => continue

Bring up => raise

Exercise 1. a) Read the following paragraph. Underline the examples of a poor style.

How to make people work harder is a topic that lots of people have written about in the last few years. There are lots of different theories

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etc and I think some of them are ok. When we think about this we should remember the old Chinese proverb, that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. So how do we increase production? It’s quite a complex subject but I’ll just talk about a couple of ideas.

b) Poor style examples can be explained as follows. Complete the table using the guidelines listed above.

c) The paragraph could be re-written in more suitable style. Read the new version, compare it with the previous paragraph. Analyze and list the differences.

Motivation has been the subject of numerous studies during recent decades, but this essay will focus on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory (1943) and Herzberg’s two-factor theory (1966). Their contemporary relevance to the need to motivate employees effectively will be examined critically, given that this can be considered crucial to a firm’s survival in the current economic climate.

Exercise 2. a) Read the paragraph. Underline the examples of poor style. Complete the table similar to that in Exercise 1.

Capital is a difficult thing to understand. We can explain it in different ways, and in accounting we can look at it from different angles.

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Accountants talk about legal capital, financial capital and physical capital. How we apply financial and physical concepts of capital isn't easy because people in business use it differently.

b)Rewrite the paragraph in more suitable style.

2.Academic vocabulary

Vocabulary shift

English often has several choices to refer to a concept. The choice is between synonyms which can be more or less formal.

For example, a phrasal or prepositional verb is considered to be less formal while a single verb is more formal. In addition, words with Germanic origins are regarded as neutral or less formal whereas the words with Latinate origins increase the formality of writing.

In lectures and other instances of everyday spoken English, neutral or less formal vocabulary is often used; however, for written academic style, there is a tendency for academic writers to use a formal synonyms when possible. In some fields this is a very noticeable stylistic characteristic. Here is an example.

Given our fast-paced society, people must routinely put creative solutions to unexpected problems into practice.

Given our fast-paced society, people must routinely implement creative solutions to unexpected problems.

We tried to find a new way of understanding the data. We attempted to find a new way of understanding the data.

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