Discourse on the Move：Using Corpus Analysis to Describe Discourse Structure－DouglasBiber

7/30/2019 Discourse on the Move Using Corpus Analysis to Describe Discourse Structure DouglasBiber

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Discourse on the Move


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Volume 28

Discourse on the Move. Using corpus analysis to describe discourse structure

Douglas Biber, Ulla Connor and Tomas A. Upton

General EditorElena ognini-BonelliTe uscan Word Center/Te University o Siena

Advisory BoardMichael BarlowUniversity o Auckland

Douglas BiberNorthern Arizona University

Marina BondiUniversity o Modena and Reggio Emilia

Christopher S. ButlerUniversity o Wales, Swansea

Sylviane GrangerUniversity o Louvain

M.A.K. Halliday

University o Sydney

Susan HunstonUniversity o Birmingham

Stig JohanssonOslo University

Graeme KennedyVictoria University o Wellington

Geofrey N. LeechUniversity o Lancaster

Anna MauranenUniversity o Helsinki

Ute RmerUniversity o Hannover

Michaela MahlbergUniversity o Liverpool

Jan Svartvik

University o Lund

John M. SwalesUniversity o Michigan

Yang HuizhongJiao ong University, Shanghai

SCL focuses on the use of corpora throughout language study, the development

of a quantitative approach to linguistics, the design and use of new tools for

processing language texts, and the theoretical implications of a data-rich

discipline.

Studies in Corpus Linguistics (SCL)

Consulting EditorWolgang eubertUniversity o Birmingham


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Using corpus analysis

to describe discourse structure

Douglas BiberNorthern Arizona University

Ulla Connor

Tomas A. UptonIndiana University Indianapolis

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Amsterdam / Philadelphia


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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Br, Dogl.

Dcor o th ov : g cor ly to dcr dcor trctr / Dogl

Br, Ull Coor, To A. Uto.

. c. (Std Cor Lgtc, issn 1388-0373 ; v. 28)

Icld logrhcl rrc d dx.

1. Dcor ly--Dt rocg. I. Coor, Ull, 1948- II. Uto, To

A. (To Al) III. tl.

P302.3.B53 2007

401'.41--dc22 2007029145

isbn 978 90 272 2302 9 (H; lk. r)

2007 Joh Bj B.V.

No rt o th ook y rrodcd y or, y rt, hotort, crofl, or yothr , wthot wrtt ro ro th lhr.

Joh Bj Plhg Co. P.O. Box 36224 1020 me Atrd T Nthrld

Joh Bj North Arc P.O. Box 27519 Phldlh pa 19118-0519 usa

T r d th lcto t th rqrt o

Arc Ntol Stdrd or Iorto Scc Prc o

Pr or Prtd Lrry Mtrl, ansi z.-.

8TM


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Tble of conens

Pefce xi

chapter 1

Discouse nlysis nd copus linguisics 1

1 Disous nd disous nlysis 1

1.1 Disous sudis of lngug us 3

1.2 Disous sudis of linguisi suu byond snn 4

1.3 Disous sudis of soil is nd idologil ssumions ssoi-

d wi ommuniion 6

1.4 Rgis nd gn sivs on disous 7

1.5 Idnifying suul unis in disous 9

2 Cous-bsd invsigion of disous suu 10

3 To-down vsus boom-u ous-bsd os o disousnlysis 12

3.1 Exmls of o-down nlyss of disous 14

3.2 Exml of boom-u o 16

4 Cing silizd ous fo disous nlysis 17

5 Ovviw of book 19

Part 1. Top-down nlyses of discouse ognizion

chapter 2

Inoducion o move nlysis 23

WITH Budsaba Kanoksilapatham

1 Bkgound 23

2 Swls mov nlysis of s ils 25

3 Mov nlysis of s ils lid oss gns 29

3.1 Dsiion nd xmls 29

3.2 Summy of vious s on mov nlysis 32

4 Ovviw of mods fo mov nlysis 32

4.1 Gnl ss of mov nlysis 32
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Disous on Mov

4.2 In- libiliy 35

5 Using ous-bsd o o mov nlysis 36

5.1

Cous-bsd mov nlysis36

5.2 Gnl dvngs o ous-bsd os o disous nlysis 37

5.3 Sif dvngs o ous-bsd siv o mov nlysis 38

5.3.1 Idniying linguisi us o movs 38

5.3.2 Mov qunis nd lngs 39

5.3.3 Ming mov us nd loions 39

5.3.4 Gn ooys 40

6 Summy 40

chapter 3Identifying and analyzing rhetorical moves in philanthropic discourse 43

1 Bkgound 43

2 A silizd ous o undising xs 44

3 Dmining nd nlyzing disous movs: Di mil ls 46

3.1 Pvious nlysis o di mil ls 46

3.2 A mov nlysis o undising ls: Bkgound nd modology 46

3.2.1 Mov ys 46

3.2.2 Suul lmns 523.3 Anlysis 54

3.4 Rsuls 55

3.5 Disussion 57

3.6 L ooys 58

4 Linguisi nlysis o movs: king us o sn suus 61

4.1 Idniying gmmil sn dvis 62

4.2 Ining us o gmmil sn dvis usd in movs 63

5 Finl ougs 68

chapter 4

Rhetorical moves in biochemistry research articles 73

BY Budsaba Kanoksilapatham

1 Bkgound 73

2 Dsiion o ous 75

3 Dmining mov gois in gn o biomisy s

ils 76

3.1 T inoduion sion 77

3.2 T mods sion 78

3.3 T suls sion 79
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bl o onns

3.4 T disussion sion 81

4 Coding movs in ous o biomisy s ils 83

5

Disibuion o mov ys wiin xs om biomisyous 84

6 Linguisi isis o oil movs in biomisy s

ils 87

7 Linguisi viion mong mov gois in biomisy s

ils 90

8 Muli-dimnsionl viion mong mov ys wiin sm

sion 103

chapter 5Rheoicl ppels in undising 121

WITH Molly Anthony & Kostyantyn Gladkov

1 Elmns o susion 121

2 Dmining nd nlyzing oil ls 124

2.1 Rionl ls (Logos) 125

2.2 Cdibiliy ls (Ethos) 129

2.3 Afiv ls (Pathos) 131

3 Anlysis, sgmnion, nd lssiion 132

3.1 Rsuls nd disussion 133

4 Linguisi dsiion o ls 136

4.1 Wodliss 137

4.2 Kywods 138

5 Als nd disous suu o ls 141

6 Conlusion 143

Part 2. Boom-up nlyses o discouse ognizion

chapter 6

Inoducion o he idenifcion nd nlysis o vocbuly-bsed

discouse unis 155

WITH Eniko Csomay, James K. Jones, & Casey Keck

1 Conul inoduion o VBDUs 156

2 Auomi idniion o VBDUs in xs 161

3 Pul ols o VBDUs 163

4 Using VBDUs o nlyz disous suu o xs 169

5 Going on s u: Idniying gnlizbl VBDU ys 170
http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-


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Disous on Mov

chapter 7

Vocabulary-based discourse units in biology research articles 175

WITH James K. Jones1 Consuing ous o VBDUs 176

2 Anlyzing linguisi isis o VBDUs: Muli-dimnsionl

nlysis 178

3 Coming muli-dimnsionl isis o s il

sions 184

4 T muli-dimnsionl ofl o VBDUs wiin s il:

king movmn o disous 186

5 Idniying nd ining muli-dimnsionl x ys o biologys ils 190

6 Using VBDU x ys o dsib disous ognizionl ns

o biology s ils 194

7 Sing nd nding s il sions 196

7.1 Dsibing yil disous ognizions o inoduions 197

7.2 Dsibing yil disous ognizions o mods sions 199

7.3 Dsibing yil disous ognizions o disussion sions 201

8 Pd x y squns oss s il sion

boundis 203

9 Coming d disous syls o s jounls 205

10 Conlusion 208

chapter 8

Vocabulary-based discourse units in university class sessions 213

BY Eniko Csomay

1 Fom onsuing ous o VBDUs o idniying VBDU

x-ys 214

1.1 Consuing ous o VBDUs 214

1.2 Anlyzing linguisi isis o VBDUs lying MD nlyil

niqus 215

1.3 VBDUs nd dimnsion sos: muli-dimnsionl ofl o fs

VBDUs o businss mngmn lss 217

2 Dimnsion sos nd VBDU x-ys 222

2.1 Ining luss s VBDU ys bsd on i linguisi

isis 2242.1.1 Clus 1: Psonlizd ming 225

2.1.2 Clus 2: Inomionl monologu 227

2.1.3 Clus 3: Conxul iniv 228
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bl of os

2.1.4 Clus 4: Umk 229

3 Fom VBDU -ys o sous suu 230

3.1Fuol o of VBDU ys

230

3.2 s squs of VBDU ys 232

4 Summy oluso 237

chapter 9

Conclusion: Comparing the analytical approaches 239

1 Ovvw 239

2 Comg o-ow boom-u sos of bology

s ls. 242

2.1 Dsous us bology s ls 2432.2 T msos of lgus vo bology s ls 244

2.3 T fuol lgus ss of sous ys

(mov ys vs VBDU ys) bology s ls 249

2.4 Dso of yl sous ogzo of bology s

ls 253

3 Summy oss fo fuu s 258

Appendix 1 261A brief introduction to multi-dimensional analysis 261

A.1 Coul ouo o mul-msol o

o vo 261

A.2 Ovvw of moology mul-msol o 262

Appendix 2 267

Grammatical and lexico-grammatical features included in

the multi-dimensional analyses 267

References 273

Index
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Preface

Te idea or this book evolved slowly, emerging rom research taking place at sev-

eral institutions applying diferent approaches to a single research problem: can

discourse structure and organization be investigated rom a corpus perspective?

At Northern Arizona University (NAU), research on this topic began in a PhD

seminar in 1999. Inspired by the research o Youmans (1991; 1994) on the Vo-

cabulary Management Prole, students in that seminar explored ways in which

the discourse structure o a text can be discovered automatically by tracking the

text-internal use o vocabulary and other linguistic eatures. Tis initial efort re-

sulted in a PhD dissertation by Csomay (2002), ollowed by several other research

studies undertaken at NAU that employed the extiling methods originally de-

veloped by Hearst (1997).

Over the same period, researchers at Indiana University Purdue UniversityIndianapolis (IUPUI) and Georgetown University were exploring a completely

diferent approach to this same research problem: applying the ramework o rhe-

torical move analysis, developed by Swales (1981; 1990) or the detailed analysis o

texts, to analyze the general rhetorical and linguistic patterns o discourse struc-

ture in a corpus. At IUPUI, this research efort ocused primarily on philanthropic

discourse, especially grant proposals and undraising letters. And at Georgetown

University, this research culminated in 2003 with the completion o a PhD disser-

tation by Kanoksilapatham (2003) on the discourse structure o biochemistry re-search articles.

Te actual idea or the present book came about as colleagues rom these di-

erent institutions would get together at conerences and discuss their diferent

approaches to the study o discourse structure and organization rom a corpus

perspective. We realized that there had been very little previous research done on

this topic, and that by combining and comparing our approaches, we could pro-

vide a relatively comprehensive overview o this emerging subeld.

Because the book grew out o relatively independent research eforts, each au-

thor has had diferent primary responsibilities. At the same time, we have been

eager to structure the book as a coherent treatment o this subject: an authored

book rather than an edited collection o articles. Tus, the three book authors


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share equal responsibility or revising and editing all chapters, and ultimately the

content o all chapters. But on the other hand, each chapter has diferent primary

authors, including several co-authors in addition to the three book authors orChapters 13, 57, and 9. wo chapters are invited, single-authored contributions

Chapter 4 by Kanoksilapatham and Chapter 8 by Csomay. Te primary authors

or each chapter are as ollows:

Chapter 1: Biber, Connor, Upton

Chapter 2: Connor, Upton, Kanoksilapatham

Chapter 3: Upton, Connor

Chapter 4: Kanoksilapatham

Chapter 5: Connor, Anthony, Gladkov, Upton

Chapter 6: Biber, Csomay, Jones, KeckChapter 7: Biber, Jones

Chapter 8: Csomay

Chapter 9: Biber, Connor, Upton

We would like to thank the numerous colleagues who have made useul sugges-

tions and criticisms over the years in relation to the various research projects that

come together in the present book. We also owe a special thanks to Eric Friginal,

Bethany Gray, Jack Grieve, Mark Johnson, Erkan Karabacak, YouJin Kim, Poon-

pon Kornwipa, Jingjing Qin, Angkana ongpoon, and Faith Young -- the students

o ENG 707 (Seminar on Discourse) at Northern Arizona University in the all o

2006, who read the entire book manuscript and made numerous useul comments

and suggestions (including the title or our book, suggested by Jack Grieve).


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chapter 1

Discourse analysis and corpus linguistics

1 Discourse and discourse analysis

T sudy o disous s bom mjo ous o s in mny disilins

o umniis, soil sins, nd inomion sins. Bus is o

sudy n b od om so mny din sivs, ms disous

nd disous nlysis v om o b usd in widly divgn wys.

Svl inoduoy mns suvy ng o dniions givn o

m disous (.g., Jwoski & Coulnd, 999, . 7; Siin, 994, .

2343). Siin, nnn, nd Hmilon (200) in i inoduion o Te Hand-

book of Discourse Analysis (. ), gou vious dniions o disous nlysis

ino gnl gois: ) sudy o lngug us; 2) sudy o linguisi

suu byond snn; nd 3) sudy o soil is nd idologilssumions ssoid wi lngug nd/o ommuniion.

T obj o sudy o s os o disous is insingly -

movd om s gols o diionl suul linguisis. T sudy o

lngug us ouss on diionl linguisi onsus, su s s suus

nd lus suus, bu ddsss oblm o wy lngugs v suul

vins wi nly quivln mnings (.g., il movmn, s inpick up

the book vsuspick the book up). By onsiding os no sily su-

ul, linguiss bl o di wn on o no vin is likly o b usd.Fo xml, lng o di obj noun s is n imon o

diing likliood o il movmn. Ass o disous onx

ofn imon o undsnding linguisi viion, silly o linguisi

onsuions involv wod od viion (su s ssivs, xosiion,

lfs, invsions, xisnil there, .). Fo xml, wis will oos ssiv

voi n iv voi dnding on oil lvn o in

noun s.

T sudy o linguisi suu byond snn ouss on lg ob-

j o sudy: xndd squns o uns o snns, nd ow os xs

onsud nd ognizd in sysmi wys. Aloug sudis o is y

movd om diionl onns o suul linguisis (wi ouss


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mostly on phrasal and clause syntax), the two share a primary ocus on linguistic

orm and how language structures are used or communication.

In contrast, the third approach to discourse is socio-cultural in orientation,and generally not concerned with the description o particular texts or the analysis

o language structure and use. Socio-cultural approaches to discourse sometimes

ocus on the actions o participants in particular communication events, and at

other times ocus on the general characteristics o speech/discourse communities

in relation to issues such as power and gender. Although the socio-cultural ap-

proaches are obviously important or understanding the broader role o texts in

culture, they typically are not concerned with understanding the linguistic orms

used in those texts.

Corpus linguistic studies are generally considered to be a type o discourseanalysis because they describe the use o linguistic orms in context. For example,

words are described in terms o their typical collocates: the words that normally

occur in the discourse context. Grammatical variation is also described in terms o

the words and other grammatical structures that occur in the context. As such,

corpus linguistic research has allen squarely under the rst approach to discourse:

the study o language use.

However, it has been much less common to study discourse organization rom

a corpus perspective. In act, these two subelds have research goals and methodsthat might be considered incompatible: Te study o discourse organization lin-

guistic structure beyond the sentence is usually based on detailed analysis o a

single text, resulting in a qualitative linguistic description o the textual organiza-

tion. In contrast, corpus studies are based on analysis o all texts in a corpus, utiliz-

ing quantitative measures to identiy the typical distributional patterns that occur

across texts.

In act, individual texts ofen have no status whatsoever in corpus investiga-

tions. Instead, what we nd are comparisons o the distributional patterns in one

sub-corpus to the patterns in a second sub-corpus. For example, Scott and ribble

(2006) describe how we can compare the keywords o the spoken versus written

sub-corpora rom the British National Corpus. Nesselhau (2005, Chapter 3) de-

scribes the deviant collocations in a corpus o learner English essays. And Rmer

(2005, Chapter 4) documents the variants and distributional patterns o progres-

sive verb phrases in the spoken sub-corpora rom the British National Corpus.

Tese studies are typical o corpus-based research on discourse: they describe the

typical patterns o language use, considering the systematic ways in which aspects

o the lexico-grammatical context tend to occur together with dierent linguisticvariants; but such corpus-based studies usually tell us nothing about the discourse

structure o particular texts.


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Chapter 1. Discourse analysis and corpus linguistics

We thus see this interace as one o the current challenges o corpus linguistics:

Is it possible to merge the analytical goals and methods o corpus linguistics with

those o discourse analysis that ocuses on the structural organization o texts?Can a corpus be analyzed to identiy the general patterns o discourse organization

that are used to construct texts, and can individual texts be analyzed in terms o

the general patterns that result rom corpus analysis? Tese are the central issues

that we take up in the present book.

1.1 Discourse studies o language use

Te rst major approach to discourse identied above the study o language use

has been carried out rom several dierent perspectives, including research inpragmatics, speech act theory, unctional linguistics, variationist studies, and reg-

ister studies. Tese subelds all investigate how words and linguistic structures are

used in discourse contexts to express a range o meanings. Many o these ap-

proaches ocus on the study o linguistic variation, showing how linguistic choice

is systematic and principled when considered in the larger discourse context.

Tere have been numerous studies o grammar and discourse over the last two

decades, as researchers have come to realize that the description o grammatical

unction is as important as structural analysis. By studying linguistic variation innaturally occurring discourse, researchers have been able to identiy systematic

dierences in the unctional use o each variant. An early study o this type is

Prince (1978), who compares the discourse unctions o WH-clefs and it-clefs.

Tompson and Schirin have carried out numerous studies in this research tradi-

tion; Tompson on detached participial clauses (1983), adverbial purpose clauses

(1985), omission o the complementizer that (S. Tompson & Mulac, 1991a,

1991b), relative clauses (Fox & Tompson, 1990); and Schirin on verb tense

(1981), causal sequences (1985b), and discourse markers (1985a, 1987). Other

more recent studies o this type include Ward (1990) on VP preposing, Collins

(1995) on dative alternation, and Myhill (1995; 1997) on modal verbs.

Most corpus-based research is discourse analytic in this sense, investigating

systematic patterns of language use across discourse contexts, generalized over all

the texts in a corpus (see, e.g., Biber, Conrad, & Reppen, 1998; McEnery, Xiao, &

ono, 2006). Te advantages of a corpus approach for the study of discourse, lexis,

and grammatical variation include the emphasis on the representativeness of the

text sample, and the computational tools for investigating distributional patterns

across discourse contexts. Te recent edited volumes by Connor and Upton (2004b),Meyer and Leistyna (2003), Lindquist and Mair (2004), and Sampson and McCa-

rthy (2004) provide good introductions to work of this type. Tere are also a number

of book-length treatments reporting corpus-based investigations of grammar and


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discourse: or example, Aijmer (2002) on discourse particles, Collins (1991) on

clefs, Granger (1983) on passives, Mair (1990) on innitival complement clauses,

Meyer (1992) on apposition, Rmer (2005) on progressive verbs, ottie (1991) onnegation, and several books on nominal structures (e.g., de Haan, 1989; Geisler,

1995; Johansson, 1995; Varantola, 1984). Te Longman Grammar of Spoken and

Written English (1999) applies corpus-based analysis to a more comprehensive

grammatical description o English, showing how any grammatical eature can be

described or both structural characteristics and discourse patterns o use.

Te recent book by Partington (2003) is interesting here in that it combines

corpus-based study with an analysis o pragmatics, to investigate the discourse

eatures o White House briengs. A corpus o 48 briengs (250,000 words o run-

ning texts) was subjected to computerized concordance and keyword analysis.However, the computational analyses were guided by detailed qualitative analysis:

a summer reading the corpus briengs and making notes (p. 12). Tis allowed

Partington to check on oddities o computerized collocation analysis, highlighting

odd language usage that computerized analysis might not have revealed.

A more specialized corpus-based approach to the study o language use is

multi-dimensional (MD) analysis. Unlike most corpus-based research, MD stud-

ies investigate language use in individual texts. Tis approach describes how lin-

guistic eatures co-occur in each text, resulting in more general patterns o linguis-tic co-occurrence that hold across all texts o a corpus. Te approach can thus be

used to show how patterns o linguistic eatures vary across individual texts, or

across registers and genres. MD analysis is used in several chapters in the present

book, and so it is introduced more ully in Appendix One.

1.2 Discourse studies o linguistic structure beyond the sentence

Te second major approach to discourse analysis identied above the study o

linguistic structure beyond the sentence is the primary ocus o the present

book. Previous research on discourse-level structures has been undertaken rom

linguistic, cognitive, and computational perspectives.

Linguistic Perspectives: Linguistic analyses o discourse structure have ocused on

lexico-grammatical eatures that indicate the organization o discourse (see, e.g.,

the papers in Coulthard, 1994). Focusing on units beyond the sentence-level (e.g.,

paragraphs in written discourse and episodes in oral discourse), these researchers

investigate linguistic devices that signal the underlying discourse structure.

Much research o this type has described the discourse unctions o particular

words and phrases, reerred to as discourse markers, connectives, discourse par-

ticles (Schifrin, 1994), lexical phrases (Hansen, 1994; Nattinger & DeCarrico,


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1992), or cue phrases (Passonneau & Litman, 1996). Other studies discuss the

linguistic devices used to mark inormation structure, topical development, or

rhetorical structures in discourse (e.g., Mann, Matthiessen, & Tompson, 1992;Mann & Tompson, 1988; Prince, 1981). Finally, some studies track the use o

linguistic devices across a text. For example, discourse maps are used to track

verb tense and voice patterns across the sections o research articles (Biber et al.,

1998, Chapter 5), while other studies track reerential expressions used in ana-

phoric chains throughout a text (e.g., Biber, 1992; Fox, 1987; Givn, 1983).

A related area o research is the study o textual cohesion: the use o lexical

and grammatical devices as the glue o a text, holding the text together as dis-

course rather than an accidental sequence o sentences (see, e.g., Halliday, 1989;

Halliday & Hasan, 1976; Hoey, 1991; Phillips, 1985; yler, 1995). Linguistic de-vices used to establish cohesion include anaphoric pronouns, linking adverbials,

and the use o lexical repetition and synonymy to establish topical cohesion. Simi-

larly, annen (1989) ound that repetitions in conversation operate as a kind o

theme-setting at the beginning o a topical unit and at the end, orming a kind o

coda (p. 69).

Cognitive perspectives: Cognitive investigations o discourse structure study the

actors that make a text coherent. ext coherence reers to the linking o ideas

within a text to create meaning or readers. Analyses o textual coherence typically

identiy the propositions expressed in a text, the logical relations among those

propositions, and how listeners/readers are able to construct the overall textual

meaning in terms o those propositional relations. In contrast to the study o cohe-

sion, which reers to surace-level patterns, coherence entails the study o larger

discourse relationships. Many o these studies describe texts in terms o the coher-

ence relations expressed by clause-level propositions (Bateman & Rondhuis, 1997;

Dahlgren, 1996; Hobbs, 1979; Sanders, 1997; Sanders & Noordman, 2000). Related

studies also consider other actors that infuence coherence, including dierencesbetween subject versus presentational matter (Mann & Tompson, 1988), text

structural patterns like problem-solution (Connor, 1987) and given-new (theme-

rheme) structures (Cooper, 1988), and the semantic and pragmatic relations be-

tween units (Polanyi, 1985, 1988; Sanders, 1997). Several researchers have devel-

oped analytical rameworks or the study o coherence relations (e.g., Grosz &

Sidner, 1986; McNamara & Kintsch, 1996; omlin, Forrest, Ming Pu, & Hee Kim,

1997; Van Dijk, 1981, 1997; Van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983).

Te ongoing fow o inormation is also central to coherence (Grabe & Kaplan,

1996). Studies have approached inormation fow rom various perspectives, in-

cluding representations o the fow o thought (Chae, 1994, 1997) or short-term

memory (omlin et al., 1997).


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Computational perspectives: Computational studies o discourse organization have

attempted to model discourse organization or the purposes o inormation re-

trieval and natural language processing. Most computational studies o discoursestructure have ocused on written texts. For example, Morris and Hirst (1991)

developed a lexical algorithm to fnd chains o related terms, which can be used to

describe the structure o texts, applying Grosz and Sidners (1986) attentional/in-

tentional model. Marcu (2000) explores the easibility o automatic rhetorical

parsing, applying Mann and Tompsons (1988) Rhetorical Structure Teory.

One important study or the purposes o the present book is Youmans (1991;

1994), who developed the Vocabulary Management Profle (VMP), a computa-

tional method to track the introduction o new vocabulary into a text. Youmans

shows that VMPs are quite sensitive indicators o the episodic structure o writtenliterary texts, suggesting that the VMP graph provides a direct visual analogue or

constituent structure (p. 113). Youmans compared the results o the VMP to the

paragraph boundaries o literary texts and ound 80 percent agreement.

Fewer computational studies have ocused on the discourse structure o spo-

ken discourse. One o the best known o these, Passonneau and Litman (1996;

1997), attempts to automatically segment spoken texts (spontaneous, narrative

monologues) into discourse units, based on the use o reerential noun phrases,

cue words, and pauses. Tis study urther compares the results o the automaticsegmentation to perceptually-identifed discourse units.

1.3 Discourse studies o social practices and ideological assumptions

associated with communication

Finally, the third approach to discourse the study o communicative social prac-

tices and ideological assumptions ocuses on the social construction o discourse

rather than the linguistic description o particular texts. For example, proponents

o the New Rhetoric (e.g., Bazerman, 1988, 1994; Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995;

Miller, 1984) have argued or the importance o understanding the knowledge o

social context surrounding texts or helping writers select rhetorical strategies that

work in a given situation. Te ocus here is to look not only at the products (texts)

but also the processes surrounding the production and consumption o texts, ask-

ing Why are specifc discourse-genres written and used by the specialist commu-

nities the way they are? (Bhatia, 1993a, p. 11).

In an attempt to understand the broader social contexts o the discourse, sev-

eral recent corpus-based studies have added analyses o interviews and ocusgroup discussions with actual writers and readers o the texts or other academic

specialists. For example, Hyland (2000) goes beyond the textual approach to dis-

course analysis o academic articles by adding ocus groups, unstructured inter-


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views, and discourse-based interviews with subject specialists rom those disci-

plines, although the interviewees were not the writers o the articles in Hylands

corpus. Te ocus groups and the rst part o the one-to-one interviews used asemi-structured ormat and encouraged the inormants to speak generally about

communication and publication practices in their elds. Te second stage used a

discourse-based interview which involved detailed discussions about particular

pieces o writing. Te inormants responded as members o the particular dis-

course community as they interpreted meanings, reconstructed writer motiva-

tions, and evaluated rhetorical efectiveness. Tey were also encouraged to discuss

specic points in their own work by reerring to a paper they had written.

In another corpus study, Hyland (2004b) analyzed a corpus o 240 disserta-

tions by L2 writers at Hong Kong universities, together with interviews with 24students. Te interviews helped in understanding the use o the analyzed metadis-

course markers transitions, rame markers, endophoric markers, evidentials,

code glosses, hedges, boosters, attitude markers, engagement markers, and sel-

mentions. Such qualitative analyses can shed light on disciplinary diferences as

well as diferences between MA and PhD level writers even i the interviewees are

not the actual writers.

Unlike many qualitative studies o texts and writing, in which the researcher

observes, interviews, and works with the actual writer or writers (see, e.g., Bazer-man & Prior, 2004), corpus studies tend to rely on anonymous writers who are

members o the particular discourse community. In many cases, corpora are con-

structed rom published resources, rather than being collected rom writers per-

sonally, making it nearly impossible to obtain inormation about the writers and

the circumstances o writing. However, like the Hyland studies cited above, it is

possible to combine corpus-based analysis with the careul observation o indi-

vidual writers. For example, Connor & Mauranen (1999) undertook a large-scale

corpus analysis o rhetorical moves in grant proposal writing in the sciences and

humanities. Tis study was later complemented by detailed interviews with ve

scholars in these disciplines (Connor, 2000). Tese scholars were not the writers o

the proposals in the large corpus. However, as specialist inormants they were able

to comment on the appropriateness o the move denitions and the identication

o move boundaries in a small corpus o their own proposals.

1.4 Register and genre perspectives on discourse

Te terms register and genre have been central to previous investigations o dis-course. Both terms have been used to reer to varieties associated with particular

situations o use and particular communicative purposes. Many studies simply

adopt one o these terms and disregard the other. In some cases, these authors


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might be assuming a theoretical distinction between the two terms, but that dis-

tinction is usually not explicitly noted. For example, studies like Bhatia (2002),

Samraj (2002), Bunton (2002), Love (2002), and Swales (2004) exclusively use theterm genre. In contrast, studies like Ure (1982), Ferguson (1983), Hymes (1984),

Heath and Langman (1994), Bruthiaux (1994; 1996), Conrad (2001), and Biber et

al. (1999) exclusively use the term register.

A ew studies attempt to dene a theoretical distinction between the constructs

underlying these two terms. For example, Ventola (1984) and Martin (1985) reer

to register and genre as dierent semiotic planes: genre is the content-plane o

register, and register is the expression-plane o genre; register is in turn the con-

tent-plane o language. Lee (2001) surveys the use o these terms, providing one o

the most comprehensive discussions o how they have been used in previous re-search (as well as terms like text type and style).

When research studies have attempted to distinguish between register and

genre (such as Couture, 1986; Ferguson, 1994; Martin, 1985; Swales, 1990; Ventola,

1984), the distinction has been applied at two dierent levels o analysis:

1) to the object o study;

2) to the characteristics o language and culture that are investigated.

Tus, the term register(when it is distinguished romgenre) has been used to reer

to a general kind o language associated with a domain o use, such as a legal reg-

ister, scientic register, or bureaucratic register. Registerstudies have usually o-

cused on lexico-grammatical eatures, showing how the use o particular words

and grammatical eatures vary systematically in accord with the situation o use

(actors such as interactivity, personal involvement, mode, production circum-

stances, and communicative purpose). As such, the term registerhas been associ-

ated with the rst general approach to discourse identied in Section 1 above the

study o language use.

In contrast, the term genre has been used to reer to a culturally recognizedmessage type with a conventional internal structure, such as an afdavit, a biology

research article, or a business memo. Genre studies have usually ocused on the

conventional discourse structure o texts or the expected socio-cultural actions o

a discourse community. For example, genres are how things get done, when lan-

guage is used to accomplish them (Martin, 1985, p. 250), and rames or social

action (Bazerman, 1997b, p. 19). As such, the termgenre is oen associated with

the second general approach to discourse identied in Section 1 above the study

o linguistic structure beyond the sentence.

In his previous work on linguistic variation, Biber has disregarded theoretical

distinctions between the terms registerandgenre, preferring the term genre in ear-

lier studies (e.g., Biber 1986, 1988) and the term register in later research (Biber,


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1995, 2006b). In both cases, these were used simply as a general cover term to reer

to situationally-defned varieties described or their characteristic lexico-grammat-

ical eatures, with no implied theoretical distinction between registerandgenre.However, in the present book we are ocused especially on the internal struc-

ture and organization o texts rom a specic variety (e.g., undraising letters or

biology research articles), a perspective typically associated with the analysis o a

genre rather than register. For this reason, we adopt the termgenre throughout the

book to reer to the linguistic variety being analyzed.

1.5 Identiying structural units in discourse

One specifc research emphasis or discourse studies o structure beyond the sen-tence has been the attempt to segment a text into higher-level structural units. Tese

studies are oundational to the goals o the present book, because the units o analy-

sis in corpus-based studies o discourse structure must be well-defned discourse

units: the segments o discourse that provide the building blocks o texts.

In studies o written texts, discourse units have generally been identied based

on visual as well as textual clues (see, e.g., Hunston, 1994). Te smallest unit o

analysis has usually been the proposition, ollowed by the t-unit or sentence, the

paragraph, and nally the chapter or the whole text (Meyer, 1985). Such units areidentied by written para-linguistic devices (such as sentence punctuation and

paragraph indenting), rather than analysis o textual content or unction.

Other studies have considered the initiation o new topics within a text. Inves-

tigating written ction, Youmans (1991, p. 774) claimed that syntactic unction

words do not denote new topics, whereas content words do. Similarly, Fox (1987)

ound that, in expository writing, ull noun phrases are more likely than pronouns

to indicate the start o a new topic.

In spoken discourse (especially conversation) it has proved especially difcult

to determine what constitutes a new topic, resulting in a reliance on qualitative or

impressionistic ndings. As annen (1984, p. 38) notes, the boundaries o the

shiing topics in conversation are not always clearly and readily identiable, and

the initiation o new topics is oen unclear (see also annen, 1984, 1989; Van Dijk,

1997). Some research has suggested that prosodic and linguistic cues can be used

to determine topical boundaries in oral discourse. For example, pauses, hesita-

tions, alse starts, change in pitch, discourse particles, preposed adverbials, sum-

mary statements, and evaluative comments have all been proposed as linguistic

markers that signal a discourse shi in theme or topic (e.g., Brown & Yule, 1983;Gee, 1986; Korolija & Linell, 1996; Polanyi, 1985; Stubbs, 1983; annen, 1987; Van

Dijk, 1981).


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In general, these studies have ocused on linguistic devices that signal the transi-

tion rom one topic to the next, but they have not attempted to rigorously segment

complete texts into well-defned discourse units. However, this is exactly the taskthat must be accomplished or corpus-based analyses o discourse structure: we

need comprehensive identifcation o the structural discourse units within all texts

in the corpus. wo general approaches to text segmentation have been employed in

previous corpus-based research: top-down and bottom-up methods o segmenta-

tion. Te ollowing section discusses these two approaches in more detail.

2 Corpus-based investigation of discourse structure

As summarized in the sections above, research on the linguistic characteristics o

texts and discourse has been carried out rom two major perspectives: one ocus-

ing on the distribution and unctions o surace linguistic eatures corpus studies

o language use in discourse (which typically disregards the existence o individu-

al texts) and the second ocusing on the internal organization o texts discourse

studies o linguistic structure beyond the sentence in particular texts.

Discourse studies o language use have usually been quantitative, and in more

recent years, they have been carried out on large text corpora using the techniqueso corpus linguistics; these studies ofen compare the linguistic characteristics o

discourse rom dierent spoken and written registers. Studies o the second type

have usually been qualitative and based on detailed analysis o a small number o

texts; these studies usually ocus on the internal structure o a ew texts rom a

single genre, such as scientic research articles.

Rmer (2005) is a good example o the rst approach. Tis study describes the

use o progressive verb phrases in spoken English, based on analysis o the British

National Corpus and the Bank o English. Rather than ocusing on the organiza-

tion o any particular text, the study ocuses on the overall patterns o distribution

and use, considering actors such as the tendency o progressives to occur with

dierent tenses and aspects; occurrence with dierent subject types or object

types; occurrence with dierent adverbials; and the tendency to occur with spe-

cic verbs and verb classes. In contrast, the chapters in Mann and Tompson

(1992) are good examples o the second approach. Tis book is based on analysis

o a single undraising letter, showing how the discourse structure and organiza-

tion o that single text can be analyzed rom dierent perspectives.

Surprisingly, ew studies have attempted to combine these two research per-spectives. On the one hand, most corpus-based studies have ocused on the quan-

titative distribution o lexical and grammatical eatures, generally disregarding the

language used in particular texts and higher-level discourse structures or other


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aspects o discourse organization. On the other hand, most qualitative discourse

analyses have ocused on the analysis o discourse patterns in a ew texts rom a

single genre, but they have not provided tools or empirical analyses that can beapplied on a large scale across a number o texts or genres. As a result, we know

little at present about the general patterns o discourse organization across a large

representative sample o texts rom a genre.

One o the major methodological problems to be solved by any corpus-based

analysis o discourse structure is deciding on a unit o analysis. Tat is, the frst

step in an analysis o discourse structure is to identiy the internal discourse seg-

ments o a text, corresponding to distinct propositions, topics, or communicative

unctions; these discourse segments become the basic units o the subsequent dis-

course analysis. For a corpus study o discourse structure, all texts in the corpusmust frst be analyzed or their component discourse units.

However, such analyses were not even possible based on early text corpora,

because they were composed o text-fles rather than complete texts. For example,

text fles in the Brown, LOB, and London-Lund Corpora were defned by length

2,000 words long in the case o Brown and LOB, and 5,000 words long in the case

o London-Lund. In some cases, a single text fle combines multiple texts, while in

other cases a text is truncated in a text fle when the word limit is reached.

Tis characteristic o early corpora might help to explain why most previous cor-pus studies have not considered individual texts at all. Rather, the analysis has re-

ported general patterns or the corpus as a whole, or it has compared overall results or

various sub-corpora (e.g., the overall requency o progressive verbs in a conversa-

tional sub-corpus compared to the requency in a sub-corpus o academic writing).

More recently, corpora such as the BNC and 2K-SWAL have been designed

to include complete texts, such as complete chapters rom a book or complete re-

search articles. It is thus possible, in theory, to analyze the internal discourse struc-

ture o each text in the corpus, and to then discover general patterns o discourse

organization that hold across all texts in the corpus. o achieve this goal, corpus

texts must frst be segmented into well-defned discourse units, and then those

units can be used to identiy the general ways in which the discourse o corpus

texts is organized. In the ollowing section, we introduce the two major corpus-

based approaches that can be applied to these research goals.


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3 Top-down versus bottom-up corpus-based approaches

to discourse analysis

o achieve generalizable corpus-based descriptions o discourse structure, seven

major analytical steps are required:

Determining the types o discourse units the unctional/communicative dis-

tinctions that discourse units can serve in these texts (Communicative/Func-

tional Categories)

Segmenting all texts in the corpus into well-dened discourse units (Segmen-

tation)

Identiying and labeling the type (or category) o each discourse unit in each

text o the corpus (Classication) Analyzing the linguistic characteristics o each discourse unit in each text o

the corpus (Linguistic analysis o each unit)

Describing the typical linguistic characteristics o each discourse unit type, by

comparing all discourse units o a given type across the texts o the corpus

(Linguistic description o discourse categories)

Describing the discourse structures o particular texts as sequences o dis-

course units, in terms o the general type or category o each o those units

(ext structure) Describing general patterns o discourse organization that hold across all texts

o the corpus (Discourse organizational tendencies)

Tese seven steps can be achieved through either a top-down research approach or

a bottom-up research approach. Te two approaches difer primarily in the order

o analytical steps. In a top-down approach, the analytical ramework is developed

at the outset: the discourse unit types are determined beore beginning the corpus

analysis, and the entire analysis is then carried out in those terms. In a bottom-up

approach, the corpus analysis comes rst, and the discourse unit types emergerom the corpus patterns. ables 1.1 and 1.2 summarize the major diferences be-

tween these two analytical approaches.


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Table 1.1 op-down corpus-based analyses o discourse organization

Required step in the analysis Realization in this approach

1. Communicative/Functional Categories Develop the analytical ramework: determine

set o possible unctional types o discourse

units, that is, the major communicative unc-

tions that discourse units can serve in corpus

2. Segmentation Segment each text into discourse units (applying

the analytical framework from Step 1)

3. Classication Identiy the unctional type o each discourse

unit in each text o the corpus (applying the

analytical ramework rom Step 1)

4. Linguistic analysis o each unit Analyze the lexical/grammatical characteristicso each discourse unit in each text o the corpus

5. Linguistic description o discourse

categories

Describe the typical linguistic characteristics o

each unctional category, based on analysis o

all discourse units o a particular unctional

type in the corpus

6. ext structure Analyze complete texts as sequences o dis-

course units shifing among the dierent unc-

tional types

7. Discourse organizational tendencies Describe the general patterns o discourse or-

ganization across all texts in the corpus

In the top-down approach, the rst step is to develop the analytical ramework,

determining the set o possible discourse unit types based on an a priori determi-

nation o the major communicative unctions that discourse units can serve in

these texts. Tat ramework is then applied to the analysis o all texts in a corpus.

Tus, when texts are segmented into discourse units, it is done by identiying a

stretch o discourse o a particular type; that is, that serves a particular communi-

cative unction.

In contrast, in the bottom-up approach, the rst step is to automatically seg-

ment all texts in the corpus into discourse units (based on linguistic criteria).

Tose discourse units are then analyzed or many other linguistic eatures, and

grouped into clusters o discourse units that are linguistically similar. Only then

afer the discourse units have already been grouped linguistically are those

groupings interpreted as discourse unit types, by determining their typical unc-

tions in texts.


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Table 1.2 Bottom-up corpus-based analyses o discourse organization

Required step in the analysis Realization in this approach

1. Segmentation Segment each text in the corpus into discourse

units, based on shifs in vocabulary or other lin-

guistic eatures

2. Linguistic analysis o each unit Analyze the ull range o lexical / grammatical

characteristics o each discourse unit in each text o

the corpus

3. Classication Identiy the set o discourse units types that emerge

rom the corpus analysis, based on linguistic crite-

ria; that is, group all discourse units in the corpus

into linguistically-dened categories or types4. Linguistic description o discourse

categories

Describe the typical linguistic characteristics o

each discourse category, based on analysis o all

discourse units o a particular type in the corpus

5. Communicative/unctional categories Describe the unctional bases o each discourse cat-

egory, based on post-hoc analysis o the discourse

units identied as belonging to a particular type

6. ext structure Analyze complete texts as sequences o discourse

units shifing among the dierent unctional types

7. Discourse organizational tendencies Describe the general patterns o discourse organi-

zation across all texts in the corpus

3.1 Examples o top-down analyses o discourse

Several top-level discourse structure theories were advanced by text linguists in

the 1980s and 1990s. Teories o superstructures were developed or dierent

types o texts such as exposition, argumentation, and narration. Tese superstruc-

tures o texts were called macrostructures by Van Dijk (1980), problem-solutionpatterns by Hoey (1983; 1986), superstructures o arguments by irkkonen-Con-

dit (1985), and story grammars by Mandler and Johnson (1977).

Story grammar analysis had its start in the work o Labov and Waletsky (1967),

who proposed the ollowing structure or analyzing oral narratives: orientation

(the major characters are introduced and a setting is established); complication (a

series o events unold, and a crisis develops); resolution (the crisis is solved); and

coda (the nal stage, in which the writer may express an attitude toward the story

or give her perspective on its signicance). Although developed or oral texts orig-inally, the story grammar analysis became a popular tool in written discourse

analysis. Martin and Rothery (1986) used it eectively as a research and teaching

method or school writing in Australia.


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Tere are other approaches to the analysis o text structure that could be clas-

sied as being top-down in nature. Mann and Tompson (1992) in their book,

Discourse Description: Diverse Linguistic Analyses of a Fund-raising ext, showcaseseven dierent methods or looking at the text organization o a single undraising

letter. One, described by Callow and Callow (1992), is somewhat like the appeals

analysis described below, except that the ocus is on identiying the kinds o in-

tended meanings (rather than appeals) that refect the writers purposes. Tese di-

erent meaning purposes (e.g., inormative, expressive, and conative [expressing

desires and intentions]) can be used to analyze the meaning-basedstructure o the

text. In their chapter o the book, Mann, Matthiessen, & Tompson (1992) use

Rhetorical Structure Teory(RS) to analyze the relational structure o a text. At

its most basic level, RS identies coherence in a text that is, how dierent partso a text relate to each other, or more specically how one part o a text supports,

elaborates, provides background or, oers contrast to, justies, etc, another part o

the text. By looking at these relationships, the rhetorical structure o the texts in a

corpus could also be mapped out (see also Fox, 1987, Chapters 45).

Connor (1996) pointed out that the above kinds o analyses provided a new

development in written discourse analysis. Researchers became keenly aware that

dierent textual modes (e.g., narration, exposition, argumentation) used dierent

discourse structures. Unlike the study o cohesion, or example, the analysis osuper structures was specic to a text type. Te increased interest in specic genres

has urther stimulated research on discourse structures o texts.

Move analysis (Swales, 1981, 1990) is an example o such a specifc genre anal-

ysis. Move analysis was developed as a top-down approach to analyze the discourse

structure o texts rom a genre; the text is described as a sequence o moves, where

each move represents a stretch o text serving a particular communicative unction.

Te analysis begins with the development o an analytical ramework, identiying

and describing the move types that can occur in this genre: these are the unctional/

communicative distinctions that moves can serve in the target genre.

Subsequently, selected texts are segmented into moves, noting the move type

o each move. Te overall discourse structure o a text can be described in relation

to the sequence o move types. For example, a research article might begin with a

move that identies the topic and reviews previous research, ollowed by a move

that identies a gap in previous research, ollowed by a move that outlines the

goals o the present study, summarizes the major ndings, and outlines the or-

ganization o the paper.

Until recently, top-down approaches (including move analysis) have not beenapplied to an entire corpus o texts, because it is highly labor-intensive to apply a

top-down analytical ramework to a large corpus o texts. However, this invest-

ment o labor pays o by enabling generalizable analyses o discourse structure


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across a representative sample o texts rom a genre. For example, once a corpus o

texts has been coded or moves, we can easily analyze the typical linguistic (lexical

and grammatical) characteristics o each move type. It is then possible to identiythe sequences o move types that are typical or a genre, and against that back-

ground, it is also possible to identiy particular texts that use more innovative se-

quences o move types. In summary, corpus-based move analyses illustrate the top

down approach: the unctional analytical ramework is developed frst; that rame-

work is then applied to segment texts into discourse units (moves); and fnally the

moves and unctional move types are analyzed to describe their linguistic charac-

teristics. Chapters 34 in the present book illustrate this general approach to dis-

course structure.

Rhetorical appeals analysis is another top-down approach (see Chapter 5). In-stead o describing texts according to their communicative unctions (moves),

rhetorical appeals analysis divides texts into sections using the three basic means

o Aristotelian persuasion: ethos, pathos, and logos. Similar to move analysis, this

approach begins with the development o an analytical ramework, identiying

and defning the appeal types. Te texts in a corpus are then analyzed by applying

this analytical ramework: segmenting texts into appeals, noting the appeal type o

each appeal.

In practice, most previous discourse analyses have been top-down. However,there have been ew previous top-down studies o discourse applied to an entire

corpus o texts, in large part because the analyses are so labor-intensive. In the

present book, we illustrate two particular top-down approaches to discourse: move

analysis (Chapters 34) and rhetorical appeals analysis (Chapter 5).

3.2 Example o bottom-up approach

In contrast to the long research tradition applying top-down analyses o discourse,

the bottom-up approach was only recently developed, specifcally or corpus-

based analyses o discourse structure. Tis approach has not been previously prac-

ticed by discourse analysts because it requires advanced computational techniques

and does not make sense or the analysis o an individual text. Tat is, a discourse

analyst traditionally begins by considering the communicative-unctional context

o a text, and relies on those considerations to identiy the components o the text,

and how a text is organized in those terms.

In contrast, the bottom-up approach was developed to address the methodo-

logical problem of how discourse patterns could be analyzed in a large corpus, withhundreds or thousands of texts. In theory, top-down analyses can also be applied to

large text corpora, but in practice, such analyses are limited by the human resourc-

es that are available for manually coding discourse units in texts. Te bottom-up


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approach has no such limitations, because it incorporates automatic computational

techniques which can be easily applied to the analysis of hundreds of texts.

Vocabulary-Based Discourse Unit (VBDU) analysis is the specic bottom-upapproach illustrated in the present book. (See Chapter 6 or a detailed descrip-

tion.) Te rst step is to automatically segment texts into discourse units the

VBDUs. Tis is done using computational techniques, based on vocabulary repeti-

tion. At this stage, we know nothing about the underlying types o discourse units

or the communicative unctions served by these types. Ten, in the second step,

we undertake comprehensive linguistic descriptions o each VBDU (again utiliz-

ing automatic computational techniques). Tese linguistic descriptions are used to

group VBDUs into categories, so that all the VBDUs in a grouping are similar lin-

guistically. At that point, unctional considerations become important, becausethe linguistic groupings o VBDUs are interpreted as unctional VBDU-types. Tat

is, each type represents a grouping o VBDUs that are similar in their lexico-

grammatical characteristics, and those groupings are interpreted to identiy their

typical discourse meanings and unctions. Finally, the overall discourse organiza-

tion o texts is described as sequences o VBDUs, noting the unctional discourse

type o each VBDU.

One major diference between the two approaches is the role o the unctional

versus linguistic analyses. In the top-down approach, the unctional ramework isprimary. Tus, the rst step in the analysis is to determine the possible discourse

unit types (e.g., move types) and provide an operational denition or each one.

Tis unctional ramework is then used to segment texts into discourse units. Lin-

guistic analysis is secondary in a top-down approach, serving an interpretive role

to investigate the extent to which unctionally-dened discourse units also have

systematic linguistic characteristics.

In contrast, the linguistic description is primary in the bottom-up approach.

exts are automatically segmented into VBDUs based on vocabulary patterns, and

then VBDUs are grouped into categories based on the use o a wide range o lexi-

co-grammatical eatures. Functional analysis is secondary in VBDU analysis, serv-

ing an interpretive role to investigate the extent to which linguistically-dened

discourse unit categories also have systematic unctional characteristics.

4 Creating a specialized corpus for discourse analysis

One o the central methodological issues or corpus-based research is to ensurethat the corpus chosen or analysis actually represents the discourse domain being

studied and is thus suitable or the research questions being investigated (see Biber

1993, 2004). Tis is o course no diferent than any other quantitative research in


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the social sciences, where there is always concern that the sample being studied

actually represents the larger target population (one o the potential threats to

external validity).Corpus-based studies o discourse structure are potentially problematic in this

regard or two related reasons:

1. Corpora are oen designed or general use rather than a specic study. As a

result, the population being represented can be relatively general, such as

newspaper language, or even an entire language.

2. Researchers sometimes choose to use a corpus just because it is publicly avail-

able, with little consideration o whether that corpus actually represents the

target population being investigated.

However, these problems can be readily addressed. Most corpora have been de-

signed with relatively well-specied sub-corpora that represent particular text cat-

egories, such as academic research articles, newspaper editorials, or ace-to-ace

conversation. When corpus studies have been based on particular sub-corpora,

the ndings have been much more interpretable. In addition, many recent corpora

have been designed or more particular research purposes. For example, the 2K-

SWAL Corpus a relatively general corpus was designed to represent the range

o spoken and written genres used in American universities (including sub-corpo-

ra or ofce hours, study groups, textbooks, course syllabi, etc.; see Biber 2006b).

Te ICIC Fundraising Corpus is somewhat more specialized, designed to repre-

sent American undraising discourse, including sub-corpora or genres like direct

mail letters and grant proposals (see Connor & Upton, 2004a, 2004b; Upton, 2002;

Upton & Connor, 2001).

In general, more specialized corpora are more appropriate or the study o dis-

course structure. Te corpora used in the present book are all relatively specialized,

but they difer in the extent to which they represent a narrowly-dened genre. At

one extreme, the study reported in Chapter 4 o the present book is based on ahighly restricted corpus o research articles published in biochemistry academic

journals. Prior research was carried out to identiy the ve most prestigious aca-

demic journals in this discipline, and then research articles were collected over a

12-month period rom those journals. Te study reported in Chapter 7 is based on

a corpus o research articles published in biology academic journals, but it deliber-

ately includes a range o sub-disciplines in the sample. Te study in Chapter 3 is

based on analysis o the direct mail letters included in the ICIC Fundraising Cor-

pus; these include letters rom a wide variety o non-prot organizations across a

wide variety o non-prot elds (e.g., health and human services, education). Fi-

nally, the corpus used in Chapter 8 is probably the least specialized, consisting o

transcripts rom university-level classroom teaching sessions collected across sev-


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eral diferent academic disciplines. However, all corpora used here are relatively

specialized, restricted to particular genres. Such corpora are required or corpus-

based studies o discourse structure: each text has its own discourse organization,and it is reasonable to hypothesize that all texts rom a genre will tend to share

similar patterns o discourse organization. Our goals in the present book are rela-

tively straightorward: we hope to analyze corpora that represent particular genres,

to describe the patterns o discourse organization in those genres and to investigate

empirically the variation in discourse patterns across texts within a single genre.

5 Overview of the book

Te book is organized into two parts, corresponding to the two major corpus-based

approaches to discourse organization introduced in Section 2 above. Part I o the

book ocuses on op-down analyses o discourse organization. Chapter 2 intro-

duces top-down analysis in greater detail, describing the analytical procedures re-

quired or these analyses, with a special ocus on genre-based move analysis and

the methodological issues that arise during the application o this approach to the

analysis o a corpus o texts. Part I o the book then presents three case studies il-

lustrating the top-down approach. Te rst case study (Chapter 3) describes howundraising letters are structured in terms o rhetorical moves, ocusing on the lin-

guistic expression o stance in the diferent move types. Te second case study

(Chapter 4) describes the typical discourse organizations o biochemistry research

articles, again using move analysis as the primary analytical ramework. Rather

than ocusing on a restricted set o linguistic eatures, this second case study under-

takes a multi-dimensional analysis (see Appendix One) to describe the typical lin-

guistic characteristics o move types in this genre with respect to a wide range o

lexical and grammatical eatures. Finally, the last chapter in Part I o the book in-

troduces a second top-down approach to discourse structure: appeals analysis.

Tis approach is applied to the same corpus o undraising letters as in Chapter 3,

allowing a direct comparison o these two analytical approaches.

Part II o the book Bottom-up analyses o discourse organization then

deals primarily with Vocabulary-Based Discourse Unit (VBDU) analysis. Chapter

6 introduces this analytical ramework in detail, describing both the analytical

procedures and experimental research that explores the extent to which the auto-

matically-identifed VBDUs correspond to discourse units recognized on a per-

ceptual basis by human raters. Two case studies based on this approach are thenpresented: Chapter 7 presents a bottom-up analysis o a corpus o biology research

articles, describing how texts rom this genre are structured as sequences o VB-

DUs; Chapter 8 presents a similar analysis o VBDUs in university classroom


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teaching sessions. Finally, the concluding chapter (9) provides a synopsis o fnd-

ings, a more theoretical discussion o the strengths and weaknesses o each ap-

proach, and a discussion o uture prospects or investigations o this type.


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Part 1

Top-down analyses of discourse organization


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chapter 2

Introduction to move analysis

WIH Budsb Knoksilm

In C 1, w inodud wo difn os o using oo onlyz disous ognizion: o-down nd boom-u ous-bsd nlyss.

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nlysis. W giv dild dsiion o mov nlysis inluding w i is,

w is y o nlysis lls you, xmls o sudis using mov nlysis, ss

o onduing mov nlysis, nd sil onsidions o nd dvngs o

using ous-bsd o. As nod in vious , mny

o-down os o disous nlysis, lik ls nlysis dsibd in

C 5; mov nlysis, owv, is o s bn mos qunly

usd o d in ous-bsd sudis. Cs 3 nd 4 ovid si xmls

o s kinds o sudis. T inn o sn is o inodu

gols nd mods o ous-bsd mov nlysis (s on ommon y o

o-down disous nlysis), in od o sow ow gnlizbl ous-bsd

dsiions o disous ognizionl ns n b ivd using o-

down o.

1 Background

Genre analysis using rhetorical moves was originally developed by Swales (1981) to

describe the rhetorical organizational patterns o research articles. Its goal is to

describe the communicative purposes o a text by categorizing the various dis-

course units within the text according to their communicative purposes or rhetori-

cal moves. A move thus reers to a section o a text that perorms a specic com-

municative unction. Each move not only has its own purpose but also contributes

to the overall communicative purposes o the genre. In Swales words, these pur-

poses together constitute the rationale or the genre, which in turn shapes the

schematic structure o the discourse and infuences and constrains choice o con-tent and style, with texts in a genre exhibiting various patterns o similarity in

terms o structure, style, content and intended audience (1990, p. 58).


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Genre analysis was developed in the 1970s and 1980s as part o the wider

growth o discourse analyses ocusing on the organization o discourse. Bhatia

(2004) documents how structural concerns, or example Hoeys (1983) problem-solution structure analysis, directed the analysts attention away rom studying

lexico-grammatical eatures o texts (e.g., passives and nominalizations, use o

tenses, coherence). Researchers involved in the analysis o text as genre urther

related discourse structures to the communicative unctions o texts, resulting in

the current approach o doing genre analysis using rhetorical moves.

In genre analysis, the purposes o the genre are recognized by the expert mem-

bers o the discourse community, less so by the novice members, and probably not

by the nonmembers. Tese purposes shape the rationale, and the rationale helps

develop the constraining conventions. According to Swales (1990), these conven-tions are constantly changing but still exert infuence. As we will see in later chap-

ters, discourse communities are powerul in shaping the conventions o the genre.

Research papers in scholarly disciplines are good examples o such discourse com-

munities where novice writers are indoctrinated into the paper-writing genre in

their graduate studies and young publishing lives. Tere are genres, however,

which are not shaped by such strong discourse community rationales. ake und-

raising letters as an example. It is air to say that both writers and readers recognize

a undraising letter as such. However, since readers and potential donors do nottypically write them, conventions may not be so strictly adhered to. In act, devi-

ance rom conventions may seem resh to the reader who may receive hundreds o

them a year but does not need to worry about writing any.

In move analysis, the general organizational patterns o texts are typically de-

scribed as consisting o a series o moves, with moves being unctional units in a

text which together ulll the overall communicative purpose o the genre (Con-

nor, Davis, & De Rycker, 1995). Moves can vary in length, but normally contain at

least one proposition (Connor & Mauranen, 1999). Some move types occur more

requently than others in a genre and can be described as conventional, whereas

other moves occurring not as requently can be described as optional. Moves may

contain multiple elements that together, or in some combination, realize the move.

Tese elements are reerred to as steps by Swales (1990) or strategies by Bhatia

(1993a). Te steps o a move primarily unction to achieve the purpose o the

move to which it belongs (see, e.g., Crookes, 1986; Dudley-Evans, 1994a; Hopkins

& Dudley-Evans, 1988; Swales, 1981, 1984, 1990). In short, moves represent se-

mantic and unctional units o texts that have specic communicative purposes; in

addition, as the ollowing sections show, moves generally have distinct linguisticboundaries that can be objectively analyzed.


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Chapter 2. Introduction to move analysis

2 Swales move analysis of research articles

Swales (1981) developed the discourse approach o move analysis within the moregeneral feld o English or Specifc Purposes (ESP). Tis approach has been revised

and extended by several scholars, including Swales (1990). Te original aim o Swales

work on move analysis was to address the needs o advanced non-native English

speakers (NNSs) learning to read and write research articles, as well as to help NNS

proessionals who want to publish their articles in English. His analysis o 48 intro-

duction sections in research articles rom a range o disciplines (physics, medicine,

and social sciences), written in English, led Swales to propose a series o moves i.e.,

specifc communicative unctions perormed by specifc sections o the introductions

that defned the rhetorical structure o research article introductions.A closer examination o Swales move structure, or ramework, or these intro-

ductions helps elucidate the interaction between moves and steps in perorming

communicative unctions in scientifc texts. Swales three-move schema or article

introductions, collectively known as the Create a Research Space (CARS) model,

is presented in able 2.1. Te model shows the preerred sequences o move types

and steps, which are largely predictable in research article introductions.

Table 2.1 CARS model or research article introductions, adapted rom Swales(1990, p. 141)

Move 1: Establishing a territory

Step 1 Claiming centrality and/or

Step 2 Making topic generalization(s) and/or

Step 3 Reviewing items o previous research

Move 2: Establishing a niche

Step 1A Counter-claiming or

Step 1B Indicating a gap or

Step 1C Question raising or

Step 1D Continuing a tradition

Move 3: Occupying the niche

Step 1A Outlining purposes or

Step 1B Announcing present research

Step 2 Announcing principal fndings

Step 3 Indicating RA structure

Swales model includes three basic move types in research article introductions.

Move 1 Establishing a territory introduces the general topic o research. Move 2


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Establishing a niche identifes the more specifc areas o research that require

urther investigation. And Move 3 Occupying a niche introduces the current

research study in the context o the previous research described in Moves 1 and 2.Move 1 can have a maximum o three steps (Step 1, Step 2, and Step 3). In

Move 1, Step 1, Claiming centrality, the author can make a centrality claim by

claiming interest or importance in reerring to the classic, avorite or central per-

spective, or by claiming that there are many investigators in the area. Tis step is

usually, but not always, at the beginning o the introduction. o illustrate Move 1,

Step 1, Swales (1990) presents the ollowing examples:

Te study ofhas become an important aspect of

A central issue inis the validity of (Swales, 1990, p. 144)

Move 1, Step 2,Making topic generalizations, represents a neutral kind o general

statement. It usually takes the orm o either statements about knowledge or prac-

tice, or statements about phenomena. Usually, this step seeks to establish territory

by emphasizing the requency and complexity o the data. Some examples o Move

1, Step 2 are:

Te aetiology and pathology is well known.

A standard procedure for assessing has been

Tere are many situations where (Swales, 1990, p. 146)

Te last step o this move, Step 3, Reviewing items of previous literature, is where

the author reviews selected relevant groups o previous research. Here, the author

specifes the important fndings o the study and situates his/her own current re-

search study. Examples o Move 1, Step 3 are:

X Was found by Sang et al. (1972) to be impaired.

Chomskyan grammarians have recently (Swales, 1990, p. 150)

In establishing territory, then, the author convinces the readers about the importance

o the area o study by making strong claims with reerence to previously publishedresearch, which can be done in three ways, as indicated by the three step options.

Move 2 o the CARS model, Establishing a niche for about-to-be presented re-

search, is considered a key move in research article introductions because it con-

nects Move 1 to Move 3, by articulating the need or the research that is being

presented. Move 2 is maniested in one o our ways: Step 1A, Counter claiming;

Step 1B, Indicating a gap, Step 1C, Question raising, and Step 1D, Continuing a


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Chapter 2. Introduction to move analysis

tradition. Te our options or realizing Move 2 are represented by the ollowing

examples, taken rom Swales, 1990, p. 154:

Step 1A, Counter Claiming Emphasis has been on, with scant

attention given to

Step 1B, Indicating a Gap Te rst group...cannot treat and is

limited to

Step 1C, Question Raising Both sufer rom the dependency on

Step 1D, Continuing a radition A questio

Discourse on the Move：Using Corpus Analysis to Describe Discourse Structure－DouglasBiber

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