Papers by Zosia Golebiowski
Multilingual education yearbook, 2018
Contemporary international academic writing experts, influenced by Anglophone academic writing no... more Contemporary international academic writing experts, influenced by Anglophone academic writing norms, assert that ‘good’ writing requires conciseness, staying on track and sticking to the topic and its main points. Digressions tend to be seen as undermining a writer’s authority. Through the exploration of the ways in which academic writers formulate and structure textual relational propositions, this chapter aims to add to the knowledge pertaining to differences in the manner writers from culturally different academic discourse communities set and reach their communicative goals. Its purpose is to illustrate how the cultural conditioning of texts written by scholars of English and Polish language backgrounds is reflected in their rhetorical structure and differences in the levels of textual communicative balance and ways of making meaning. It is hoped that this study will contribute to multilingual English-as-additional-language (EAL) students’ and scholars’ awareness of their own rhetorical patterns, and the way they vary from the generally accepted structure of academic texts in Anglo-American settings, as well as help to familiarise English-dominant higher educators, academics and publication gatekeepers with other forms of text structure in order to assist in their evaluation and acceptance of work produced by EAL students and academics, and to help them perceive other styles of discourse patterns as different rather than unacceptable.
This paper investigates elaborative relational structures utilised by native English speaking and... more This paper investigates elaborative relational structures utilised by native English speaking and native Polish speaking scholars in sociology research articles written in English. The examined texts have been produced in American, Australian and Polish academic discourse communities. The study utilised the framework of the analysis of the rhetorical structure of tests (FARS) as an analytical tool (Golebiowski 2009, 2011). The following types of elaboration relations are discussed : amplification, extension, reformulation, explanation, instantiation and addition. Elaboration is analysed with respect to its textual function, frequency of employment, hierarchical location, recursiveness, discoursal prominence and explicitness. The elaborative systems in the examined texts are shown to be complex, with pervasive presence of multi-stage recursive structures. It is suggested that elaborativeness may be a general characteristic of the style of writing sociology, which, as a relatively new discipline, requires establishing of wide grounds for the proposed claims, where writers persuade their readers not only of the specific claims of their text, but also of frameworks of thought in which the claims are placed. It is hypothesized that the similarities in the elaborativeness across texts result from the shared stylistic conventions and traditions of the disciplinary research community of sociology, while differences in the mode of employment of elaboration relations are attributed to cultural norms and conventions as well as educational systems prevailing within the discourse communities constituting the social contexts of the studied texts. Golebiowski, Z. (2011). Scholarly criticism across discourse communities. In Salager-Meyer, Francoise and Lewin, Beverly A. (eds), Crossed words : Criticism in scholarly writing, pp. 203-224, Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, Berlin, Germany. Golebiowski Z. (2009). The use of contrastive strategies in a sociology research paper: A cross-cultural study. In Suomela-Salmi, Eija and Dervin, Fred (eds), Cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspectives on academic discourse, pp. 165-186, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Philadelphia.
This selection of papers from the First Conference on Tertiary Literacy, which examined the role ... more This selection of papers from the First Conference on Tertiary Literacy, which examined the role of literacy as a foundation for knowledge acquisition and dissemination that influences the academic success of tertiary students, presents a number of case studies of policy and practice in Australian universities. Keynote addresses included: "Tertiary Language, Literacy and Communication Policies" (R.Baldauf, Jr.); "Institutional Practices in Promoting Tertiary Literacy" (L.Parker); "Some Questions About Integrated Communication Skills" (M.Garner) and "Which Thesis Did You Read?" (B.Kamler and T.Threadgold). Papers include: (1) "The Complexities of Tertiary Literacy" (D.Absalom); (2) Mediating Cognition and Culture: A Pilot Study of the Literacy and Academic Communication Skills of First Year Commerce Students" (C.Baskin and others); (3) "How Did We Get a Literacy Problem in Research Articles?" (R.Brown); (4) "Comparing the Citation Choices of Experienced Academic Writers and First Year Students" (J.Buckingham and M.Nevile); (5) "Expectations of Academic Writing at Australian Universities" (D.Bush); (6) "Teaching Difficulties Associated with Variability in Student Working Memory Capacity" (P.Casey); (7) "Peaks and Pitfalls of a Tertiary Communication Policy" (J.Catterall and R.Martins); (8) "The Teaching of Communication Skills in a Health Science Faculty" (M.Clugston); (9) "The Development of Information Literacy in Undergraduate Programs" (M.Coombs and J.Houghton); (10) "Critical Practice and Undergraduate Students" (H.Farrell and others); (11) "Literacy in the Disciplines: Giving Academics a Language to Talk About Language" (G.Ferguson); (12) "Tertiary Literacy: Case Study Research into the Literacy Policies, Definitions and Practices of Four Disciplines within a University" *
In this paper I describe the discursive strategies related to the writer–reader textual reciproci... more In this paper I describe the discursive strategies related to the writer–reader textual reciprocity. I focus on one way of achieving such reciprocity -- the employment by the writer of facilitative schematic structures and metalanguage where one text segment signposts information conveyed in the segment that follows. I refer to these facilitative schematic structures as "organising relational schemata". I see organising relations as the most explicit components of the rhetorical structure of texts: they illuminate the main message and aid the reader's cognitive processes in the orientation of how information is conveyed by text. This paper discusses the way the choices of organising relations and associated metalanguage by the writers in different cultures and different discourse communities contribute to the communicative homeostasis in the world of text. It shows how the influence of a native culture and intellectual style together with the forces operating within the writer's international disciplinary community interact in the authorial guidance in the scholarly prose. I introduce and exemplify three types of organising relational structures: Advance Organisers, Introducers and Enumerators. I trace the utilisation of these three types of relations in sociology research papers written in English and produced in "Anglo" and Polish academic discourse comunities by native English speaking and native Polish speaking scholars. The relational typology adopted is based on a study by Golebiowski (2002), which proposed a theoretical framework for the examination of discoursal structure of research papers, referred to as FARS – Framework for the Analysis of the Rhetorical Structure of Texts. FARS entails a relational taxonomy which displays a pattern of rhetorical relations utilised by the writer to achieve textual coherence. I describe intertextual differences in the frequency of occurrence of organising relations, their degree of explicitness and their positioning in the hierarchical structure of texts. Differences in the mode of employment of textual organisers suggest that the rhetorical structure of English research prose produced by non-native speakers cannot escape being shaped by the characteristics and conventions of the authors’ first language. They are also attributed to cultural norms and conventions as well as educational systems prevailing within the discourse communities which constitute the social contexts of texts.
Discourse Studies, Apr 1, 2006
In this article I challenge the claim that nuclearity is a central principle in the organization ... more In this article I challenge the claim that nuclearity is a central principle in the organization of texts. I propose the Framework for the Relational Analysis of Texts (FARS) which accounts for the paratactic and hypotactic realization of coherence relations. Within this framework, the taxis of coherence relations is co-textually dictated. I consider the writer choices in the distribution of discoursal salience and the intertextual and intercultural variation of these choices. It is suggested that divergence between approaches that perceive text as exhibiting both hypotactic and paratactic organization and those that see nuclearity as a basic characteristic of text structure arises from differences in the linguistic corpora examined during the construction of respective theoretical frameworks.
Journal of Pragmatics, Apr 1, 2009
This study investigates the rhetorical structure of abstracts of papers published in Applied Ling... more This study investigates the rhetorical structure of abstracts of papers published in Applied Linguistics and Education. It examines how abstract authors in these two fields emphasise the significance of their research, and how they appeal to their prospective readership. Although abstracts in both disciplinary groups are found to display a coordinate textual development they exhibit a utilization of different relational schemata to indicate the functional prominence of textual propositions. In particular, different relational patterns are seen to be employed to fulfil the two primary objectives of an abstract: to provide a synopsis of the accompanying article, and to promote it to relevant research and professional communities. The way authors demonstrate the value of their research and their professional credibility appears to be conditioned by disciplinary writing conventions. It is proposed that relational choices, which result in differences in the accentuation of communicative messages in Applied Linguistics and Education abstracts, depend on the perceived relationship between the author and the discourse community in terms of expectations of prior knowledge.
Third Text, 1998
... direction are rare. Apart from Duszak (1994), Polish/ English contrastive linguistics has not... more ... direction are rare. Apart from Duszak (1994), Polish/ English contrastive linguistics has not so far contributed to studies focusing on broader discoursal phenomena such äs textual organization patterns. Duszak (1994) investigated ...
This paper investigates the employment of elaborative rhetorical strategies in threeresearch pape... more This paper investigates the employment of elaborative rhetorical strategies in threeresearch papers written in English and published in international sociologicaljournals: the first authored by native speakers of English, the second by a Polishwriter working in an Anglophone discourse community, and the third by a Polishwriter from the Polish discourse community. Elaboration relations are discussedwith respect to their textual function, frequency of employment, hierarchicallocation and recursiveness, and discoursal prominence. I explore how the authorselaborate their texts through amplification, extension, explanation, instantiation,reformulation and addition strategies. The analysis reveals that Elaboration is aprominent feature of the examined texts. It is proposed that the similarities inthe employment of Elaborations across the corpus result from the shared stylisticconventions and traditions of the disciplinary research community of sociologywhile variations in the mode of employment of elaborative structures may becaused by the writers’ differing linguistic backgrounds and discourse communitymemberships.
Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 1993
Iral-international Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 1999
Miscommunication has always intrigued researchers in and outside linguistics. This book takes a d... more Miscommunication has always intrigued researchers in and outside linguistics. This book takes a different perspective from what has been proposed so far and postulates a case for intercultural miscommunication as a linguistically-based phenomenon in various intercultural milieus. The contributions address cases of intercultural miscommunication in potentially confrontational contexts, like professional communities of practice, intercultural differences in various English-speaking countries, political discourse, classroom discourse, or the discourse of the past. The frameworks employed include cultural scripts, critical discourse analysis, lexicographic analysis, glosses of untranslatable terms, and diachronic pragmatics. The book shows the omnipresence of miscommunication, ranging from everyday exchanges through classroom discourse, professional encounters, to literary contexts and political debates, past and present.
First National Conference on Tertiary Literacy, 1997
Universities in Australia, as with universities in the US and UK, are required more and more to a... more Universities in Australia, as with universities in the US and UK, are required more and more to adjust to student cohorts which represent a range of national, cultural and linguistic diversity. Many are concerned about the readiness of these students for study in an English-speaking medium and about their subsequent experiences and success. This presentation reports on the outcomes of “The English Language Growth” project, conducted across five Australian universities. This study, funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC), represents the largest of its type in Australia. The project investigated the strategies that international students from non-English speaking backgrounds use to continue to improve their English once entering a university in Australia
Intercultural Miscommunication Past and Present
... P.Cerone and G.Caruso); (2) "Never Say 'I'? The Writer's ... more ... P.Cerone and G.Caruso); (2) "Never Say 'I'? The Writer's Voice in Essays in the Humanities" (K.Chanock); (3) "Making Sense: Cross-Cultural Variation in the Organization of Academic Texts by Taiwanese and Australian Undergraduate Students" (J.Couchman); (4) "The ...
Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 1993
Linguistic and cultural needs of non-English Speaking background graduates in science and technol... more Linguistic and cultural needs of non-English Speaking background graduates in science and technology fields are currently not being met due to the lack of specific language and communication programs. This paper discusses the development of an innovative Scientific and Technical English curriculum to be offered in university as well as industrial settings, with the aim of providing language and acculturation bridging programs for the overseas qualified professionals, to satisfy Australia’s educational and industry requirements. It describes the aims, design and outcomes of a modular, socio-cultural, negotiated curriculum, written from a perspective of training in its broad sense with education playing an integral part. The acquisition of communicative skills in English which will enable the learners to access and function in positions commensurate with their overseas qualifications and experience is seen as the ultimate objective of the program.
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Papers by Zosia Golebiowski