In experimental disciplinary fields such as medicine, the writing up of a research paper in English may represent a major hurdle, especially for inexperienced writers and users of EAL (English as an Additional Language), mainly due to a lack of familiarity with international discourse conventions. Despite the efforts of many EAP (English for…

The way we use words to discuss complex phenomena such as writing for scholarly publication matters greatly, particularly if we are distinguishing between EAL writers and English L1 gatekeepers. In this response to Flowerdew, I argue that using Goffman's concept of stigma to discuss possible discrimination against EAL writers serves only to…

Raises a number of methodological questions about the universality of commonly applied linguistic categories by offering a critical reading of the adverbial "evidently" as it appears in a corpus of contemporary research articles. Analyzes the adverbial from three general vantage points: its function as hedge or booster; the way it intervenes in…

An examination of approaches to analyzing speech reporting, found that the various approaches fall into two broad categories: traditional, emphasizing the syntactic dimension; and discourse pragmatic, emphasizing the interaction of syntactic, pragmatic, and stylistic factors. A model is proposed and applied to learner varieties of English and…

Recent studies on written communication have emphasized the importance of discourse organization and rhetoric for the learning of reading and writing in a foreign language. This paper describes an attempt at a contrastive study of specialized discourse in French and in English. A corpus of medical articles all on the same subject has been analysed…

Describes evaluation and assessment tools that have been devised by one institution as practical and informative ways to report students' results. (Author/VWL)

Examines the economic merits of teaching Research English to English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) student researchers, particularly in the fields of science and technology. It is suggested that a lack of sociopragmatic skills in the predominating reporting medium of English represents a potential barrier to entry into the international market of…

The need for change in the way language is understood and treated in schools is discussed. It is important: (1) to see the need for knowledge of the language situations of the United States, (2) to support training and research to obtain such knowledge, and (3) to change the relationship between linguistics and education. The language situation of…