The role of ‘this’ in Academic and Research English The struggles of an EAP Practitioner

1. The role of ‘this’ in Academic and Research English The struggles of an EAP Practitioner John M Swales (jmswales@umich.edu)

2. Some cohesive ties in English • I hate the rain. So do I/I do too/me also. • I hate the rain, but I guess it’s necessary • I hate the rain; however, the farmers need it • The rain is heavy. This may cause floods. • The rain is very heavy. This development surprised the meteorologists.

3. Some Basic Frequency Data • In Hyland’ corpus of 240 research articles: • This is the 15th most frequent word (these is 32nd) • In the written BNC this falls to # 30 • In Hyland, #14 is by; #16 is on

4. Why is “this” so common in academic prose? • The Longman Grammar: (Biber et al. 1999) “the high frequency of this/these both as determiners and pronouns in academic prose is due to their use in marking immediate text reference” • Anna Mauranen (1993) “One rhetorical effect that this produces is an impression of closeness and solidarity between reader and writer. It has the effect of bringing the reader round to the writer’s orientation, or point of view, by implying that the writer as well as the reader are both “here”, on the same side, looking at things from the same perspective”

5. A first complexity: this v. it • 1) The temperature will fall below freezing tonight. • 1a) It will be as low as -5° C in some areas. • 1b) This may cause frost damage.

6. Larger Entities • This article has argued that time-travel is feasible. • This research tradition (as described in the first three chapters) has a long history. • “text reference” (Halliday & Hasan 1976); “situational reference” (Petch-Tyson, 2000)

7. Hinkel (2004) • “A singular demonstrative pronoun has a limited referential capacity…and cannot be used to refer to entire contexts or implied referents”. • For Hinkel, capturing multiple reference points requires a demonstrative determiner followed by an appropriate noun. Her example: “Senator Smith called members of his party useless, and this gaffe is likely to lead to his resignation.”

8. A Second Complexity • So when to use a simple this and when tofollow this immediately with a noun? • A slew of terminology: “attended” this (Geisler et al. 1985); “supported” this (several authors); this + “associated nominal” (Huckin & Olsen, 1991); this + summary word (Swales & Feak, 1994).

9. Little discussed in major Grammars But of course The Grammar Book: a)Strauss (1993) 40% in speech unattended b) “demonstrative usage might be quite genre specific in written discourse” (p. 308) since use was constrained in book-notice genre, but not in essay genre (where stylistic and rhetorical effects could come into play).

10. First Decisions • The choice of “attended” and “unattended” this • Restriction to subject position, even though other options are, of course, possible: “Some authors argue that people of similar background will share similar beliefs. Others, however, question this proposition.

11. This alone, and the problem of ambiguity • “Many phrasal verbs in English have both literal and idiomatic meanings, and are used in both general and specialized contexts. This causes problems for learners. • What does? The problem of “broad reference” (Kolln 1999) • Geisler et al: judicious economy v. potentially ponderous clarification.

12. A third Complexity • Repetition of previous noun or something more? Each chapter ends with a summary of the main points. A) This summary is primarily designed to help students studying on their own. B) This strategy is primarily designed to help students studying on their own.

13. The body of this talk • 1) My struggles with this topic, especially in terms of teaching materials • 2) Corpus linguistics; the data from Hyland • 3) Overzealous teaching and the case of Meilan Zhang • 4) Re-examination of Hinkel’s and Geisler’s usage distinctions • 5) General reflections

14. Writing Scientific English (1971) In some parts of the world sulphur deposits lie too deep to be mined in the ordinary way. However, in about 1900 an American engineer called Herman Fraschdeveloped a process for the extraction of this deep-lying sulphur. The Frasch process depends on the fact that the boiling point of sulphur is only a little above the boiling point of water. The process consists of three basic operations. First, large amounts of water are super-heated; in other words, the water is heated under pressure to above its normal boiling point. Secondly, this super-heated water is pumped down the well so that it melts the sulphur. Finally, this molten sulphur is pumped to the surface.

15. Central position Verb phrase carries the information: S1 Sulphur deposits lie too deep S3 Herman Frasch developed a process S5 Large amounts of water are super-heated S6 so that it melts the sulphur Non-central position Noun phrase carries the information: S2 This deep-lying sulphur S4 The Frasch process S6 This super-heated water S7 This molten sulphur (Notice also the use of this to refer back to something already mentioned.)

16. David Charles (Aston, c. 1981) The students said they wanted more tests. a) This surprised the instructor. b) This request surprised the instructor. c) This request for more tests surprised the instructor.

17. The students said they wanted more tests. a) This statement surprised the instructor. b) This demand surprised the instructor. c) This ultimatum surprised the instructor. d) This hope surprised the instructor.

18. Swales & Feak (1994) Opening unit: “flow”, i.e. “moving from one statement in the text to the next” (p.21) 1) sentence connectors; 2) This + summary word. on 2) short discussion + 3 pages of exercises

19. Choose an appropriate summary word to fill the gap. 5) Early in September each year, the population of Ann Arbor, Michigan, suddenly increases by about 20,000 as students arrive for the new academic year. This _________ changes the character of the town in a number of ways. a) influx b) increase c) invasion d) rise e) jump

20. Swales & Feak (2000) Discussion and exercises expanded to 6 pages, but no indication (after 30 years!) of situations where unattended “this” may be quite appropriate. c.f. Giesler et al. 1985: “Out of control, the unattended this points everywhere and nowhere; under control, it is the language’s routine for creating a topic out of a central predication, pointing to it, bringing it into focus, and discussing it; all done in one stroke, gracefully, economically, and without names”. (p. 153)

21. Meilan Zhang (2004) ELI 630: One of five investigations of her own corpus and that of one in her field (Ed. Tech.) Her use of unattended this = 3% of the total (N =144) RA use of unattended this = 25% of the total (N = 202) Her typical summary words: group, unit, site, review RA typical summary words: methodology, approach, attribute, process

22. Corpus Evidence (2005) a) 4 MICASE dissertation defenses: 46% of this unattended (similar to Strauss) b) Fall 2005 620 class: one of their own papers about 30% of this unattended. c) Hyland Corpus of 240 research articles + in house corpora of 50 dental and 50 medical research papers (Jennifer McCormick, my undergrad RA)

23. Investigative questions In each sub-corpus: a) where did this occur in the frequency list? b) how frequent per 1000 words? c) How frequent in clause-initial position? d) of CI instances, percentage unattended? e) If attended, most common NPs?

24. Word ranking and frequency per 1000 words Field Word-ranking per1000 Applied linguistics 11 6.8 Physics 13 7.0 Sociology 14 6.3 Elec. Engineering 14 6.7 Mech. Engineering 15 5.7 Marketing 15 6.3 Philosophy 15 7.4 Dentistry 16 5.1 Medicine 17 4.9 Cell Biology 24 3.8

25. Field % CI Of these % UNATT.D Dentistry 59 25 Medicine 51 26 Cell Biology 50 31 Applied Linguistics 43 33 Elec. Engineering 53 34 Mech. Engineering 56 45 Marketing 54 38 Sociology 46 38 Physics 50 42 Philosophy 43 56

26. Most Frequent Nouns attending “this” Dentistry study finding result patient process Elec. Engin. approach algorithm method paper technique Physics effect approach behavior contribution figure Sociology article model paper process group Philosophy account article argument conclusion claim

27. Some (rare) complex NPS with “this” (Dent.) This atypical behavior of poloxamer 407… (Mech) This underflow withdrawal flux… (Phil.) The problem with this austere version of Platonism.. (Soc.) One path around this apparent theoretical impasse..

28. Unattended this: Looking for explanations 60 examples in the Physics sub-corpus A) One of the main restrictions limiting…of the experiment is the rise-time of the field gradient pulse. This is typically several hundred milliseconds… A’) This limitation can be partly avoided by… B) This reduction in the stored energy…is therefore 31%. This is comparable with the reduction found by others..

29. C) …the width of this peak will decrease as the numbers of oscillators and energy units increase. This is already apparent in comparing Figs. 1 and 3. These explanations account for about 2/3 of the cases. But: D) … very high accuracy is required in evaluating the integrals in Eq. 33, if reliable numbers of the Langrage multipliers are to be obtained. This is especially true if, as in our case, a large number of target points are used. E) The third term of Eq. 21, i.e. Ahkl, is an inherent parameter and was first pointed out By Kasuya and leCraw [24]. This is determined by the processes…

30. Geisler’s the central predication is “in focus” Corpus findings: Unattended “this” is more likely when followed by: a) a simple copula (“is”) or a simple modal (“may be”) b) Present tense verbs, such as indicates, means, suggests c) On the last, this suggests is more common than this NP suggests (46/79 instances in Hyland)

31. By way of conclusions • Some new facts on the ground about ‘this’ in RAs • Still a matter of tacit knowledge? • Instructional strictures “drummed out of me in high school” “pizza” Meilan Chang

32. “writers should make sure that opportunities for useful emphasis or additional characterization have not been lost by leaving a this unattended’ (Geisler et al, 1985: 151) • Should EAL students attempt to match the published 30% unattended? • Tradeoff between clarity and economy

33. A professional cast to the text (but philosophy?) • “over-use” reduces ambiguity • An occasional option under certain conditions • Reduction of summary nouns in published articles because of revision pressures?

34. Further research • Think-aloud protocols • Other languages (just one paper in French) • Initial demonstrative prepositional phrases: In this case (119); In this way (60); In this sense (31); In this context (23); In this respect (17)