A cross-disciplinary analysis of rhetorical structure of dissertation abstracts

The teaching rhetorical structure of various academic genres has been recognized as a practical, pedagogical tool in both ESL and EFL academic settings. However, assigning a unitary structure for different fields of study might poses problems for novice writers. In this study, the rhetorical structure of 120 abstracts (ninety ‘masters’ theses and thirty ‘doctoral’ dissertations) from six disciplines were investigated. In this exploratory study, four rhetorical structures were found: IMRC/D, CARS, Mixed, and None (which means the texts lack any rhetorical structure). The conclusion is that nonnative speakers require more than grammatical knowledge at the clause level. They need to be familiarized with the discourse grammar with the functional tokens attached to it in order to be successful in their academic writing.

As fire burns : functional work and praxis in ontology

The context: the historical and philosophical demise of the Marxist model of praxis as a unity of theory and practice organized by a Party in service of a Cause. The task: to remodel praxis by distinguishing it from functional work. The proving ground: the discourse of ontology. The thesis works through four types of ontology in its attempt to construct different ontological schemas for praxis and functional work. In the first three ontologies, Platonic, Aristotelian and relativist, ontological impasses occur in the accounts of the relation between one and the multiple, and of the existence of order. They prevent the successful construction of a schema for functional work. It is in the set-theory ontology of Alain Badiou that the means arise for the passage through these impasses and the definitive construction of distinct ontological schemas for functional work and praxis. This results in a new concept of praxis and a multiplication of its domains beyond politics to science, art and love

Putting grammar in its place: interactions and identity in a Master of TESOL course

This chapter reports on the development of language awareness and second language identities of a cohort of Chinese TESOL teachers that arose as a result of incidental classroom interactions during a TESOL Masters course in Australia. The experiences of such interactions appeared to help the Chinese teachers make stronger connections between form and meaning, and, while they also reflected deeply on the pedagogies of grammar, they gained a wider view of language teaching and learning that included pragmatic and sociolinguistic awareness. The impact of cultural and educational exchanges and the resulting formations of second language identities is an emerging focus of research (Benson, Barkhuizen, Bodycott and Brown, 2013). In the field of TESOL, such movements and exchanges are creating opportunities to develop a richer discourse, by drawing on diverse traditions of professionalism in different communities and contexts, and calls are increasingly being made for a plural professional knowledge and more inclusive relationships (Canagarajah, 2005; Holliday, 2005; Widdowson, 2004). The People’s Republic of China has been one of the major contributors to student and teacher mobility in recent years; English language is now a priority subject in China, and all students entering university must take the English college test whether they intend to major in English or not, and therefore there has been much interest in upskilling cohorts of Chinese teachers of English to meet this demand. An increasingly typical initiative is to award scholarships to gain professional qualifications in English-speaking countries. A cohort of English teachers from Jiangsu province, China, is the focus of the present study. During their Masters in TESOL course in Queensland, Australia, they experienced interactions with native speakers inside and outside of the classroom. As their course lecturer for several TESOL units, I was interested in the nature of the incidental language awareness arising from course activities with their native-speaking peers. I was also interested in whether they felt that these experiences had implications for their sense of identity in a second language. The following sections therefore discuss the key themes: interaction in higher education contexts, language awareness, and second language identities.