The role of

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

• John M Swales (jmswales_at_umich.edu)

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Some cohesive ties in English

• I hate the rain. So do I/I do too/me also.
• I hate the rain, but I guess its 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.

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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

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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 writers 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

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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.

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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)

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Hinkel (2004)

• A singular demonstrative pronoun has a limited
  referential capacityand 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.

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A Second Complexity

• So when to use a simple this and when to follow
  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).

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 Hinkels and Geislers usage
  distinctions
• 5) General reflections

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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 Frasch developed 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.

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• 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.)
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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.

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• 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.

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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

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• 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

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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
  languages 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)

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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

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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)

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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?

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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

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• 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

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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

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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..

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Unattended this Looking for explanations

• 60 examples in the Physics sub-corpus
• A) One of the main restrictions limitingof 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 energyis
  therefore 31.
• This is comparable with the reduction found by
  others..

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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

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• Geislers 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)

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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

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• 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

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• 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?

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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)