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Dear all

The passage that Sian points to in Susan's mail impacted me too, having just co-authored a book: Academic phrases - in research papers, projects and articles, (translated title, in publication, Rienecker, Stray Jørgensen, Jakobsen 2020)  in Danish - inspired by the English language phrasebanks by Morley (Manchester phrasebank) and Godfrey (2013) and the works of Swales and Flowerdew, among others. It contains a phrasebank with hundreds of (variations of) phrases currently used in Danish academic writing, collected from a corpus of published, peer reviewed articles and reports. 

Yes, I have heard it many times before: (teaching) Academic writing is restricting, deadening, normative and stifling of the writer's own voice and language, independence, autonomy and creativity. And language concerns may unintendedly override content and meaning, in supervisory and editorial feedback. And indeed, it may be, and it may do.

But there is also another way of seeing guidelines, phrasebanks, textbooks and resources on academic language, and that is as a way into academic writing for new students and young researchers, for professionals, non-native speakers, for adult learners, and for their supervisors and editors in their varying degree of experience.

Two examples of where and how phrases may be a way into not just "the right words" but also into the right, but difficult elements and components of academic writing.

1. In 2011 I co-authored a report on 41 Ph.d. assessments at a Danish university. We found that a number of the theses were critisized for not stating their contribution explicitly. Phrases to that effect were absent. Now if you read a phrasebank, and see phrases like "My contribution will be ..." then you are presented with those phrases, and that whole element and option comes to your attention. And hopefully you and your supervisor will discuss how to phrase your contribution.

2. In my work I have read countless theses, projects and articles, and I have noticed that criticism of the works of others is often rare and hard to find suitable phrases for. You may not easily find such phrases when reading articles and textbooks in your field. And there it might be a reminder to find an entry in a resource about words and phrases that address problems, methodological flaws etc. in own and in other's works: A reminder that you can address such difficult matters with suitable phrases. And not resort to formulations that may sound too offensive, too subjective or non-professional, or biased. Or just refrain from  addressing issues that seem too difficult to tackle linguistically.

These are just two examples of how a focus on phrases and on a sentence and word level, might prove useful for the writer, and for the teacher or supervisor/editor of academic writing.

I think of addressing academic phrases as an opening up of possibilities of expression in academe. And those are always open to dialogue and discussion.

Best regards, and thanks to Susan for raising this issue,
Lotte Rienecker
Educational consultant, text book writer

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Den tor. 21. maj 2020 kl. 09.21 skrev Sian Lund <[log in to unmask]>:
Dear Susan,

I don't have time to go into lengthy discussions on this forum, but I agree with Mahvesh's points and believe that in this paragraph alone:

But when it comes to academic writing the academic words and phrases seem dead without the writer and the research. They have no life to them and I’m concerned that a corpus may present a limitation to writing rather than opening a vista of opportunity.  We can collect and analyse the words and phrases as much as we like but will it really make academics better writers? Is it an academic sin to use “show” rather than “demonstrate” if the word “demonstrate” appears more frequently in a corpus? I’ve met students who have been told by their supervisors that this is the case. And yet I don’t believe it to be true.

...you open up many many linguistic issues which would need time and references to much significant linguistic research that I could not do justice to here.

Best,

Siân

Siân Lund SFHEA

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On Wed, 20 May 2020 at 12:34, Susan Mitchell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Dear Mahvesh,

 

Many thanks for your very interesting and informative reply.

 

As you may have gathered, I’m not from a linguistics background. I was previously an editor with a science background before ending up working in academia. Over many years I’ve ended up advising not only scientists but academics from the social sciences, humanities and the arts. In fact, I probably see everyone except the pure mathematicians.

 

I not only run courses but I also edit a portion of each person’s work showing how they can improve their writing. In doing so I’m careful to maintain as many of their words as possible and keep to their writing style so that ultimately they can carry on with their own improvements.

 

To do this I have to do my best to understand the research because I know that in research that the meaning drives the words we chose. If the meaning is mathematical then the mathematics drives the words. Sometimes it’s all very obvious and other times it’s incredibly nuanced. Sometimes it isn’t about individual numbers but the direction in which those numbers are going.

 

To give you an example, here in the UK in March the government and Boris Johnson were supporting the idea of “herd immunity”. Then they received an open letter on the 14th March from 245 scientists basically saying that the government should immediately implement social distancing. Two days later the number of scientists putting their names to the letter doubled.

 

Now the letter in itself wasn’t extraordinary – scientists often write open letters to the government - but the people who signed the letter were a very distinct group. The UK newspapers, of course, didn’t notice this and simply reported that a wide range of scientists had signed the letter. But this wasn’t true. It wasn’t even the medical people or the biologists or the public health researchers, as might have been expected. It was the mathematicians.

 

I looked down the list and there they were: professors and readers of pure mathematics, applied mathematics, biomathematics, data, theoretical physics, probability, astronomy, bioinformatics, statistics, economics and engineering. (In amongst them were three linguistics researchers from York University – bless them.) I’ve attached the original letter so that you can see them all. They all looked at the exponential rise in cases and knew where those numbers were heading.

 

So the mathematicians suddenly stepped up to the mark, but without their numbers and their understanding of numbers there would have been no letter and no words.

 

So I would agree with you that the words on this occasion were the medium of communication between the scientists and the UK government but without the mathematics and the mathematicians there would have been no message and no letter.

 

So, when not being provocative in order to stimulate discussion, what do I really think of words? I would agree that we can learn a lot from a corpus of words and phrases. We can find out what words and phrases academics use in a particular subject and which ones they avoid. When it comes to the coronavirus we can use the coronavirus words and phrases to compare lockdown between nations, seeing the similarities, differences and difficulties, attitudes, political interventions and even humour. (Indeed, I take Mexico’s Susana Distancia, the self-distancing superhero and mascot, and her message very much to heart.) We can even discover hidden things that no one will admit overtly such as absence of preparation or a downplaying of a particular language or culture.  So I promise that I will look through all the versions of “Lockdown” that people have submitted and note the absences of words too. I take on board your comments.

 

But when it comes to academic writing the academic words and phrases seem dead without the writer and the research. They have no life to them and I’m concerned that a corpus may present a limitation to writing rather than opening a vista of opportunity.  We can collect and analyse the words and phrases as much as we like but will it really make academics better writers? Is it an academic sin to use “show” rather than “demonstrate” if the word “demonstrate” appears more frequently in a corpus? I’ve met students who have been told by their supervisors that this is the case. And yet I don’t believe it to be true.

 

I worry that such analysis can be like trying to work out how comedy is constructed.

 

“Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.” E.B. White.

 

So I’d like to discuss the words AND the numbers.

 

If you’d like me to talk about the mathematics just let me know.

 

With very best wishes,

 

Susan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From: Mahvesh Khan <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 19 May 2020 22:26
To: Susan Mitchell <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Never mind the stay-at-home coronavirus words and phrases - what about the numbers?

 

Hi Susan, 

 

I haven't participated in the list of words that you asked for. Mainly because I have no idea what "stay-at-home" is called in my language (Urdu). This could be due to two reasons: 1. We mix English with Urdu and have been using the word "Lockdown". 2. The word Lockdown hasn't meant Lockdown in Pakistan. Our government is competing with Britain and America for the medal in ineptitude. 

 

However, I disagree with the idea that numbers are more important than words. A numerical file cannot reveal that: 

1. The numbers are wrong because (a) the country hasn't tested enough people; (b) the country is misreporting the number of people infected with or dying from Coronavirus.

2. The numbers are low/high in some countries because they did/did not take appropriate measures.
3. One of those numbers was a doctor whose family spent two hours driving from one hospital to another because the appropriate equipment wasn't available. Will the number reveal the doctor's personality or his family's grief?
4. Will sheer numbers force ethical behaviour i.e. preparation for a future pandemic? Didn't the Nazis know how many Jews they had killed? Didn't Boris Johnson know how many Italians had died when he proposed herd immunity? Words and arguments perform this function - not numbers. 

5. Finally, the fact that I don't know the word for stay-at-home in my own language is a telling indicator of my government's response to the crisis. The numbers, alone, will not explain this. Pakistan and India have had an apparently low death rate from the virus which has sparked research into the possible protective effects of compulsory vaccines like BCG (tuberculosis) or musings about stronger immune systems because of poor hygiene. This is fair enough - we can see the ineffective response of both the Pakistani and the Indian governments. However, I recently read an article objecting to the same musings about the low death rate in some African countries. The author was arguing that this was because those specific countries (I forget their names) had taken active test, trace and quarantine measures much earlier than the USA and UK. Again, these differences cannot be identified, parsed and studied through numbers alone. 

 

Numbers are important but only within the context of words and language. Millions of people can be saved from pandemics using information carried in numbers. Whether they will be saved depends on words. Trump's supporters aren't protesting lockdown because Trump convinced them with the numbers. New Zealanders didn't deal beautifully with the coronavirus threat because PM Jacinda Ardern threw numbers at them. Doctors and nurses didn't risk their lives to serve because, "statistics". 

Numbers are a beautiful and powerful tool. But all meaning and action is carried in words. 

Respectfully, 
Mahvesh 

 

p.s. Thank you for the file.  I appreciate the time and effort you have taken to prepare it. My non-mathematical brain doesn't yet have the strength to fully understand it. 

 

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On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 8:06 PM Susan Mitchell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hello Everyone,

 

Thank you very much for your “coronavirus words and phrases. This is the biggest burst of activity on the mailing list that I’ve seen. However, academic writing is so much more than words and phrases.

 

Indeed, I’d like to shock you all here and say that actually I’m not very interested in a corpus of academic words. I’m primarily interested in what things mean.

 

For example, conceptually, the doubling time of the number of cases of coronavirus has close similarities with compound interest, the halving time of the number of cases of coronavirus follows the same pattern as the half-life of radioactive elements, and the distance we stand from each other to prevent infection is just another form of Isaac Newton’s gravitational inverse square law.

 

These distinctly numerical, non-linguistic concepts do not depend on words and phrases but stream out from economics and science into the natural world, through people’s everyday lives and then, beyond the stratosphere, into space.

 

The famous British World War I poet Wilfred Owen put this non-linguistic otherness very well. He did not say of his poetry that the poetry was in the words. He said that the poetry was in the pity, and by this he meant the pity for all the humanity that was lost in the Great War.

 

He himself died a few days before the end of the War and did not live to experience the influenza pandemic that occurred soon afterwards. If he had been alive today he might have said that the poetry might well be in the pity, but that the pity is in the numbers. For us, the pity is not in politicians’ speeches, media reports, journalistic essays or even the words used to describe the Lockdown or social/physical distancing. It is in the fact that every single number we hear about represents a person and a significant proportion of people represented by those numbers have lost their lives.

 

So rather than sending you words and phrases I’m sending you something else.

 

I’ve attached an Excel spreadsheet of the COVID-19 case numbers that I have forced myself to collect while in Lockdown and the mathematics that (as a non-mathematician) I’ve forced myself to understand.

 

I have chosen to collect case numbers rather than deaths because such numbers allow us to predict ahead and decide on good strategies to prevent further outbreaks or future pandemics. It will be these things that will influence the academic writing advice that I will give to any academics studying how to prevent and control pandemics in the future. This is because that without the numbers and an understanding of what those numbers mean, even a vast corpus of words will not be enough.

 

Please feel free to look at the attached Excel File and then maybe we can talk about the meaning and how it might influence academic writing. I’ve left the file as an Excel File rather than a pdf so that you can include your own numbers* if you wish. If you would like me to explain any aspect of the mathematics then I would be happy to do so.

 

Stay safe and well.

 

With very best wishes,

 

 

Susan Mitchell

 

 

*References

  1. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries (On any given day, click the "yesterday" tab. This will give yesterday’s figures recorded at midnight. )
  2. Scottish figures from: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From: European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing - discussions <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Reichelt, Melinda J
Sent: 15 May 2020 15:51
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: What are "stay-at-home orders" called in various languages?

 

Dear EATAW Members,

 

I hope this email finds you all well. 

 

On Monday, a reporter from my local newspaper (the Toledo Blade, out of Toledo, Ohio, USA), will interview me for a story about the effect of Coronavirus on the English language and other languages. She has told me she is curious about how various languages are referring to what are called "stay-at-home orders" in the U.S. I thought this listserv might be a good place to gather information. I would be grateful if you would email me at [log in to unmask] and tell me what stay-at-home orders are called in the languages you know, and please give me a literal translation. I'm also curious about whether other terms besides "stay-at-home orders" are used in various English-speaking countries. In the U.S., I've also heard (and used) the term quarantine to refer to staying at home, even if you're not sick.

 

If you wish, if you respond, I can send you a list of interesting newly-coined words in English related to the Corona virus. Please just ask me. I've been collecting them as one of my new Coronahobbies while I'm confined to my home, needing new means of occupying myself. I have about 35 so far, but here's a sampling: 

 

Coronabrain: When all you can think about is the Corona virus

Covidfever: Like cabin fever

Procrastibaking: What I've been doing instead of grading papers

Coronababies: We'll have them in our classes in about 18 years and nine months

Hairpocalypse: My current hairdo, which probably won't improve if I let my daughter give me a quarancut

JOMO: Joy of missing out; the opposite of FOMO, fear of missing out

Zoombies: (Zoom + zombie) What teachers feel they’ve become after conducting classes all week on Zoom

Zoomsmen: your groomsmen in a Zoom wedding

Covedient: (Covid + obedient) describes people who are obedient to stay-at-home orders

Zumping: Dumping a romantic partner via Zoom

 

Thanks, everyone.

Melinda

Dr. Melinda Reichelt

Professor of English, Director of ESL Writing
University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio, USA

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