Mapping Disciplinary Differences in Assessed Student Writing

1. Sentence Subjects and Angle on Field: Mapping ideational meaning across subject areas and years of study in a corpus of assessed student writing Sheena Gardner, s.f.gardner@warwick.ac.uk WDHE 2006

2. Paper Outline 1. The Larger Research Project & BAWE 2. Disciplinary Differences & Theme 3. Two Classifications of Grammatical Subjects: Gosden and MacDonald • Issues and Applications to BAWE 5. A tentative framework for ISS analysis

3. Larger Research Project • An investigation of genres of assessed student writing in higher education. • Corpus of British Academic Written English (BAWE) • Characteristics of proficient student writing • Comparisons across disciplines • Comparisons across years

4. BAWE Corpus Grid

5. Planned Corpus Size

6. The current 24 (+ 4) disciplines

7. 2. DisciplinaryDifferences Becher & Trowler (2001) –sociological – • Sciences – established paradigm • Social sciences – different methodologies and frameworks • Humanities – interpretations based on personal insight

8. Disciplinary differences cont. • Parry (1998)’s analysis of thesis structure: • Sciences: report & explanation • Social sciences: explanation & argument • Humanities: argument with recount & narrative

9. Disciplinary Differences: Linguistic Analyses of Field (Ideational Meaning) A. Theme (numerous SFL) B. Sentence subjects (MacDonald, Gosden) C. Initial Sentence Subjects (proposed here)

10. Theme • Numerous detailed studies of Theme show its ability to characterise disciplines: • E.g. North (2005), Hewings (2004), Whittacker (1995), McCabe (2004), Lewin, Fine & Young (2001), Halliday & Martin (1993), Martin & Veel (1998), Ravelli & Ellis (2004), Moore (2002).

11. Significance of Theme • E.g. Coffin & Hewings (2004:157): • “Theme is used to signal what a message is about and • the writer’s angle on that message, and • to signpost the development of the text”

12. Macro-Theme: Martin (1992: 437) • “Macro-theme: “sentence or group of sentences which predicts a set of hyper-themes” • Hyper-theme: “introductory sentence or group of sentences which is established to predict a particular pattern of interaction among strings, chains and Theme selection” • macro-Theme: text:: • hyper-Theme:: paragraph:: • Theme:: clause

13. Unmarked Topical Theme • Subject in declarative sentences • Marked themes are less frequent (e.g. McCabe, Gosden) From its formation in 1903, (H154) • “From a discourse perspective, marked Theme and unmarked Theme generally do different work …marked Themes scaffolding phases/ stages of discourse (genre oriented), and unmarked Themes sustaining the angle on the field (field oriented) – two complementary aspects of Fries’ method of development.” (Martin sysfling list 8/18/03)

14. Angle on Field • Unmarked topical theme ~ Subject • “[topical, unmarked] Theme … provides the text’s angle on its field” (Martin 1993:244) Cf ‘Schizophrenia’ and ‘the pursuit of an acceptable definition of schizophrenia’ (PS55)

15. Why Grammatical Subject? • Conflates with unmarked topical theme in academic writing so gives angle on field • Appears less ‘technical’ than Theme for non SFL linguists (and RAs) • Empirical findings in terms of disciplinary differences AND levels of study

17. MacDonald’s analysis of Sentence Subjects

18. Levels of Study • 1st year undergraduates in Geography use more unmarked topical Themes (Subjects) identifying people, places, things or abstract qualities, and thus their writing sounds more descriptive, whereas 3rd year students adopt a more critical stance and make more references to the literature. Hewings (2004:140-2)

19. Empirical applications to BAWE 1. Does student writing in English, History and Psychology exhibit features similar to those described by SPM for professional writers? 2. Does student writing in Sciences exhibit features similar to those described by Gosden for professional writers?

20. BAWE data Student assignments: • 5 English (EN) essays, • 5 History (HI) essay, • 5 ‘Intro to Psychology’ essays, • 5 ‘Psychology Practicals’ essays, • 5 Biology (BS) essays. • All chosen by module, by highest marks and where possible by same student

21. English and History • SPM found 75-85% Subjects in English and History from Phenomenal classes • Student writing similar (e.g. Prince Arthur) • SPM found History favoured Groups • Student writing not similar – reflects SPM’s data on New England colonial migration and inheritance patterns.

22. Psychology • SPM found over 60% Subjects from epistemic classes • Student writing similar e.g. the pursuit of an acceptable definition of schizophrenia • C.f. other studies of student writing Witte & Cherry (1986), Hewings (2004)

23. Sciences • Gosden found a predominance of real world subjects (77%) and within this real world entities (56%) • BAWE data shows similar findings

25. Different years of study • English: possible progression from Entities in the Real World Domain (individuals and semiotic entities) to Interactive Participants (e.g. Nin, Lupini) • History: possible progression from Real World Domain (individuals, semiotic entities and groups) to Hypothesised Entities in HI2 (?) to Interactive Participants HI3 (Weber, Seeley). • Philosophy from ‘Abstract Concepts’ time, qualia, memory in PH1 to specific viewpoints Kant’s … Frege’s … in PH2 to Theories theory, paradox in PH3

26. Analysis of Sentence Subjects in BAWE shows: • Differences in how knowledge is construed, not the ontological status of ‘genes’ or ‘e-coli’, across disciplines & years • Differences in linguistic choices writers make, not their ‘level of thinking’ per se • Cf ‘The thesis I wish to argue is that Prince Arthur ….’

27. Issues in SPM & HG Analyses • Disciplinary specificity of the classifications • When does a ‘real world’ author become an ‘interactive participant’ [Gosden] • Level of contextual understanding needed for sciences in particular was high • Differences in analysis: e.g. our data would be Participant Viewpoint (Gosden) and Reasons (SPM) • VERY labour intensive for 3500 texts

28. 5. ISS Proposal • Analysis of Initial Sentence Subjects only • Aim to describe large numbers of texts and disciplines across 4 years • Aim to provide a snapshot of differences in angle on field across the years and across the disciplines

29. ISS Classification • Draws on Australian work on academic language, particularly on published scientific writing, and academic language across the disciplines Esp. Wignell (1998) and Martin & Veel (1998), Halliday & Martin (1993), Ravelli & Ellis (2004)

30. ANGLES on field: academic domain (fabricated examples)

34. Characterising Disciplinary Differences English, History and Philosophy can be characterised as progressing from year 1-3 in Abstractness (from left to right) Psychology can be characterised as progressing in Abstractness (from right to left) or at least spreading across all levels of abstraction Biological sciences construes phenomena in technical terms

35. Mapping Business and Economics

36. Final Comments • Demonstrated the potential of Initial Sentence Subject Analysis to capture disciplinary differences and differences across years of study in a corpus of student writing • More work needed to establish categories through reactances in the grammar (e.g. participant roles & grammatical metaphor)