Analysing Structure in Academic Writing

"One of the greatest challenges for genre studies is to explain how it is that texts which are each unique and individual can somehow be explained as being of the same underlying type. Models which rely on formal features alone are inevitably limited by the individual variation which is necessarily found in real texts. In this original and scholarly re-imagining of genre theory, Tomoko Sawaki combines multiple theoretical frameworks which normally operate in isolation from each other. The key insight of Greimas' "semiotic square" is used as the basis of a new model, one which can demonstrate the underlying unity of potentially infinitely diverse instances. Applied to the domain of academic writing, Sawaki's analytical methods reveal the hegemonising practices of institutionalized discourses, and create methods for ESP/EAP researchers to allow for marginalized perspectives to be accommodated." (Louise Ravelli, Associate Professor, University of New South Wales, Australia)

This book breaks through formalistic traditions to propose a new generic structure analytical framework for academic writing.This book breaks through formalistic traditions to propose a new generic structure analytical framework for academic writing. The integrated approach, taking lessons from cognitive linguistics and structuralism, offers a foundation for establishing research and pedagogy that can promote diversity and inclusion in academia. The simplicity of the flexible structure analytical model proposed by Sawaki enables the user to analyse diverse instances of genre. Further innovation is made in the analysis of generic structure components by integrating George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s metaphor analysis method, so that the model can account for cultural and ideological patterns that structure our abstract thinking. Using these integrations, the author has established a structure analytical model that can take into account linguistic, cognitive, and pragmatic aspects of genre. Researchers in the fields of linguistics, discourse studies, cultural studies, education, and English for Academic Purposes will be able to use this model to identify whether an atypical instance in academic texts is a result of the writer’s individual failure or a failure to understand diversity in academic writing.