Due to the various functions and diverse attitudes to lexical repetition in discourse, it is an aspect of cohesion which creates difficulty for raters when assessing L2 academic written discourse. Current computer-aided lexical cohesion analysis frameworks built for large-scale assessment fail to take into account where repetitions occur in text and what role their patterns play in organizing discourse. This study intends to fill this gap, by applying a sequential mixed method design, drawing on Hoey’s (1991) theory-based analytical tool devised for the study of the text-organizing role of lexical repetition, and its refined version, Károly’s (2002) lexical repetition model, which was found to be capable of predicting teachers’ perceptions of argumentative essay quality with regard to its content and structure. It first aims to test the applicability of the previous models to assessing the role of lexical repetition in the organization of other academic genres, then propose a more complex, computer aided analytical instrument that may be used to directly assess discourse cohesion through the study of lexical repetition.
In order to test the applicability of Károly’s model on other academic genres, two small corpora of thirty-five academic summaries and eight compare/contrast essays were collected from English major BA students at Eötvös Loránd University. The lexical repetition patterns within the corpora were analyzed manually in the case of the summaries, and partially with a concordance program in the case of the compare/contrast essays. The findings revealed that in both genres lexical repetition patterns differed in high and low-rated texts.
Given that in its present form the model cannot be used on large-scale corpora, in the third stage of the research, a computer-aided model was designed for large-scale lexical repetition analysis. First, by employing the theoretical, empirical and methodological results gained from the corpora, several new analytical steps were proposed and built into a modular format. Next, in order to better align the new computer-aided analysis to its manual version, parallel processes were identified between the new analytical model and an existing sociocognitive framework. The newly proposed model may help teachers to assess discourse cohesion, or can be used as a self-study aid by visualizing the lexical net created by semantic relations among sentences in text.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Background to the study.
- Aims of the present research.
- An overview of the dissertation
- Theoretical Framework
- Overview.
- Coherence and cohesion..
- Definitions of coherence and cohesion.
- Types of cohesion.
- Lexical cohesion and lexical repetition.
- Categories of lexical cohesion
- Lexical chains or a lexical net?
- Hoey's (1991) Repetition Model..
- The theoretical background of the model..
- Hoey's (1991) taxonomy of lexical repetition
- Links and bonds creating a lexical net.
- The steps of the analysis.
- Applications of Hoey's (1991) model..
- Inconsistencies within Hoey's (1991) model.
- The link triangle and the mediator missing.
- The questions of anaphora resolution
- Prescriptiveness or descriptiveness of the model.
- Károly's (2002) Repetition Model..
- Károly's (2002) taxonomy of lexical repetition ..
- Károly's (2002) method of analysis......
- Károly's empirical investigation.....
- A corpus-based investigation using Károly's (2002) taxonomy.
- Summary.
- Methodological background: the academic writing context.
- Overview...
- The nature of academic discourse.
- General features of English academic discourse.
- The types of writing tasks required at university.
- Disciplinary differences in academic discourse.
- Implications for language pedagogy.
- Independent vs. integrative writing tasks.
- Task variables influencing academic discourse quality.
- The classification of variables in academic writing.
- Contextual variables of integrated academic discourse quality
- Cognitive variables of integrated academic discourse quality
- Summary writing as a complex task
- Writing a compare/contrast essay
- Assessing academic discourse.
- 'Traditional' and recent academic essay assessment practices
- Validity in L2 academic writing assessment..
- Generalizability of judgement on academic discourse quality.
- Reliability of perceived discourse quality..
- Text quality requirements by course teachers.
- Explicit instruction on coherence, cohesion and lexical repetition in higher educationlxxv
- Automated assessment of text quality.
- Controversial views on the automated assessment of essay quality.
- Summary...
- Aims and Research Questions..
- Research design and procedures of analysis.
- A sequential mixed design.
- Stage 1: Analysis of academic summaries.
- The summary writing task...
- Corpus size and representativity.
- Context validity evaluation of the summary writing task
- Features of the input text.......
- Quality assessment of the corpus.
- Methods of data analysis in Stage 1
- Stage 2: Analysis of compare/contrast essays.
- The compare/contrast essay writing task
- Quality assessment of the corpus.
- Methods of data analysis in Stage 2.
- Results of the lexical repetition analysis of academic summaries
- Results of the lexical repetition analysis of compare/contrast essays
- The design of a new LRA model for large-scale analysis...........
- Conclusions
- Summary of main results.
- Pedagogical implications.
- Limitations..
- Terminology issues.
- Suggestions for further research.
- References...
Objectives and Key Themes
This dissertation aims to investigate the role of lexical repetition in organizing academic discourse, particularly focusing on the challenges it presents for L2 academic writing assessment. The research intends to bridge the gap between current computer-aided lexical cohesion analysis frameworks and the actual use of repetition in text organization. It seeks to develop a more comprehensive and applicable analytical tool for assessing discourse cohesion through the study of lexical repetition patterns.
- The text-organizing role of lexical repetition in academic discourse.
- The applicability of existing lexical repetition models for assessing academic writing quality.
- The development of a new computer-aided model for large-scale lexical repetition analysis.
- The pedagogical implications of the research findings for L2 academic writing instruction.
- The potential of the new analytical model for supporting teachers and learners in assessing and improving academic writing.
Chapter Summaries
The dissertation begins by establishing the theoretical framework for the study, outlining the concepts of coherence and cohesion in academic discourse, and reviewing existing models of lexical cohesion and lexical repetition analysis. This section introduces Hoey's (1991) Repetition Model and Károly's (2002) lexical repetition model, both of which provide important theoretical foundations for the research. Chapter 3 explores the methodological context of academic writing, including the nature of academic discourse, the types of writing tasks required at university, and the challenges associated with assessing L2 academic writing quality. The chapter also reviews existing assessment practices and discusses the potential of automated assessment tools. Chapters 4 and 5 outline the aims, research questions, and methodology of the study, which employs a sequential mixed methods design to analyze two corpora: one consisting of academic summaries and the other of compare/contrast essays. Chapters 6 and 7 present the results of the lexical repetition analysis of the two corpora, highlighting the patterns of repetition found in high- and low-rated texts. Finally, Chapter 8 outlines the design of a new, computer-aided model for large-scale lexical repetition analysis, incorporating theoretical insights from previous chapters and incorporating the findings of the corpus analyses.
Keywords
This dissertation focuses on lexical repetition, academic discourse, L2 writing assessment, computer-aided analysis, discourse cohesion, text organization, academic genres, and corpus linguistics.
- Citar trabajo
- Dr Maria Adorjan (Autor), 2016, Lexical Repetition in Academic Discourse, Múnich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/459913
