Table Of ContentMasaryk University
MASAFRaYcuKlt
yU oNf AIVrtEs RSITY
Faculty
of
Arts
Department of English and American Studies
Department
of
English
and
American
Studies
PProroggrraammmmee: :P
Phhiliolololgoyg y
Field
of
Study:
English
Language
Field of Study: English Language
Conjunctive
Adverbials
in
the
Genre
of
Research
Articles
Dissertation
Analysis of Published Medical Ca
se Reports: Genre-Based Study
PhD Dissertation
Irena
Hůlková
Robert Helán
Supervisor: PhDr. Jitka Vlčková, Ph.D.
Brno
2012
Supervisor:
doc.
PhDr.
Renata
Povolná,
Ph.D.
Brno
2012
I
hereby
declare
that
I
have
worked
on
this
dissertation
independently
using
only
the
sources
listed
in
the
bibliography.
........................................
........................................
Acknowledgements
First
and
foremost,
I
would
like
to
thank
my
supervisor,
doc.
PhDr.
Renata
Povolná,
Ph.D.
In
the
long
process
of
writing
this
dissertation,
she
has
been
a
constant
source
of
great
support,
encouragement,
patience
and
advice.
This
research
has
benefited
immensely
from
numerous
discussion
meetings
we
have
had
and
the
wealth
of
insightful
commentary
that
she
has
provided
on
my
work.
Special
thanks
are
due
to
Prof.
Geoffrey
K.
Pullum,
who
was
my
supervisor
during
my
Fulbright
stay
in
the
US.
I
have
greatly
benefited
from
all
the
discussions
with
him
at
the
University
of
California,
Santa
Cruz.
I
am
particularly
grateful
to
Prof.
PhDr.
Ludmila
Urbanová,
CSc.
for
her
support,
encouragement
and
patience
throughout
the
course
of
my
Ph.D.
study.
I
am
also
thankful
to
a
number
of
my
colleagues
for
their
comments
on
various
aspects
of
my
research
and
general
support.
Last
but
not
least,
I
owe
the
most
to
my
family,
who
have
been
very
patient,
supportive
and
helpful,
especially
during
the
final
stages
of
my
writing
the
present
dissertation.
I
am
deeply
beholden
to
my
husband
David
for
his
great
encouragement
and
endless
patience
(especially
in
times
of
uncertainty),
and
also
for
his
enormous
help
with
all
the
technical
adjustments
that
had
to
be
made
during
the
very
final
editing
of
my
dissertation.
Table
of
Contents
1
Chapter
I
................................................................................................................
1
1.1
Introduction
......................................................................................................................................
1
1.1.1
Outline
of
the
dissertation
.....................................................................................................
3
1.1.2
Glossary
of
main
terms
and
abbreviations
.....................................................................
4
1.1.2.1
Terms
................................................................................................................................................
4
1.1.2.2
Abbreviations
.................................................................................................................................
8
1.1.3
Different
terminology
concerning
conjunctive
adverbials
......................................
9
2
Chapter
II
.............................................................................................................
12
2.1
Introduction
to
Chapter
II
........................................................................................................
12
2.2
Demarcation
of
the
term
‘adverbial’
...................................................................................
12
2.3
Four
grammatical
functions
of
adverbials
........................................................................
13
2.4
Conjunctive
adverbials
..............................................................................................................
19
2.4.1
Semantic
roles
of
conjunctive
adverbials
......................................................................
24
2.4.2
Realization
forms
of
conjunctive
adverbials
................................................................
31
2.4.3
Positions
of
conjunctive
adverbials
within
a
clause
.................................................
32
2.4.4
Frequency
of
occurrence
of
conjunctive
adverbials
in
different
registers
......
33
2.5
Summary
and
conclusion
of
Chapter
II
..............................................................................
34
3
Chapter
III
............................................................................................................
36
3.1
Introduction
to
Chapter
III
......................................................................................................
36
3.2
Cohesion
and
coherence
...........................................................................................................
36
3.3
From
cohesion
through
coherence
to
pragmatics
........................................................
40
3.4
Pragmatics
and
its
importance
in
the
present
work
....................................................
44
3.5
Summary
and
conclusion
of
Chapter
III
............................................................................
48
4
Chapter
IV
...........................................................................................................
50
4.1
Introduction
to
Chapter
IV
......................................................................................................
50
4.2
The
concepts
of
register
and
genre
.....................................................................................
50
4.2.1
The
register
of
academic
prose
..........................................................................................
55
4.2.2
The
genre
of
research
articles
............................................................................................
60
4.2.2.1
Major
subtypes
of
research
articles
...................................................................................
65
4.3
Summary
and
conclusion
of
Chapter
IV
.............................................................................
70
5
Chapter
V
............................................................................................................
72
5.1
Introduction
to
Chapter
V
........................................................................................................
72
5.2
Corpus-‐based
approach
–
Discourse
analysis
.................................................................
72
5.2.1
Corpus
...........................................................................................................................................
74
5.3
Research
objectives
....................................................................................................................
78
5.4
Summary
and
conclusion
of
Chapter
V
..............................................................................
79
6
Chapter
VI
...........................................................................................................
80
6.1
Introduction
to
Chapter
VI
......................................................................................................
80
6.2
The
frequency
of
occurrence
of
individual
CAs
in
the
genre
of
RAs
.....................
80
6.3
The
frequency
of
occurrence
of
individual
CAs
in
SKF
...............................................
86
6.4
The
frequency
of
occurrence
of
individual
CAs
in
HKF
..............................................
90
6.5
The
frequency
of
occurrence
of
individual
CAs
in
SKF
versus
HKF
......................
93
6.6
The
frequency
of
occurrence
of
individual
CAs
in
ten
different
academic
disciplines
.......................................................................................................................................
96
7
Chapter
VII
........................................................................................................
104
7.1
Introduction
to
Chapter
VII
..................................................................................................
104
7.2
Semantic
categorization
of
CAs
..........................................................................................
104
7.2.1
Semantic
categories
and
their
representatives
.......................................................
106
7.2.1.1
Multiple
class
membership
of
some
CAs
.......................................................................
109
7.3
The
frequency
of
occurrence
of
individual
semantic
categories
of
CAs
in
the
genre
of
RAs
.................................................................................................................................
113
7.3.1
The
category
of
listing
CAs
...............................................................................................
122
7.3.1.1
Individual
treatment
of
selected
listing
CAs
...............................................................
123
7.3.2
The
category
of
contrastive/concessive
CAs
.............................................................
125
7.3.2.1
Individual
treatment
of
selected
contrastive/concessive
CAs
............................
126
7.3.3
The
category
of
appositional
CAs
..................................................................................
132
7.3.3.1
Individual
treatment
of
selected
appositional
CAs
..................................................
132
7.3.4
The
category
of
resultive/inferential
CAs
..................................................................
136
7.3.4.1
Individual
treatment
of
selected
resultive/inferential
CAs
..................................
136
7.3.5
The
categories
of
transitional
and
summative
CAs
...............................................
139
7.4
The
frequency
of
occurrence
of
individual
semantic
categories
of
CAs
in
SKF
versus
HKF
..................................................................................................................................
143
7.5
Realization
forms
of
CAs
with
respect
to
individual
semantic
categories
.......
147
7.6
Positions
of
CAs
within
a
clause
in
the
genre
of
RAs
.................................................
150
8
Chapter
VIII
.......................................................................................................
153
8.1
Introduction
to
Chapter
VIII
................................................................................................
153
8.2
Abstracts,
Introductions
and
Conclusions
.....................................................................
153
8.2.1
Abstracts
...................................................................................................................................
153
8.2.2
Introductions
..........................................................................................................................
154
8.2.3
Conclusions
..............................................................................................................................
154
8.3
The
density
of
CAs
in
Abstracts,
Introductions
and
Conclusions
........................
156
8.4
The
frequency
of
occurrence
of
individual
semantic
categories
of
CAs
in
Abstracts,
Introductions
and
Conclusions
.....................................................................
158
9
Chapter
IX
..........................................................................................................
162
9.1
Conclusions
.................................................................................................................................
162
9.1.1
Distribution
of
individual
CAs
in
the
genre
of
RAs
(Chapter
VI)
......................
163
9.1.2
Distribution
of
semantic
categories
of
CAs
in
the
genre
of
RAs
(Chapter
VII)
........................................................................................................................................................
165
9.1.3
Distribution
of
semantic
categories
of
CAs
in
Abstracts,
Introductions
and
Conclusions
(Chapter
VIII)
.................................................................................................
168
9.2
Final
notes
and
concerns
for
the
future
..........................................................................
169
10
Bibliography
......................................................................................................
171
10.1
References
.................................................................................................................................
171
10.2
Sources
.......................................................................................................................................
176
10.2.1
Adult
Education
(SKF)
.....................................................................................................
176
10.2.2
Building
Physics
(HKF)
....................................................................................................
177
10.2.3
Building
Services
Engineering
(HKF)
........................................................................
178
10.2.4
Fire
Sciences
(HKF)
...........................................................................................................
178
10.2.5
Management
(SKF)
............................................................................................................
179
10.2.6
Mathematics
(HKF)
...........................................................................................................
180
10.2.7
Politics
(SKF)
........................................................................................................................
181
10.2.8
Psychology
(SKF)
................................................................................................................
182
10.2.9
Robotics
Research
(HKF)
................................................................................................
182
10.2.10
Sociology
(SKF)
.................................................................................................................
183
11
List
of
Tables
......................................................................................................
185
12
List
of
Figures
....................................................................................................
186
13
Resumé
.............................................................................................................
187
1 Chapter
I
1.1 Introduction
“The
two
important
things
I
did
learn
were
that
you
are
as
powerful
and
strong
as
you
allow
yourself
to
be,
and
that
the
most
difficult
part
of
any
endeavour
is
taking
the
first
step,
making
the
first
decision.”
(Davidson
n.d.)
The
prominent
role
of
English
as
lingua
franca
in
an
academic
environment,
or
as
Swales
(2004)
puts
it,
of
English
as
“today’s
premier
research
language”
(ibid.:
33),
cannot
be
doubted.
It
is
used
by
an
international
readership
and
is
of
paramount
importance
to
all
those
involved
in
tertiary
education,
such
as
students,
teachers
and
researchers.
Swales
(2004)
goes
on
to
emphasize
this:
“There
is
no
doubt
that
English
has
become
the
language
of
research
communication
par
excellence
in
a
preponderance
of
disciplines
and
fields
over
the
last
two
decades.”
(ibid.:
58).
Compared
to
other
registers,
English
academic
prose
–
with
its
highly
specialist
nature
–
is
rather
remote
from
the
general-‐use
means
of
communication
of
all
native
speakers,
because
most
of
them
do
not
deal
with
this
register
on
a
regular
(or
even
daily)
basis.
Yet
it
can
also
be
viewed
as
‘global’
(Biber
et
al.
1999:
16),
in
that
it
is
aimed
at
“an
international
audience
with
relatively
little
influence
from
the
national
dialect
of
the
author”
(ibid.).
The
present
dissertation
only
looks
into
one
of
many
attributes
of
academic
English
and
that
is
the
use
of
conjunctive
adverbials
(CAs)
which
contribute
to
the
overall
lucid
stratification
of
the
text
and
thus
to
its
coherence.
Generally
speaking,
it
can
be
said
that
their
occurrence
is
examined
in
the
register
of
academic
prose;
however,
at
a
more
specific
level,
it
is
only
the
genre
of
research
articles
(RAs)
that
undergoes
a
thorough
analysis
here.
The
purpose
of
the
theoretical
part
is
therefore
threefold:
it
first
introduces
conjunctive
adverbials
(CAs),
which
represent
the
central
line
of
the
present
investigation,
along
with
their
main
properties
such
as
semantic
roles,
realization
forms,
positions
within
a
clause
and
frequency
of
occurrence
in
different
registers.
Subsequently,
since
the
conjunctive
adverbials
in
question
represent
an
important
means
of
cohesion
and
hence
contribute
to
the
overall
coherence
of
a
piece
of
discourse,
the
study
also
attempts
to
investigate
the
concepts
of
cohesion
and
coherence
in
general
terms,
that
is,
it
outlines
and
compares
various
approaches
to
these
two
important
1
phenomena
and,
further,
tries
to
find
out
to
what
extent
they
may
overlap
or,
in
contrast,
contradict
each
other.
Finally,
the
last
chapter
of
the
theoretical
background
concentrates
on
the
demarcation
of
the
general
terms
register
and
genre
and
then
singles
out
two
fields
crucial
to
the
present
investigation,
and
these
are
the
register
of
academic
prose
and
the
genre
of
research
articles.
The
occurrence
of
conjunctive
adverbials
in
the
genre
of
research
articles
then
becomes
the
subject
matter
of
the
analytical
part.
The
analytical
part
opens
with
a
short
introduction
to
the
discourse
analysis
and
then
widens
to
include
a
thorough
depiction
of
the
corpus
put
together
for
the
purposes
of
the
present
research.
It
further
includes
the
outline
of
analysis
objectives.
The
three
subsequent
chapters
deal
with
my
research
findings,
the
character
of
which
is
described
in
Subsection
1.1.1
below.
The
corpus
analysis
is
based
on
a
research
article
corpus
of
100
published
papers
(50
representing
soft
and
another
50
hard
knowledge
fields)
in
10
academic
disciplines
(5
representing
SKF
and
the
other
5
HKF)
totalling
819,067
words
before
cleaning
and
612,276
words
after
cleaning.
All
the
texts
(in
their
entirety)
were
selected
at
random;
however,
the
choice
was
vetted
to
ensure
a
reasonable
spread
according
to
the
following
criteria:
author’s
nationality,
author’s
gender,
academic
discipline,
length
of
article,
and
year
of
publication
(for
further
details
on
the
corpus,
see
Subsection
5.2.1).
Within
the
corpus
analysis,
both
qualitative
and
quantitative
methods
are
applied
because
they
are
complementary.
The
qualitative
method
is
used
in
connection
with
the
investigation
of
semantic
roles
of
the
conjunctive
adverbials
and
their
pragmatic
implications,
and
the
quantitative
method
helps
to
analyze
the
frequency
of
occurrence
of
individual
semantic
categories
as
well
as
particular
conjunctive
adverbials.
This
occurrence
is
analyzed
not
only
in
research
articles
as
a
whole,
but
also
in
their
individual
sections
such
as
Abstracts,
Introductions
and
Conclusions.
The
distribution
of
CAs
in
terms
of
their
syntactic
functions,
that
is,
the
position(s)
they
take
up
in
a
clause,
is
also
looked
into.
Realization
forms
of
CAs
are
examined
as
well.
All
the
analyzed
texts
are
borrowed
from
the
delivery
platform
‘SAGE
Journals
Online’,
which
represents
a
collection
of
“more
than
520
journals
in
Business,
Humanities,
Social
Sciences,
and
Science,
Technology
and
Medicine”
(“SAGE
Journals
Online”
n.d.).
Full
texts
were
first
downloaded
in
Pdf
format,
then
transferred
into
MS
Word
Document
(if
possible)
and
finally
searched
for
instances
of
conjunctive
adverbials
as
listed
in
relevant
grammar
books
(e.g.,
Biber
et
al.
1999;
Greenbaum
1969;
Halliday
&
Hasan
2
1976;
Huddleston
&
Pullum
2002;
Quirk
et
al.
1985)
(for
more
details,
see
Subsection
5.2.1).
1.1.1 Outline
of
the
dissertation
The
present
dissertation
comprises
nine
major
chapters
as
follows:
Chapter
I
opens
with
a
brief
introduction
on
the
subject
matter
and
layout
of
the
dissertation.
It
also
offers
an
overview
of
the
crucial
terms
and
abbreviations
used
throughout
the
work
and
discusses
the
different
terminology
applied
in
connection
with
conjunctive
adverbials
(CAs).
Chapter
II
first
discusses
the
general
term
adverbial
and
its
four
grammatical
functions
as
distinguished
by
Quirk
et
al.
(1985)
and
then
deals
with
a
thorough
description
of
conjunctive
adverbials,
which
is
based
on
the
treatment
of
the
following
features:
semantic
roles
of
CAs,
forms
in
which
they
are
used,
positions
within
a
clause
they
usually
take
up,
and
the
frequency
of
occurrence
across
different
registers
in
general
and
in
academic
prose
style
in
particular
(as
presented
by
Biber
et
al.
1999).
The
occurrence
of
different
semantic
categories
and
the
most
frequent
individual
CAs
is
discussed
as
well.
Chapter
III
is
concerned
with
the
interpretation
of
two
linguistic
phenomena:
cohesion
and
coherence.
It
first
describes,
compares
and
contrasts
these
terms
and
then
discusses
some
notions
of
pragmatics,
as
this
branch
of
linguistics
is
closely
related
not
only
to
the
issues
of
cohesion
and
coherence
but
also
to
the
use
of
conjunctive
adverbials,
which
can
be
viewed
as
pragmatic
markers
(cf.
Fraser
1996).
Chapter
IV
is
devoted
to
the
discussion
of
the
general
terms
register
and
genre
and
consequently
to
their
concrete
representatives,
which
are
fundamental
to
the
present
study:
these
are
the
register
of
academic
prose
and
the
genre
of
research
articles.
Finally,
the
main
subtypes
of
research
articles
are
discussed,
with
special
attention
given
to
argumentative
and
experimental
RAs.
Chapter
V
serves
as
a
lead-‐in
to
the
analytical
part
of
the
present
thesis.
First,
it
provides
a
few
necessary
notes
on
discourse
analysis
and
then
it
moves
on
to
a
thorough
depiction
of
the
present
corpus.
Finally,
there
is
a
section
introducing
chief
goals
and
objectives
of
the
present
study.
Chapter
VI
is
the
first
chapter
that
deals
with
the
present
research
findings;
it
concerns
primarily
the
frequency
of
occurrence
of
individual
conjunctive
3
adverbials.
The
distribution
of
CAs
is
examined
with
respect
to
the
whole
corpus,
SKF
versus
HKF,
and
in
ten
individual
disciplines.
In
Chapter
VII,
the
investigation
widens
to
include
other
aspects
of
CAs.
It
analyzes
the
frequency
of
occurrence
of
individual
semantic
categories,
and
within
these
it
discusses
some
selected
representatives
in
greater
detail.
The
distribution
of
semantic
categories
is
analyzed
in
the
corpus
as
a
whole
and
with
respect
to
soft
and
hard
knowledge
fields.
This
chapter
also
offers
research
findings
concerning
the
frequency
of
occurrence
of
realization
forms
of
CAs
and
their
positions
in
a
clause.
Chapter
VIII
addresses
the
distribution
of
CAs
in
three
separate
sections
of
a
research
article:
Abstracts,
Introductions
and
Conclusions.
It
first
describes
these
sections
at
a
more
general
level
as
well
as
with
respect
to
their
character
in
RAs
in
the
present
corpus,
and
then
discusses
the
present
research
findings
concerning
the
density
and
occurrence
of
individual
semantic
categories
of
CAs
in
Abstracts,
Introductions
and
Conclusions.
The
last
chapter,
Chapter
IX,
serves
to
summarize
the
content
of
this
dissertation
and
postulates
conclusions
that
can
be
drawn
from
the
present
research.
In
addition,
it
addresses
possible
consequences
of
the
present
analysis
and
singles
out
particular
directions
for
further
investigation.
1.1.2 Glossary
of
main
terms
and
abbreviations
The
present
subsection
lays
out
a
brief
overview
of
the
crucial
technical
terms
and
abbreviations
used
in
the
dissertation.
It
provides
definitions
I
adhere
to
in
this
work.
However,
some
of
the
terms
show
a
variety
of
different
uses
in
the
different
textbooks
I
have
consulted;
these
are
dealt
with
in
relevant
sections
and
subsections
of
Chapters
II,
III
and
IV,
where
fuller
explanations
are
available.
1.1.2.1 Terms
The
entries
are
presented
in
alphabetical
order.
academic
prose
-‐
a
very
broad
register
comprising
a
number
of
diverse
academic
areas,
all
of
which
have
the
same
communicative
purpose
of
providing
information
about
a
scientific
topic;
the
main
function
of
this
register
is
therefore
referential,
but
can
also
be
didactic
(cf.
Biber
&
Conrad
2009)
4
Description:1.1.3 Different terminology concerning conjunctive adverbials . Compared to
other registers, English academic prose – with its highly specialist . 1994: 14);
in terms of phrases, adverbials are typically realized by adverb phrases.
