Academic writing in English and Polish: comparing and subverting genres

Abstract

The paper addresses the discourse domains of academic writing in English and Polish using the example of school writing. The English argumentative‐expository essay is related to its potential counterpart in Polish. Incongruencies between the two genre prototypes are examined in terms of cultural emphases, text characteristics and educational traditions. An integrated approach is adopted in which user‐centered and text‐centered parameters are correlated. To drive the issue home, an empirical project was devised in which Polish students were asked to perform a task that subverted the regular expectations of school writing in their native tongue.

Logical markers in L1 (Spanish and English) and L2 (English) Business research articles

“…From the 1990s, the contrastive analysis of various rhetorical and linguistic features of different academic texts has been undertaken by many -mostly non-native -EAP scholars in several pairs of languages, such as English and: Finnish (Mauranen 1992(Mauranen , 1993a(Mauranen , 1993b, Portuguese (Johns 1992), Polish (Duszak 1994(Duszak , 1998Golebiowski 1998), Czech (Čmejrková 1996), Swedish (Melander et al 1997), German (Kreutz and Harres 1997), Bulgarian (Vassileva 1997(Vassileva , 1998(Vassileva , 2000(Vassileva , 2001, French and Norwegian (Breivega et al 2002;Dahl 2003Dahl , 2004Vold 2006), Italian (Giannoni 2002), Ukranian and Russian (Yakhontova 2002(Yakhontova , 2006, Danish (Shaw 2003(Shaw , 2004, Slovene (Pisanski 2005), French (Carter-Thomas 2007, Swales andVan Bonn 2007); Greek (Koutsantoni 2007;Vladimirou 2008) and Spanish (Valero Garcés 1996;Moreno 1997Moreno , 1998Moreno , 2004Pérez Ruiz 1999;Fortanet 1998;Martín Martín 2002Burgess 2002;Salager-Meyer et al 2003;Martín Martín and Burgess 2004;Martínez 2005;Lorés 2006;Suárez 2006;…”

The use of reformulation markers in Business Management research articles

“…Rhetorical structure (Swales 1993(Swales , 2004 and metadiscursive features (Hyland 2005, Hyland & Tse 2004 have been studied in order to reveal disciplinary and generic variation (Hyland 1999(Hyland , 2000(Hyland , 2004(Hyland , 2005 in academic texts written in English (mainly in research articles, book reviews and textbooks). Comparisons within the same disciplinary and generic parameters have also been made between English and other languages, mainly between English and Finnish academic texts (Mauranen 1992(Mauranen , 1993a(Mauranen , 1993b and university students' essays (Crismore et al 1993), English and Polish research article introductions and school writing (Duszak 1994(Duszak , 1998Golebiowski 1998), English and Swedish abstracts (Melander et al 1997), and research articles in English and Polish (Golebiowski 1998), in English and Bulgarian (Vassileva 2001), in English, French and Norwegian (Breivega et al 2002;Dahl 2003Dahl , 2004Fløttum et al 2006;Vold 2006), and in English and Italian (Molino 2010). These studies have primarily focused on the study of the rhetorical structure (Duszak 1994, Golebiowski 1998, Melander et al 1997, discourse features (Dahl 2003(Dahl , 2004Mauranen 1992Mauranen , 1993aMauranen , 1993b, and rhetorical elements with an interpersonal function (Breivega et al 2002, Fløttum et al 2006, Molino 2010, Vol...…”

Linguistics research articles written in English: comparing native English speakers and Polish writers

“…Writing to report research is regarded as typical, ‘real’ academic communication and is analyzed in terms of ‘scientific register;’ in the teaching context, otherwise, ‘didactic scientific style,’ implying its softening, is the subject of research. Duszak () finds it similar to journalistic style.…”

“…Next, in studies comparing the Polish and Anglo‐American style of writing, as Duszak () points out, the conceptualization of academic discourse may be problematic because in Polish the terms ‘academic discourse’ or ‘academic writing’ do not even exist, while in English‐speaking countries, in specialist literature they are very broadly understood. In teaching, ‘academic writing’ covers such genres as textbooks at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, academic discussions, lectures, tutorials, seminars, examination papers and answers, project reports, theses, essays, even academic administration (course and program descriptions); in research – articles, research grant applications, conferences and research reports, etc.…”

“…(Bhatia ). In Polish, there is a difference in naming the domains depending on context – either research or educational (Duszak ). Writing to report research is regarded as typical, ‘real’ academic communication and is analyzed in terms of ‘scientific register;’ in the teaching context, otherwise, ‘didactic scientific style,’ implying its softening, is the subject of research.…”