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“According to the equation…” : Key Words and Clusters in Chinese and British students’ undergraduate assignments from UK universities Maria Leedham CL 2009 m.e.leedham@open.ac.uk. Outline. 1. Research questions and the corpora 2. Findings 2.1 Keyness across L1 groups

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  1. “According to the equation…” : Key Words and Clusters in Chinese and British students’ undergraduate assignments from UK universitiesMaria Leedham CL 2009m.e.leedham@open.ac.uk

  2. Outline 1. Research questions and the corpora 2. Findings 2.1 Keyness across L1 groups 2.2 Changes from years 1 & 2 to year 3 2.2 Discipline differences 3. Conclusions and pedagogical implications

  3. Research Questions 1.What do key words and clusters reveal about Chinese and British undergraduate students' academic writing? 2. In what ways does Chinese and British students’ writing change from years 1 & 2 to year 3 of undergraduate study? 3. How significant is the discipline of study? .

  4. British Academic Written English (BAWE) 6,506,995 words 2,896 texts 2,761 assignments 1,039 contributors 30+ disciplines 13 genre families 4 levels of study Compiling my corpora L1 English and L1 Chinese Divided into years 1&2, and year 3 12 disciplines Extra students recruited through teaching contacts & discussion lists. Compiling the Corpora: 1

  5. Compiling the Corpora: 2

  6. Four corpora

  7. Keyness • A word which is positively key occurs more often than would be expected by chance in comparison with the reference corpus. • A word which is negatively key occurs less often than would be expected by chance in comparison with the reference corpus. • A "key key-word" is one which is "key" in more than one of a number of related texts. The more texts it is "key" in, the more "key key" it is. Scott, 2008

  8. Outline 1. Research questions and the corpora 2. Findings 2.1 Keyness across L1 groups 2.2 Changes from years 1 & 2 to year 3 2.2 Discipline differences 3. Conclusions and pedagogical implications

  9. Keyness across L1 groups

  10. Keyness across L1 groups

  11. ‘we’ in the combined Chinese corpus

  12. Changes in ‘we’ and ‘I’ over time

  13. Linkers

  14. Non-prose features An example of a “listlike”

  15. Key key words & clusters in year 3 Chi3 • to find out the • refer to the • FORMULAE • of the project • of the company • #, model, FORMULA, rate, ratio, table, figure, see Eng3 • as shown in figure • is given by FORMULA • in the project • of the project • the project is • #, FORMULA, project, analysis, figure, data, model, he, his, report

  16. Outline 1. Research questions and the corpora 2. Findings 2.1 Keyness across L1 groups 2.2 Changes from years 1 & 2 to year 3 2.2 Discipline differences 3. Conclusions and pedagogical implications

  17. Disciplinary subcorpora Subcorpora names Chi123Engineering Eng123Economics Etc

  18. Disciplines: first person pronouns ‘we’ in Engineering ‘I’ in Business

  19. Disciplines: non-prose features

  20. Disciplines: non-prose featuresExamples from Engineering: 1 Chinese English

  21. Disciplines: non-prose featuresExamples from Engineering: 2

  22. Outline 1. Research questions and the corpora 2. Findings 2.1 Keyness across L1 groups 2.2 Changes from years 1 & 2 to year 3 2.2 Discipline differences 3. Conclusions and pedagogical implications

  23. RQ1: What do key words and clusters reveal about Chinese and British undergraduate students' academic writing? RQ2: In what ways does Chinese and British students’ writing change from years 1 & 2 to year 3 of undergraduate study? Year 3 students favour: reduced use of ‘we’ and increased use of ‘I’ reduced use of pronouns (L1 English) wider range of linking chunks increased use of non-prose features (esp. L1 Chinese) Chinese students favour: • use of ‘we’ over ‘I’ • certain linkers • the strategy of presenting information in listlikes, tables and graphs

  24. RQ3: How significant is the discipline of study? Use of ‘we’ / ‘I’ Business Economics Engineering Food Biology • Linkers • in the long run • short term • medium • Economics, Business • in other words Economics • on the other hand’ • L1 Chinese: all disciplines • L1 English: all except Engineering & Food • Tables, figures, listlikes: • Discipline is important, but so is genre of assignment. • Chinese students use more than English students

  25. References • British Council 2007. ‘China Market Introduction’. Downloaded from http://www.britishcouncil.org/eumd-information-background-china.htm • Hewings, A. & Hewings, M. 2001 ‘Approaches to the study of disciplinary variation in academic writing: implications for syllabus design’, in David R. Hall, and Ann Hewings (eds.) Innovation in English language teaching, pp. 71-83. A reader. Open University/Routledge. • Heuboeck, A., Holmes, J. & Nesi, H. 2007 The Bawe Corpus Manual. Retrieved from http://www.coventry.ac.uk/researchnet/d/505/a/5160. • Hyland, K. 2008a. Academic clusters: text patterning in published and postgraduate writing. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 18(1), 41-62. • Hyland, K. 2008b. As can be seen: Lexical bundles and disciplinary variation. English for Specific Purposes, 27(1), 4-21. • Leedham, M. (forthcoming, 2009) ‘From traditional essay to ‘Ready Steady Cook’ presentation: reasons for innovative changes in assignments’ In Active Learning in HE. • Scott, M. 2008. WordSmith Tools v.5. Oxford University Press.

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