Multiple Voices In Academic And Professional Discourse

The demands of today’s society for greater specialization have brought about a profound transformation in the humanities, which are not immune to the competitive pressure to meet new challenges that are present in other sectors. Thus, lecturers and researchers in modern languages and applied linguistics departments have made great efforts to design syllabi and materials more attuned to the competences and requirements of potential working environments. At the same time, linguists have attempted to apply their expertise in wider areas, creating research institutes that focus on applying language and linguistics in different contexts and offering linguistic services to society as a whole. This book attempts to provide a global view of the multiple voices involved in interdisciplinary research and innovative proposals in teaching specialized languages while offering contributions that attempt to fill the demands of a varied scope of disciplines such as the sciences, professions, or educational settings. The chapters in this book are made up of current research on these themes: discourse analysis in academic and professional genres, specialized translation, lexicology and terminology, and ICT research and teaching of specialized languages.

This book explores how the voices of authors and other researchers are manifested in academic discourse, and how the author handles the polyphonic interaction between these various parties. It represents a unique study of academic discourse in that it takes a doubly contrastive approach, focusing on the two factors of discipline and language at the same time. It is based on a large electronic corpus of 450 research articles from three disciplines (economics, linguistics and medicine) in three languages (English, French and Norwegian). The book investigates whether disciplines and languages may be said to represent different cultures with regard to person manifestation in the texts. What is being studied is thus cultural identities as tendencies in linguistic practices. For the majority of the features focused on (e.g. metatext and bibliographical references), the discipline factor turns out to contribute more strongly to the variation observed than the language factor. However, for some of the features (e.g. pronouns and negation), the language factor is also quite strong. Additional background information on the investigations reported in this book can be found at www.uib.no/kiap/.

Using a wide range of examples, this book examines the discourse of professional writing and its important role in society.

Stance and Voice in Written Academic Genres brings together a range of perspectives on two of the most important and contested concepts in applied linguistics: stance and voice. International experts provide an accessible, yet authoritative introduction to key issues and debates surrounding these terms.

Establishing Scientific Classroom Discourse Communities: Multiple Voices of Teaching and Learning Research is designed to encourage discussion of issues surrounding the reform of classroom science discourse among teachers, teacher educators, and researchers. The contributors--some of the top educational researchers, linguists, and science educators in the world--represent a variety of perspectives pertaining to teaching, assessment, research, learning, and reform. As a whole the book explores the variety, complexity, and interconnectivity of issues associated with changing classroom learning communities and transforming science classroom discourse to be more representative of the discourse of scientific communities. The intent is to expand debate among educators regarding what constitutes exemplary scientific speaking, thinking, and acting. This book is unparalleled in discussing current reform issues from sociolinguistic and sociocultural perspectives. The need for a revised perspective on enduring science teaching and learning issues is established and a theoretical framework and methodology for interpreting the critique of classroom and science discourses is presented. To model and scaffold this ongoing debate, each chapter is followed by a "metalogue" in which the chapter authors and volume editors critique the issues traversed in the chapter by opening up the neatly argued issues. These "metalogues" challenge, extend, and deepen the arguments made. Central questions addressed include: *Why is a sociolinguistic interpretation essential in examining science education reform? *What are key similarities and differences between classroom and scientific communities? *How can the utility of common knowledge and existing classroom discourse be balanced toward alternative outcomes? *What curricular issues are associated with transforming classroom talk? *What other perspectives can assist in creating multiple access to science through redefining classroom discourse? Whether this volume improves readers' science teaching, assists their research, or helps them to better prepare tomorrow's science teachers, the goal is to engage them in considering the challenges faced by educators as they navigate the seas of reform and strive to improve science education for all.

This book explores the structure and use of academic and professional discourse through the lens of corpus linguistics. The goal of this book is to show how insights from corpus linguistic analyses can help us better understand how we use academic and professional language and help us find ways to better train newcomers to the genres used in various professional contexts. The contributions to this book show that specialized corpora of specific genres from a variety of fields allow us to make more relevant observations about the function and use of language for particular purposes. The specialized corpora examined include written and spoken academic genres, written and spoken business and legal genres, and written philanthropic genres. The book showcases a variety of approaches to analyzing the discourse of specialized corpora, and each chapter concludes with a reflection on the practical and pedagogical implications of the analysis.

This is a book for practitioners, university educators, workplace learning educators, researchers and the professions. It draws together two key elements of the lives of these people: professional practice – what people do, and practice discourse – what they write and say about what they do. And, it focuses these discussions around two spaces – the core and the margins, of practice and discourse. Writing in the margins of texts has a very long history. People have always left part of themselves – their ideas, personality and reflections – in the margins of texts. In this book we have taken up the idea of such written marginalia and we have expanded it into writing into the texts of practice discourse as well as speaking and acting in the margins of professional practice. Such deliberate practice changes in marginal practice spaces and in written practice discourse provides ways of shaping and critically appraising current and future professional practice. This book provides a dialogue between two fascinating phenomena: professional practice and discourse. In the 21st century these two are facing challenges as they negotiate their contested spaces in a rapidly changing global society. They draw on strong established traditions and expectations but they cannot be complacent in these illusory stabilities. Rather they must be awake to the imperatives of their own re-invention and re-claimed relevance to today’s society and today’s professional class in the workforce. Across the chapters we explore the core spaces of professional practice discourse from the vantage point of the margins of this space, and the margin spaces as they interact with the core. Marginalia serves as an architect of destabilisation, challenge, revolution, reflection or sometimes affirmation of the central discourse space. There are five sections in the book: Section One: Professional practice discourse, Section Two: Leading the practice discourse, Section Three: Writing from inside practice, Section Four: Writing onto and into practice and Section Five: Marking trails and stimulating insights. Readers are invited to contribute to our exploration of the phenomenon and practice of professional practice discourse marginalia.

Discurso corporativo examina las prácticas de comunicación de negocios desde la perspectiva del discurso, mirar en detalle la forma en que las empresas de todo el mundo se comunican con las personas, con otras entidades, colectivos y con el mundo en general. Tiene que ver con la comprensión de cómo funciona el lenguaje en contextos de negocios y cómo la identidad corporativa y de relaciones personales y profesionales se configuran a través del discurso. Usando una variedad de técnicas analíticas para examinar las diferentes formas de evidencia textual de las empresas que operan en varios sectores, este libro traza la evolución actual de discurso corporativo contra el complejo contexto de la globalización.