27.2773, Review: Applied Ling; Text/Corpus Ling: Aull (2015)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-27-2773. Tue Jun 28 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.2773, Review: Applied Ling; Text/Corpus Ling: Aull (2015)

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Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2016 14:01:01
From: Tina Beynen [tbeynen at uwo.ca]
Subject: First-Year University Writing

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36129257


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-2746.html

AUTHOR: Laura  Aull
TITLE: First-Year University Writing
SUBTITLE: A Corpus-Based Study with Implications for Pedagogy
PUBLISHER: Palgrave Macmillan
YEAR: 2015

REVIEWER: Tina Beynen, University of Western Ontario

Reviews Editor: Robert A Cote

SUMMARY

The study described in author Laura Aull’s “First-Year University Writing”
marries the fields of applied linguistics and rhetoric-composition (RC) to
examine linguistic features of first year (FY) student and expert academic
writing. Aull’s corpus investigation is motivated by a lack of research that
examines the linguistic features used to “argue” and “describe” (p. 7) in
academic writing. The book is broken down into six chapters that explain the
large-scale issues and literature gap that fuel the study, detail the corpus
analysis and major language-level patterns discovered, and provide pedagogical
implications of the findings. 
 
Aull outlines three primary goals for this book: identifying patterns in
linguistic features in argumentative FY writing while considering writing
prompts and comparing the patterns found to those found in academic expert
writing; considering why there are not more large-scale studies that
linguistically analyze FY writing; and highlighting why there should be more
studies of this nature. The research questions that guided the study are as
follows: “What are the salient, shared features of first year writing? How do
those features differ from those in expert academic writing? How might we
guide students to be more aware of such features and the principles of
academic discourse they reveal?” (p. 3). While Aull recognizes the
contribution of smaller scale studies using more qualitative methods of
analysis, and she recognizes that there are other features of FY writing that
can be and have been examined, she seeks to bridge the gap between two fields
of study that are important in advancing our knowledge of novice academic
writing.   

Chapter 1, “First-year writing today,” introduces the issues and research gaps
that led to this investigation. Aull points out that as far back as the 1950s
and 1960s, researchers attempted to create links between the fields of
linguistics and writing studies in order to collaboratively explore research
issues. Equally as old are complaints about FY students’ inability to write in
the academic genre in an acceptable manner. Despite these issues, she
explains, there is no clear or commonly accepted definition of what is
considered exemplary. In addition, there remains a lack of empirical evidence
to demonstrate specific ways in which novice academic writing falls short. 

In Chapter 2, entitled “Linguistic and rhetorical studies in English: A
history and a (genre-based) way forward,” Aull explains the origins of the
rift that exists between the disciplines of linguistics and RC in order to
contextualize “how FY writing is understood and studied today as well as how
we might approach it differently” (p. 20). She summarizes three points to
explain why there are a lack of large scale studies that use a linguistic
approach. First is the nature of how American post-secondary English
departments developed with writing instructors housed within English
departments. In addition, these instructors rarely had training in
linguistics. Second, the field of RC itself has evolved in isolation from the
fields of linguistics and English for Academic Purpose. Finally, FY writing
research and teaching has historically focused on larger-scale text meaning
and writing strategies, paying little attention to linguistic features. 

Aull presents the context for her study in Chapter 3, “Context-informed corpus
linguistic analysis of FY writing,” and reveals the first of the findings. She
begins by describing the key concepts involved in corpus linguistic analysis.
She draws on two corpora:  a specialized corpus of evidence-based
argumentative essays written by students upon entry to two American
universities and the reference corpus, Corpus of Contemporary American English
(COCA; source of the expert writing). These are analyzed using the software
program AntConc (Anthony, 2011). The two American institutions from which the
student writing was drawn are the University of Michigan and Wake Forest
University. 

The first patterns found in the FY corpus highlight the care needed in
designing test prompts. In this study, most FY writers used first person
pronouns more than expert writers, regardless of the prompt. However, when a
prompt asked for personal evidence, FY writers used even more first person
pronouns. The FY writers used these to highlight evidence in a variety of
ways, many of which differed from how expert writers used them. Finally, when
an open-ended prompt solicited personal evidence (instead of a direct response
to a source text argument), the instances of FY references to personal
evidence again increased. In conjunction with this, references to the source
text or author decreased.  

The bulk of the study’s findings relating to the use of hedges and boosters
(epistemic markers), and scope markers,”are presented in Chapter 4, “Corpus
linguistic analysis of scope and certainty in FY and expert writing.”
Contributing to argumentative strength or certainty, Aull notes that the
patterns found relating to these features may assist both students and
instructors in “demonstrating how macro-level concepts like credibility,
evidence, and cohesion are realized in language-level patterns” (p. 85). 

First, Aull discovered a number of common phrasal hedges and boosters. She
also found the following patterns with the use of hedges and boosters: they
are often used in academic discourse to demonstrate certainty and possibility;
there are many ways to craft certainty and qualification in argumentative
writing; the experienced academic writers used fewer boosters than the FY
writers; and the expert writers demonstrated more balance between certainty
and possibility, whereas the inexperienced writers were more confident in
their assertions. Second, the analysis of scope markers revealed that expert
writers used more text-internal markers (those that draw on the surrounding
text) and used them to a far greater extent than text-external markers (those
that take the reader outside of the text). In contrast, the novice writers
depended more on text-external language. Additionally, FY writers tended to
refer to the source text without making this explicit to the reader.

In Chapter 5, “Linguistically Informed Pedagogical Applications,” Aull brings
together research and practice by suggesting a number of classroom activities
to help writers build credibility through scope and certainty of claims,
demonstrating knowledge and understanding through reformation of ideas, and
forming clear relationships between concepts with the use of words and phrases
that link and organize thoughts. She provides lesson ideas on argumentative
certainty and breadth to practice boosters, hedges, scope markers. Aull also
suggests learning activities relating to findings not previously discussed:
the use of reformulation markers (emphasis and restatement), and transitions
markers (logic and organization).

Aull concludes the book in Chapter 6, entitled “Implications and lingering
questions,” by discussing further implications of this study, an
acknowledgement of its limitations, and suggestions for future directions. Two
interesting implications she details relate to equity and access, and creative
expression. In the first, Aull notes that by unearthing patterns in both FY
and expert academic writing, the goal is not to shame a lack of skill on the
novices’ part or to proclaim the linguistic features found in the more
experienced writing as the absolute in standards. She expresses concern
regarding the reinforcement of privileged forms of English and limiting access
to the language that will help students succeed in their studies, assumed as
the foundation for career and financial success. In the second, she suggests
the importance of some allowance for creativity and innovation in student
writing. 

EVALUATION

Aull achieves the three goals she set out to accomplish with this book. With
regard to identifying common FY and expert academic writing features, Aull
concedes that there is more to composing academic text than the linguistic
features used, and this study focuses solely on the genre of the argumentative
essay. However, discussing the entire range of micro and macro elements that
go into academic writing, in addition to the multitude of written assignments
that students could encounter in their various disciplines, are beyond the
scope she sets out. The greater point to be made is the value in considering
linguistic patterns in light of the lack of empirical examination into this
area thus far. Further, she views the student writing patterns in context by
considering them in relation to the writing prompts and more experienced
academic writing. 

The book’s second goal of exploring why there are not more studies blending
applied linguistics and RC comes to fruition in Chapter 2. This friction
between overlapping yet competing fields is surely not unique. The question
remains as to why the two fields still resist coming together, despite
evidence of the benefits of joining forces? The contributions of this study
demonstrate that ‘interdisciplinarity’ is not just the buzzword du jour or
popular agenda for post-secondary institutions and funding agencies; it is an
important and necessary step in viewing research issues from different
perspectives and advancing our knowledge. 

Finally, goal number three about the value of blending theoretical influences
is realized in this study’s findings. In addition to the point above regarding
the value of interdisciplinary study, these results provide concrete evidence
of some of the language-level differences in novice and experienced academic
writing. This study also adds to the growing body of research using corpora.
This method of investigation facilitates efficiency by allowing researchers to
analyze large amounts of data that would be difficult or impossible to do
manually (Deignan, 2005). It also allows for more in-depth and efficient (both
in time and expense) analysis (Shutova, Teufel, & Korhonen, 2013), and
genre-specific corpora facilitate the ability to search the most frequent uses
of language forms in specific contexts. Finally, corpus investigation provides
a more objective picture of language in use rather than relying on supposition
or intuition (Berber Sardinha, 2007). 

This study’s findings raise important issues for consideration. Previous
studies examined writing prompts in light of student performance, but Aull
goes a step further to consider the linguistic features of responses. She
points out that secondary school students are typically taught not to use the
personal pronoun ‘I’ in their writing in order to avoid personal narration,
yet three of the seven prompts examined included wording inviting students to
draw on personal experience. Those prompts elicited the highest number of
self-mentions and a sharp decrease in referencing the source texts, especially
when the prompts were open-ended. 

Another issue of importance is the basis upon which to evaluate student
writing, recalling Aull’s comment about there not being a clear definition of
acceptable standards. Developing widely-recognized, objective, evidence-based
qualities is necessary in order to judge student writing fairly and equitably
as well as to provide novice writers with clear objectives to work towards.
Aull identifies the importance of indoctrinating students to what is expected
of them as academic writers, nodding to Sancho, Guinda, and Hyland (2012) who
insist that students must be provided with “adequate descriptions” (p. 6-7) of
the intricacies of the language-level features and disciplinary norms that
they are expected to adhere to. The results obtained in Aull’s study provide a
starting point towards the complicated task of defining the features that
comprise effective academic writing.

One shortcoming of this study, which Aull discloses, is what constitutes
‘expert’ academic writing. She acknowledges that the COCA includes writing
that is different from what university students (first year or otherwise)
would be expected to compose (e.g., research articles). She suggests that the
development of a more realistic expert writing corpus would be useful for both
students and instructors. This reviewer proposes examples of
discipline-specific, upper year student writing that has been judged as
exemplary of the type of writing that is desired, for modeling purposes. 

Also noteworthy with regard to defining expert academic writing is Aull’s
suggestion in the introductory chapter that FY students can write but do so in
a way that may not be valued by their instructors. She hopes that identifying
linguistic patterns in both novice and expert writing will demystify
expectations for students. This goal is not a new one, but Aull approaches it
from a different lens than her predecessors. In the concluding chapter, she
stresses that care must be taken to not “…cast expert writing as a rigid and
stable template…” or “…vest even more power in patterns of standard edited
English” (p. 159). Instead she hopes that she can instill in students an
awareness without stifling creativity, particularly considering disciplinary
variations.  

Overall, this book does a good job of presenting the impetus for the study,
explaining why so few studies of this nature exist, detailing the findings,
and suggesting ways in which the results can inform pedagogy. In terms of
organization, this reviewer would have preferred that the findings revealed in
Chapter 5 be presented with the other findings in Chapter 4. Alternatively,
they could have been given their own place as a separate chapter before
delving into the practical pedagogical implications so as to not interrupt the
flow of this chapter. However, Aull’s First-Year University Writing will be an
interesting and informative read for those who work with FY students in the
post-secondary classroom and in support services, such as writing centres. The
latter is the experiential background from which this review was approached.
As such, those researchers firmly entrenched in the applied linguistics or RC
camps may be more critical of the study’s findings or wary of the theoretical
intermingling that Aull suggests is important. However, this reviewer believes
that this study makes genuine contributions to the body of knowledge on FY
writing.

REFERENCES

Anthony, Laurence. 2011. Antconc (Version 3.2.4). Tokyo: Laurence Anthony,
University of Waseda.

Berber Sardinha, Tony. 2007. Metaphor in corpora: A corpus-driven analysis of
applied linguistics dissertations. Revista Brasileira de Lingüistica Aplicada,
7(1). 12-35.

Deignan, Alice. 2005. Metaphor and corpus linguistics. Philadelphia: John
Benjamins Publishing Co.

Sancho Guinda, Carmen & Hyland, Ken. 2012. Introduction: A context-sensitive
approach to stance and voice. In Ken Hyland & Carmen Sancho Guinda (eds.),
Stance and voice in written academic genres, 1-11. Palgrave Macmillan. 

Shutova, Ekaterina, Teufel, Simone & Korhonen, Anna. 2013. Statistical
metaphor processing. Computational Linguistics, 39(2). 301-353.
doi:10.1162/COLI_a_00124.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Tina Beynen recently completed her M.A. in Applied Linguistics & Discourse
Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, where she was a Teaching
Assistant in the Writing Tutorial Service for the duration of her degree. Her
thesis investigated metaphor comprehension in first year engineering
textbooks. She is certified to teach English as a Second/Additional Language
with TESL Ontario, specializing in academic English. Beynen currently works as
an administrator in the Faculty of Education’s Research Office at Western
University in London, Canada. She plans to travel abroad to teach English
before pursuing doctoral studies.





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