A Study on the Syntactic Complexity of Introduction and Conclusion in Maritime-Related Research Articles|RISS 상세보기

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Syntactic complexity is one of the linguistic characteristics conceptualized as the degree of elaboration, sophistication, and variety of the structures in language production, upon which a considerable amount of research has been carried out by connecting it to academic genres or part-genres in research articles of diverse disciplines over the decades. However, the syntactic complexity features of part-genres in maritime-related research articles are less explicated. To this end, the present study aims to unpack both the synchronic and diachronic syntactic complexity characteristics of Introduction and Conclusion part-genres in maritime-related research articles published between 2006 and 2020.
To achieve the research purposes, the Corpus of Maritime-Related Research Articles was built, including over one million running words with 119 sub-corpora. The dataset is comprised of 900 research articles in three disciplines: marine engineering, maritime law, and marine transportation. Tool for Automatic Analysis of Syntactic Sophistication and Complexity was used to measure the syntactic complexity construct. Furthermore, the measures of 14 indices in five dimensions were compared between disciplines and part-genres variables using MANOVA, ANOVA tests, and independent t-test. Equations of deviation calculation and Python were employed to capture the diachronic syntactic complexity changes of part-genres in respective disciplines and maritime-related research articles across the examined 15 years.
Synchronic results revealed that, among the three disciplines, the maritime law texts showed the greatest syntactic complexity among the three disciplines in both Introduction and Conclusion part-genres. As for the syntactic complexity variations between part-genres of Introduction and Conclusion within each discipline and within maritime-related research articles, Conclusion part-genre texts were syntactically more complex than Introduction part-genre of the texts in marine engineering, maritime law, marine transportation, and maritime-related research articles.
Regarding the diachronic syntactic complexity changes in Introduction part-genre and Conclusion part-genre yearly across 15 years, results showed individual features in the three maritime-related disciplines, exhibiting nonlinear as well as dynamic characteristics.
The current study has its pedagogical, theoretical, and methodological implications for future research. Specifically, one methodological contribution is worth touching upon here. That is, the two equations of deviation changes were written to track the trajectories of dynamic syntactic complexity changes, which is accessible to researchers and open to be replicated for similar studies.
Notwithstanding the efforts to achieve perfection, the present research is nowhere near perfect, and it has limitations and inadequacies.

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목차 (Table of Contents)

Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Research background 1
1.2 Research questions 3
1.3 Research significance 4
1.4 Layout of the thesis 6

Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Research background 1
1.2 Research questions 3
1.3 Research significance 4
1.4 Layout of the thesis 6
Chapter 2 Literature review 8
2.1 Genre analysis 8
2.1.1 Genre 8
2.1.2 Academic genres 10
2.1.3 Genre analysis of academic discourse in English for Specific Purposes 12
2.2 Syntactic complexity 16
2.2.1 Definitions 16
2.2.2 Measures 17
2.3 Complex dynamic systems theory 21
2.4 Previous studies on the syntactic complexity of various genres 22
Chapter 3 Methodology 27
3.1 Corpora 27
3.1.1 Data 27
3.1.2 Building the corpora 28
3.2 Data analysis and visualization 34
3.2.1 TAASSC 35
3.2.2 SPSS 39
3.2.3 WordSmith Tools 8.0 40
3.2.4 Microsoft Visual Basic 42
3.2.5 Deviation calculation 43
3.2.6 Python 3.7 46
Chapter 4 Synchronic study on syntactic complexity variations 47
4.1 Introduction 47
4.2 Syntactic complexity variations between Introduction and Conclusion in the three respective disciplines and maritime-related research articles 48
4.2.1 Marine engineering research articles 48
4.2.2 Maritime law research articles 51
4.2.3 Marine transportation research articles 54
4.2.4 Maritime-related research articles 57
4.3 Syntactic complexity variations of Introduction and Conclusion between three disciplines 60
4.3.1 Introduction variations 60
4.3.2 Conclusion variations 68
4.4 Discussion 75
4.5 Chapter summary 80
Chapter 5 Diachronic investigation into syntactic complexity change 84
5.1 Introduction 84
5.2 Diachronic syntactic complexity changes in Introduction and Conclusion across 15 years 84
5.2.1 Dynamic changes of Introduction across 15 years 85
5.2.1.1 Marine engineering research articles 85
5.2.1.2 Maritime law research articles 89
5.2.1.3 Marine transportation research articles 92
5.2.1.4 Maritime-related research articles 96
5.2.2 Dynamic changes of Conclusion across 15 years 103
5.2.2.1 Marine engineering research articles 103
5.2.2.2 Maritime law research articles 107
5.2.2.3 Marine transportation research articles 111
5.2.2.4 Maritime-related research articles 115
5.3 Discussion 122
5.4 Chapter summary 123
Chapter 6 Conclusion 127
6.1 Major findings 127
6.2 Implications 129
6.2.1 Pedagogical implication 129
6.2.2 Theoretical implication 131
6.2.3 Methodological implication 132
6.3 Limitations and suggestions 133
References 135
Appendices 157
Appendix A. Journals downloaded as corpora · 157
Appendix B. Program code for text processing 158
Appendix C. Program code for data visualization 160
Appendix D. Multiple comparisons between disciplines in Introduction 170
Appendix E. Multiple comparisons between disciplines in Conclusion 173

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