28.3357, Review: Discourse Analysis; General Linguistics; Text/Corpus Linguistics: D'Angelo (2016)
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LINGUIST List: Vol-28-3357. Tue Aug 08 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
Subject: 28.3357, Review: Discourse Analysis; General Linguistics; Text/Corpus Linguistics: D'Angelo (2016)
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Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2017 15:54:55
From: Ines Busch-Lauer [Ines.Busch.Lauer at fh-zwickau.de]
Subject: Academic posters
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-1196.html
AUTHOR: Larissa D’Angelo
TITLE: Academic posters
SUBTITLE: A textual and visual metadiscourse analysis
SERIES TITLE: Linguistic Insights - Band 214
PUBLISHER: Peter Lang AG
YEAR: 2016
REVIEWER: Ines Busch-Lauer, Westsächsische Hochschule Zwickau
REVIEWS EDITOR: Helen Aristar-Dry
SUMMARY
Larissa D’Angelo’s book is a welcome research overview that addresses young
professionals and teachers of Languages for Specific Purposes on a still
linguistically underrepresented but highly important academic genre – the
academic poster. In six chapters, the author investigates, in a well-written
and highly structured manner, which textual and visual reader-focused
strategies are applied in poster presentations in three academic domains: High
Energy Particle Physics, Law and Clinical Psychology. A corpus of 120 posters
was assembled following strict selection criteria, among others, a survey with
experts and interviews. The texts were then the subjects of a linguistic and
visual analysis. In this context, major guidelines and rules available to
junior researchers and students were also considered in order to compare the
actual with the expected poster quality.
The content of the volume is well-laid out. Chapter 1 provides a sound
evaluation of the need to consider academic posters from a linguistic angle.
Posters belong to the academic presentation genres which play a crucial role
in the dissemination of scientific work-in-progress. Posters serve an
interlocutor function between the researcher and the academic community.
Therefore, this multimodal genre is key to young researchers to make their
work visible to the academic community. This is why a multitude of
instructions on proper preparation of posters can be found on the Internet. In
this genre context, Larissa D’Angelo addresses three questions for her
research: “How effective are the poster guidelines for the individual domains?
Are posters in the hard sciences similar to the posters in the so-called soft
sciences? Are there any unspoken rules and conventions that recur within
single disciplines and should, therefore be openly known to novice academics?”
(p. 15) Following a description of her research, giving the rationale,the
author provides a short overview of the volume so that the reader can draw on
specific questions to be explored in individual chapters.
Chapter 2 starts with a literature review of research into academic genres.
Following relevant definitions, for example, “academic discourse community”,
recent “research in the domains” and a definition of “genre”, a short
introduction into the genre “academic poster presentations” is provided. Here
the author considers textual, visual and spoken components,as well as relevant
research that is available on this genre.
Chapter 3 is entitled “Data Collected” and provides good reasoning (purpose,
representativeness, size, balance) for the compilation of the corpus. Forty
posters for each domain were studied and a survey conveyed in order to reveal
the relevance of the genre in the individual subdomains. For that purpose, 120
staff members ( researchers both with and without extensive experience in
their field) of 25 universities (five per continent) were included to answer
six questions: (i) Where is the poster genre used most in the domain?; (ii)
Who presents the posters?; (iii) How often do academics present posters?; (iv)
How often do presenters rely on templates?; (v) How often do they rely on
generic templates? and (vi) How often do presenters rely on guidelines/
experience of peers? From the results of this survey Larissa D’Angelo draws
some important first conclusions on the role of posters in the domains and on
the selection of her poster corpus for analysis. For example, physicists use
posters – without national bias – at large conferences at least once a year,
no matter whether they belong to the group of experienced academics or postdoc
students, and they use templates as well as guidelines. In contrast, lawyers
present posters every two or more years, use generic templates and only
occasionally guidelines or suggestions by peers. The corpus selection and
study is additionally accompanied by twelve interviews (with two professionals
from each field having either expert or novice academic status).
Chapter 4 is devoted to the analytical framework of academic posters. Due to
the multimodal character of this genre, a new type of combined textual, visual
and spoken discourse analysis is required. The author describes this complex
approach in detail, applying the metadiscourse model developed by Hyland
(2005) which focuses both on interactive and interactional categories. Among
the first are transition markers, frame markers, endophoric markers, code
glosses and evidentials. Hedges, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions and
engagement markers belong to the interactional category. In order to analyse
metadiscourse in visuals, Larissa D’Angelo uses the metadiscourse model of
Kress & van Leeuween 2006 and Kress 2010). Both metadiscourse approaches are
illustrated by samples.
Chapter 5 describes in detail the results obtained from the corpus analysis.
Larissa D’Angelo could determine domain-specific distributions of textual
interactive and interactional resources as well as various trends in the use
of visual interactive resources. Examples drawn from each subcorpus illustrate
these differences clearly. Textual interactive resources were common in Law
posters (47%), compared to only 30% in Clinical Psychology posters and 23% in
High Energy Particle Physics posters(). Transitions and frame makers are more
recurrent in Law posters, whereas endomorphic markers are common in Law and
Clinical Psychology posters. Authors of Law posters also make more frequent
use of interactional resources (70% in Law posters compared to 24% in High
Energy Particle Physics and 6% in Clinical Psychology posters). Posters in all
three domains apply visual interactive resources, however, with a varying
focus. For example, Clinical Psychology posters prefer font to indicate
important textual elements whereas the Physics posters apply more graphical
elements. Framing and connective elements seem to be typical for Law posters.
Nonetheless the visual interactive resources play a crucial role in guiding
the reader to manage the flow of information and to understand the contents.
Finally, Chapter 6 discusses the obtained results referring to the above
mentioned research questions. Cross-disciplinary differences occurred
regarding the number of words used (clinical psychologists are wordiest),
portrait/landscape orientation (physicists opt for more portrait-oriented
posters whereas clinical psychologists use landscape-oriented posters and
lawyers do not present preferences) and post layout (IMRD structure not
consistently used in Physics but consistently used in Law). Law posters
contained the most textual interactive and interactional resources followed by
Clinical Psychology and Physics. Visual interactive resources are fundamental
in poster design, particle physicists prefer graphical elements, lawyers use
framing and clinical psychologists favour interactive fonts. The author then
evaluates the achieved results for further research and draws a number of
conclusions for the practical use of the material in teaching the genre to
students in the various domains. Moreover, the appendix to the book not only
provides a comprehensive insight into the research methodology and corpus
analysis but also offers a relevant overview of metadiscursive elements in the
individual domains. The reference section contains a topical research
bibliography on the genre and is of particular value for the novice linguistic
researcher.
EVALUATION
Larissa D’Angelo’s monograph is an excellent example of profound linguistic
analysis into an as yet rarely studied but highly relevant genre – the
academic poster. It is very valuable both for further genre research and for
teaching special languages in particular in English. First, it offers applied
linguists a valid concept for approaching a genre in general, various domains
in particular and the complex multimodal character of texts. In this context,
the book is innovative in that Larissa D’Angelo avoids the bias between
linguists’ and experts’ perspectives on text and genre through a thorough
analysis of the peculiarities of the three domains under investigation. The
performed expert/novice survey and the follow-up interviews are highly
representative and reveal interesting parameters and guidelines for the
compilation of reliable subcorpora. Such an approach has not yet been
practiced often in genre studies and thus contributes enormously to the
validity and sustainability of the obtained results. Thus, the novice
linguistic researcher has got a book at hand that follows a strict and concise
methodology and spurs further in-depth analysis of genres in the academic
domain. The often postulated interdisciplinary differences could be evaluated
more closely in a reliably chosen text corpus.
Second, the monograph is a hands-on reference book for novice academics who
need information about the poster genre in their field, from a linguistic and
comprehensibility point of view and who do not simply want to rely on peers or
formal guidelines when checking the quality of their own posters prior to
conference submission. Larissa D’Angelo’s book will definitely raise their
awareness regarding metadiscursive elements, textual and visual effectiveness
and comprehensibility. Thus, the book may contribute to the development of
better academic style and readability in the three domains chosen, in
particular when the posters are written by non-native speakers of English.
Third, the monograph is a very welcome book for teachers of English for
special purposes in order to overcome gaps in their genre knowledge or
awareness. Often these teachers are not familiar with research methods into
texts and therefore require guidelines on which particular textual elements
they need to focus on during their classes. The sample-driven analysis
provides a solid basis for teaching the teachers on how to deal with the
academic poster genre, its textual, visual and metadiscursive elements. It
develops the awareness of domain-specific features which need to be
incorporated into genre teaching curricula and English for specific purposes
classes.
To sum up, Larissa D’Angelo’s research is a masterpiece of concise linguistic
analysis, clear linguistic presentation and solid evaluation of obtained
results. It is a monograph to be recommended for further research and teaching
purposes.
REFERENCES
Hyland, K. (2005). Metadiscourse: exploring interaction in writing. Bloomsbury
Publishing.
Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality. A social semiotic approach to contemporary
communication. London: Routledge.
Kress, G. and Van Leeuween, T. (2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual
design. London: Routledge.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
ABOUT THE REVIEWER<br />Ines-A. Busch-Lauer is Professor of English (Applied
Linguistics) and Communication at the University of Applied Sciences in
Zwickau/ Germany. Her main fields of research comprise English and German
specialized communication in various domains (especially in technical
subjects, business, medicine, linguistics), the study of texts and genres,
contrastive rhetorics and intercultural communication, academic writing in
English, LSP didactics and style. She is a member of the editorial board of
Fachsprache. International Journal of Specialized Communication published by
facultas, Vienna. In this role, she is responsible for review management and
compiles the biannual bibliography of recent publications on languages for
specific purposes’ research.
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