Writing and New Technologies
THE LINGUISTICALLYINFORMED WRITING PROCESS: USING DISCIPLINESPECIFIC CORPORA TO SUPPORT FORMULATION AND REVISION ACTIVITIES
Otto Kruse¹, Madalina Chitez², Brittany Rodriguez³
¹Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur, Switzerland ²Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur, Switzerland ³Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur, Switzerland
The project we are reporting aims at connecting the writing process with linguistic support units that are based on information retrieved from large, disciplinespecific corpora. Corpus research provides us with insights to the linguistic means used by certain communities to solve domainspecific rhetorical problems (for instance Hyland 2000, Steinhoff 2007, Biber & Conrad 2009, Römer & Wulff 2010, Nesi & Gardener 2012). We try to insert information from corpus linguistics directly into the formulation and revision process in order to make disciplinespecific language use available to the writers. The context is an electronic learning environment for thesis writers in which writers are led though a series of steps in developing their thesis proposal and the thesis itself. Linguistic information is made available at two levels: First on the level of phrases, similar to the Academic Phrasebank of the University of Manchester. Phrases are connected to the part of the genre the writers are working on. The second way of inserting linguistic support is done by connecting the word processor with a corpus workbench, enabling writers to check the corpora for any formulation in question. The learning platform is bilingual German and English and enables us to gather data from L1 and L2 writers. At present we maintain a robust prototype, which allows experimenting with it before regular use. We will demonstrate the overall structure of the platform and present screen recordings of how writers make use of linguistic information during formulation activities in thesis writing.
References
HYLAND, K. (2000) Disciplinary Discourses. Social Interactions in Academic Writing. Harlow: Candlin.
STEINHOFF, T. (2007) Wissenschaftliche Textkompetenz. Sprachgebrauch und Schreibentwicklung in wissenschaftlichen Texten von Studierenden und Experten. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
BIBER, D. & CONRAD, S. (2009) Register, Genre, and Style. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
RÖMER, U. & WULF, S. (2010) Applying Corpus Methods to Written Academic Texts: Explorations of MICUSP . Journal of Writing Research 2 (2), 99127
NESI, H. & GARDENER, S. (2012) Genres Across the Disciplines: Student Writing in Higher Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.