27.2130, Review: Discourse; Ling Theories; Semantics; Syntax; Text/Corpus Ling: Flowerdew, Forest (2015)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-27-2130. Mon May 09 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.2130, Review: Discourse; Ling Theories; Semantics; Syntax; Text/Corpus Ling: Flowerdew, Forest (2015)

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Date: Mon, 09 May 2016 13:39:13
From: Natalia Jacobsen [natalia at gwu.edu]
Subject: Signalling Nouns in English

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36119157


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-845.html

AUTHOR: John  Flowerdew
AUTHOR: Richard W.  Forest
TITLE: Signalling Nouns in English
SUBTITLE: A Corpus-Based Discourse Approach
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2015

REVIEWER: Natalia Dolgova Jacobsen, George Washington University

Reviews Editor: Robert Arthur Cote

SUMMARY

In their book “Signalling Nouns in English,” authors John Flowerdew and
Richard W. Forest target the concept of signaling nouns, defined as “abstract
nouns which are non-specific in their meaning when considered in isolation and
which are made specific in their meaning by reference to their linguistic
context” (p. 1).  The eleven-chapter book represents a first-time book-length
exploration of lexicogrammatical and discourse features of signaling nouns
(hereafter referred to as SNs) in various academic sources (such as academic
journal articles, textbooks, and lectures) across a number of disciplines.
This book is relevant for researchers and advanced students of English syntax,
semantics, corpus linguistics, and discourse analysis, as well as for a wide
range of EAP professionals. 

Chapter 1, entitled “Introduction”, introduces the basic notion of signaling
nouns and illustrates it with typical examples. To illustrate, in the two
instances below, words marked with single quotes - ‘problems’ and ‘fact’ -
represent SNs, while the rest of each sentence represents their corresponding
lexical realization/specification:

“1) T Cartels encounter two characteristic ‘problems’. The first is ensuring
that members follow the behaviour that will maximize the industry’s joint
profits. The second is preventing these profits from being eroded by the entry
of new firms.

2) The n-type semiconductor behavior of the nanocrystalline oxide film is
determined by the presence of Ti(III) species. This experimental ‘fact’ is
opposite to the behavior observed by other authors in colloidal films.” (p. 1)

As can be inferred from these examples, the notion of signaling nouns can be
applied to a wide variety of contexts in order to fit relatively specific
discourse needs.

In Chapter 2, “Grammatical features of signalling nouns”, the authors identify
common grammatical features used for categorizing SNs, such as: 

co-occurrence with definite noun phrases and proximal demonstratives (‘this
and ‘these’) – as opposed to distal counterparts (‘that’ and ‘those’), 
being head of noun phrases taking complement clauses, such as that-, wh-, to-,
and non-finite clauses introduced by prepositions (p. 14)
being able to occur in subject positions with the auxiliary be and add a that
clause (referred to as ‘container sentence’ frame in Vendler, 1967).

Subsections of this chapter discuss each of the characteristics in greater
detail, using examples from corpus-based contexts. To conclude the chapter,
the authors point out a number of grammatical patterns that had not been
previously addressed in literature.

In Chapter 3, “Semantic features”, the authors cover the semantic features of
signaling nouns, highlighting the facts that SNs often function as lexical
superordinates drawn from the pool of abstract nouns. Also, the
characteristics of SN usage mean that they have both a constant and a variable
meaning. The chapter concludes with a proposed classification of SNs comprised
of six semantic categories: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

In Chapter 4, “Discourse features”, discourse features, and in particular, the
logico-semantic relations (projection and expansion, as defined by the
systemic functional grammar framework), are addressed in full detail. The
relationships conveyed by direct and indirect speech, reports/paraphrases, and
representation of thoughts and feelings all fall under the ‘projection’
category. The ‘expansion’ “umbrella,” on the other hand, includes
comparisons/contrasts, “as well as temporal, spatial, and causal relationships
in discourse” (p. 36). Both expansion and projection have further subtypes,
and the authors discuss each subtype as they are realized through SNs.

Chapter 5, “Criteria for determining what constitutes a signalling noun in
this study”, provides the full motivation for the study’s key methodology. It
begins with a statement that there is no universal test that identifies all
and only SNs which could be administered automatically or without relying “on
expert judgment of borderline cases” (p. 46). The entire chapter represents an
argument for the key criterion in determining what constitutes a signaling
noun – namely, encapsulation. It implies that SNs replace or refer to some
prior excerpt of text and carry the same meaning from that point on.
Encapsulation is anaphoric in a broad sense but does not necessarily have to
be refer to previously mentioned ideas – it can highlight upcoming ideas or
text as well. After identifying this broad criterion for SNs, the authors
address more specific criteria that applied to their study in particular and
explore subtypes of SNs (e.g., partitives, text nouns, etc.) they identified
in the analyzed corpus.

Chapter 6, “Corpus, methodology, annotation system, and reporting of the
data”, is dedicated to the description of corpus, methodology, annotation
system, and data reporting for the study.  The corpus used for the study
comprised over 600,000 words coming from both the natural and social sciences,
covering five disciplines each. The corpus included a variety of genres such
as lectures, textbook chapters, and journal articles produced in English (not
accounting for any specific regional varieties). This chapter provides a
detailed description of how all sources contributing to the corpus were
selected and compiled as well as how the data were tagged and annotated. In
order to account for the data in the most precise manner possible, trained
raters, as well as automated methods/systems, were involved in the
coding/tagging procedures.

Chapter 7, “Set of examples”, continues the topic of tagging, listing detailed
examples for each of the discourse and syntactic patterns of SN tags in the
corpus. The tags are presented in the order of frequency of occurrence in the
corpus, beginning from about 6,000 and ending with a singular occurrence per
million words. 

Chapters 8 through 10 present the study’s quantitative findings. Chapter 8,
“Overview of signalling noun distributions in the corpus”, provides a
discussion of key takeaways from the previous chapter, focusing on a broad
overview of SNs distribution in the corpus. Beyond the examples included in
Chapter 7, detailed frequency lists of SNs are added in the appendix and
referred to throughout Chapter 8. The total number of SN types in the corpus
is 845, which is larger than the number identified in previous literature
(Schmid 2000), suggesting that SNs are not a closed class and indeed a crucial
category in academic language discourse. This chapter proceeds with examining
the most frequent SNs in the corpus, beginning from listing the top 50 (Table
8-1 on pp. 86-87) and then those occurring more than 100 times in the corpus
and ranked according to standard deviation (Table 8-2 on p. 90). The authors
also present the distribution of SNs across natural and social sciences as
well as across the three genres (journal articles, textbook chapters, and
lectures). Detailed tables accompany the commentary throughout the chapter. 

Chapter 9, “Overview of semantic categories”, continues the analysis of
findings, focusing on semantic categories of SNs. The bulk of the chapter
focuses on answering six questions, which address the relative frequency of
SNs across 1) the corpus at large; 2) major divisions of natural and social
sciences; 3) specific disciplines in natural and social sciences; 4) genre
overall; 5) genres in natural and social sciences; and 6) genres in specific
disciplines within the natural and social sciences. The reporting of answers
is accompanied by tables presenting the corresponding summaries on the most
salient SNs and the relevant statistical frequency information. The top four
SNs (‘fact’, ‘idea’, ‘circumstance’, and ‘locution’) form one group of more
frequent categories, while the bottom categories (‘act’ and ‘modal fact’) form
another group. Furthermore, the authors conclude that that “there is a good
degree of consistency in the frequency of semantic categories across the two
major parameters of the corpus: discipline and genre” (p. 159).

Chapter 10, “Overview of lexicogrammatical and discourse pattern frequencies”,
continues with a discussion of lexico-grammatical and discourse pattern
distributions associated with SNs. In addition to reporting overall
frequencies of patterns in the corpus, the authors also report how SNs are
patterned across academic disciplines and genres. Similar to previous
chapters, key points are supported by extensive data reported through multiple
tables.

Chapter 11, entitled “Conclusion”, provides a conclusion for the whole book;
it serves as a ‘discussion’ space, where key findings are summarized, and
limitations as well as directions for future research are addressed. The
authors provide a critical overview of the main results of their study,
highlighting the most salient and important points, and then conclude with
limitations and future research. The final subsection of the chapter concerns
applications to pedagogy. The authors stipulate that the findings should be
particularly relevant for the EAP and ESP professionals. In particular, a wide
range of lists included in chapters and appendices of the book could serve as
a starting point for consciousness-raising activities addressing the use of
SNs in specific disciplines and genres. However, additional contextual
information and students’ background knowledge would need to be involved in
such activities in order to prevent them from being focused on rote learning.
The authors suggest that the eventual application of the findings from their
book should serve as basis for pedagogical grammar centered on SNs and outline
a couple of pedagogical approaches (Francis, 1988; Flowerdew, 2003) to use as
a basis for further instructional activities.

The book concludes with almost a hundred pages of appendices, a reference
list, and a subject index.

EVALUATION

Without a doubt, the authors achieve the goal they stipulated for themselves
in the first chapter. The analysis is thorough, informed by
naturally-occurring discourse patterns, and a hundred percent data-driven. 
The presentation of findings is highly coherent, with one topic stemming from
the other and transitions always justified and properly supported. The book
fits with the increasingly popularizing orientation toward data-driven EAP
research. The tables and appendices provide a true ‘goldmine’ that could be
used to improve one’s understanding of how a given genre or
discipline-specific language may structured in terms of SNs. In short, the
book represents a unique contribution to the field in the sense that no other
studies of the same extent had been done in the past, and the findings allow
us to view and understand SNs in a completely new light.

For the sake of complete objectivity, though, two points of criticism should
be raised. First of all, in order to be able to benefit from the findings
presented in this book, readers need to have a significant prior understanding
of how corpora work, and how to utilize the findings from them. In other
words, the general narrative and the level of detail presented in the book
assumes a relatively high degree of prior knowledge, which is why the material
might be somewhat challenging for individuals unfamiliar with corpus research.
That said, the authors provide sufficient references to pre-existing
classifications, theories, and concepts that readers might need to familiarize
themselves with before delving into the authors’ analysis.

The second implication has to do with the intended audience of the book. The
authors suggest the book might of particular interest to professionals in the
English for Academic or Specific Purposes (EAP/ESP) areas. However, the only
part of the book where pedagogical implications are discussed explicitly is in
one subsection of the concluding chapter. Furthermore, in this part, the
authors mention some common ways corpus-based activities were used for
language teaching in the past. Although they provide some references, they do
not sufficiently explain the whole procedure. Perhaps, the next edition of
this book could include an overview of more detailed lesson plans and/or a
more extensive discussion of pedagogical applications behind the study’s
findings at the very least.

To sum up, this book would be of particular value for researchers who are also
actively involved in the EAP/ESP classroom and have the theoretical knowledge
to transfer the book’s findings into pedagogical materials. It would be
relatively less helpful for EAP practitioners who are just beginning to
familiarize themselves with corpus research and/or might be not be fully
familiar with key tenets of quantitative discourse/corpus analysis.

REFERENCES

Flowerdew, John. 2003. Signalling nouns in discourse. English for Specific
Purposes 22. 329-46
 
Francis, Gill. 1988. ‘The Teaching techniques of lexical cohesion in an ESL
setting’, in Verner Bickley (ed.) Language in a bilingual or multilingual
setting. Hong Kong: Institute of Language in Education. 325-38.

Schmid, Hans-Jorg.  2000. English abstract nouns as conceptual shells: From
corpora to cognition. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Vendler, Zeno. 1967. Linguistics in philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Natalia Dolgova Jacobsen is Teaching Assistant Professor of English for
Academic Purposes (EAP) at the George Washington University in Washington, DC.
She earned her PhD in Applied Linguistics at Georgetown University. Her
research interests include applied cognitive and corpus linguistics,
task-based language teaching, second language writing, and English for
Academic and Specific Purposes.





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