Hedges and Boosters in Academic Writing

심은숙 현대영어교육학회 2017 현대영어교육 Vol.18 No.3

This study analyzed hedges and boosters employed in the U.S.-based research article (RA) abstracts and the Korea-based English RA abstracts of TESOL/Applied Linguistics. The corpus consisted of 564 RA abstracts: 268 abstracts from international journals (TESOL Quarterly & Applied Linguistics) and 296 abstracts from domestic journals (English Teaching & Korean Journal of Applied Linguistics). Hyland’s (2005) model was employed as the basis for the analysis. A concordance program, AntConc, was used in analyzing the data by identifying the occurrences of hedges and boosters in the RA abstracts. From the corpus-based genre study of RA abstracts, the findings showed that a higher occurrence of hedges was found in the U.S.-based English texts and more boosters were used in the Korea-based English texts. The cross-cultural analysis revealed that the present tense verb in reporting results of a study was used in the U.S.-based RA abstracts but the past tense verb was used predominantly in the Korea-based RA abstracts, suggesting that the L2 writers’ choice of the rhetorical devices may be influenced by the specific contexts of publication. The disciplinary variations in the writing of academic texts should be considered.

Authorial Stance in Academic Writing

심은숙 한국언어과학회 2022 언어과학 Vol.29 No.3

This study was to examine how L2 writers from different disciplines construct stance markers such as hedges or boosters in research article abstracts. A total of 180 English research article abstracts were collected from the disciplines of applied linguists, public administration, business, computer science, electronic engineering, and biology. Hedges and boosters were analyzed based on the taxonomy proposed by Hyland(2005) and Hu and Cao(2011). The findings revealed that the disciplines of soft sciences contained more stance markers than hard sciences. The discipline of applied linguistics contained the highest proportion of hedges, whereas the discipline of biology contained the highest proportion of boosters. Considerably fewer hedges and boosters were found in the electronic engineering corpus. The most frequently used type of hedges and boosters was epistemic lexical verbs. The analysis suggests that discipline-specific writing conventions should be considered in L2 academic writing instruction. Studies on variations across disciplines may provide pedagogical implications for L2 academic writing courses.

A Genre-based Approach to ESL/EFL Writing Research and Instruction

심은숙 현대영미어문학회 2005 현대영미어문학 Vol.23 No.4

Genre analysis studies attempt to identify the commonly used rhetorical structure and linguistic features of academic or professional genres. This genre approach has become a major influence on the current practices in the teaching of second/foreign language (L2) writing in higher educational contexts, due to its explicit explanation of the complex relationships between text and context by identifying a specific rhetorical structure and linguistic features of a genre. The present paper is to present the notion of contrastive rhetoric and genre analysis in L2 writing and to argue that genre specific approaches can provide L2 writing teachers and students with useful and relevant information of how a genre is constructed in a particular context and how it can be interpreted. These approaches can assist teachers to help students to understand the academic or professional discourse community which they wish to enter. As a result, students can benefit from a critical awareness of others' writings and how the writings work in particular contexts.

Academic Writing Needs and Tasksin EFL Writing Classes

심은숙 강원대학교 인문과학연구소 2016 인문과학연구 Vol.0 No.50

This study was to report on findings from a case study designed to assess English-major undergraduate students' writing needs in the academic writing classes. In order to accomplish this research purpose, data sources were from questionnaire and interviews. A total of 35 undergraduate students of English as foreign language responded to the questionnaires. They were asked to provide importance ratings of academic language skills, to assess their own writing skill status, and to respond to open-ended questions. The findings of data analysis showed that there is much in the skill items identified as very important. In addition to important pedagogical implication, this study suggests a need to be cautious when interpreting needs assessment results because what students consider as an important skill to possess may not be what students need to develop.

충북농업의 지역적 특성에 대한 경영지표 분석

沈銀淑,兪鎭采 충북대학교 농업과학기술연구소 1989 農業科學硏究 Vol.7 No.1

The slopes, cultivate ratio and conditions of soil are settled and then agricultural region classified by the altitude in Chungbuk area. Because of the ranges of the Mountains of Soback to the east the altitude is high and the plains is developed to the west. The Interior of the Centural Area of the West (Ginchon, Womsong, Chungju, Jungwon) and the West Interior of Soback Mountains(Chungju, Chungwon) are high cultivate ratio and proper for the good conditions of production. On the other hand, the Taeback area (Gaesan, Tanyang) with low temperature is mountainous area, and so the altitude is high and cultivate ratio is low. The climate of this area have the feature of low temperature in the high mountains, that is why the conditions of production is disadvantage. The Soback Mountainous area(Kwesan, Bowuen, Okchon, Youngdong) is semi-mountainous area, and so cultivate ratio is low, the condition of agricultural production is a little disadvantage. The zone of life and the social-economic conditions is reflected by the agricultural areas mentioned above. Namely, the cities are developed in the advantageous area of agriculture and social-economic conditions is better. And also in the management-indicate-analysis the differences of the natural condition is reflected by the section of the region. In analysis of the specialized items and the development stage each farm in its scale has come the resemble concussion. Although the specialized items are same the meaning is different on the distribution of farm scale. We may say that the specialized regions living many farms with more scale which can suffice the farm household cost and can remove the differences of income between city and country. Owing to the limitation of material data I cannot reflect the tendency of the latest, but I can conclude that agricultural system of Chungbuk must be done to the following directions. First : When we deal with agricultural management as a matter of region, We should not disregard production policy of each items and then improve the structure of agriculture and product system in this region. Second : Laying stress on the items which are glowing the farm management scale, We should organized the system of agricultural production. Third : As the investment of industry to magnify the management scale in the IGP region is the modernization of facilities, the introduction of machine and strategic investment of economic project is valuable. The investment should be put in advance in the FGP and IGP in order to improve the infrastructure of agriculture for the agricultural foundation and social overhead capital.

A Genre-Based Investigation of Research Article Abstracts

심은숙 현대영어교육학회 2013 현대영어교육 Vol.14 No.3

Given that a research article (RA) abstract should include a summary of the study in a condensed way and also highlight the importance of the research, RA abstract writing can be challenging to novice academic writers. This paper is to examine the rhetorical moves and linguistic features of abstracts in published research articles. For this study, forty research article abstracts from two journals (TESOL Quarterly and Applied Linguistics) issued in 2012 were analyzed. The results show that most abstracts contain the obligatory four moves: Purpose, Methods, Results, Conclusions (Move 2-3-4-5), and are characterized by the preference of this study/article, the use of present verb tense, active voice, and the use of that clauses in reporting findings. In order to produce effective texts, explicit genre-based approach to teaching writing can be applied for those who wish to be a member of academic discourse communities. The rhetorical variables from various academic fields should be noted.

Rhetorical Structure and Directives in L2 Writing: A Genre Analysis of Request Letters

심은숙 한국중앙영어영문학회 2011 영어영문학연구 Vol.53 No.2

The purpose of the study is to examine the rhetorical move structure and politeness strategies used in request letters of Korean university students enrolled in the department of English in Korea. Forty-one request letters were collected for this study. The participants were given a survey about their personal information and writing instruction. Then, they were asked to write a request letter in English. The results of the study revealed that a Justification-Request pattern (Move 3-2) appears to be favored and rather recursive. The high levels of directness seemed to be due to the a writer’s intention of pragmatic clarity as an attempt to communicate with readers clearly. The writers’ choice of certain linguistic patterns, or ‘a need/want statement’, may be due to the different perception of level of imposition. This study suggests that different strategies can be effective in different cultures.

Narrative Structure and Tense Use in the Narrative Genres of Korean EFL Learners

심은숙 한국중앙영어영문학회 2012 영어영문학연구 Vol.54 No.2

The purpose of this paper was to examine how Korean learners of English express temporal information and use the tense-aspect to report chains of events in their narrative discourse. Ten adults Korean learners of English participated (two intermediate-level and eight advanced-level learners). The participants were asked to produce a Korean-telling-story task first and then a English-telling-story task. Twenty oral narratives were collected and grounding analysis was performed on all narrative texts. The findings of the study revealed that Korean learners tended to use the past tense to express completed actions in the foreground and the non-past to comment on actions or to evaluate the events in the background. This supports that grounding of narrative discourse may influence the distribution of tense-aspect morphology. Further studies should observe the function of the background and its influence on tense-aspect in narratives with a large-scale data.

Investigating Professional Language Needs for ESP Courses in Tertiary Education

심은숙 한국중앙영어영문학회 2010 영어영문학연구 Vol.52 No.2

In designing an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course, a variety of issues such as learners’ needs, appropriate language skills, or specific content knowledge should be considered. The purpose of the study was to identify the professional language needs in health-care settings by examining the perceptions of professors and students on the language skills required in nursing education. A needs assessment was carried out with nursing students and faculty members in the Department of Nursing, which prepared students for careers in the health care field such as hospitals, medical service providers, or public health organizations. Data were gathered by means of questionnaires and interviews. The findings of the study were characterized as three meaningful domains: (a) the understanding of English medical terminology, (b) the appropriate writing skills of a patient’s chart, and (c) the appropriate academic reading skills. These skills appeared to be significantly important for undergraduate students who wish to work as health professionals. A valuable source of information for designing curricula can be provided.

Use of citations in academic writing

심은숙 팬코리아영어교육학회 2006 영어교육연구 Vol.18 No.2

The appropriate use of citations is an important practice in academic writing. English language learners need to learn the acceptable technical rules for citation practices. In particular, those who may not have experience with the western model of citation in academic texts may have problems with the appropriate rhetorical use of citations. Although the appropriate use of citation in academic texts has been considered an important practice in academic writing, little has been written about its rhetorical functions or about varying citation behaviors across languages and cultures. For the purpose of enhancing the pedagogy of writing instruction for English language learners, this study seeks to reveal the similarities and differences in the use of citations in research article introductions written by Korean writers and those written by native English-speaking writers. Thirty research article introductions were selected from two journals in the field of ESL/EFL education. In this study, differences were observed in the number of references and stance toward prior research. Non-integral forms of citation and the present or present perfect tenses were frequently used. The results of the study can contribute to the pedagogy of writing instruction for writing instructors and English language learners, providing implications for instructional practice.