Grammatical Complexity in Academic English: Linguistic Change in Writing

294 Pages·2016·2.96 MB·English

by  Douglas Biber

GRAMMATICAL COMPLEXITY
IN ACADEMIC ENGLISH
Grammatical Complexity in Academic English uses corpus-based ana-
lysestochallengeanumberofdominantstereotypesandassumptions
within linguistics. Biber and Gray tackle the nature of grammatical
complexity, demonstrating that embedded phrasal structures are as
importantasembeddeddependentclauses.Theauthorsalsooverturn
ingrained assumptions about linguistic change, showing that gram-
matical change occurs in writing as well as speech. This work estab-
lishes that academic writing is structurally compressed (rather than
elaborated);thatitisoftennotexplicitintheexpressionofmeaning;
and that scientific academic writing has been the locus of some of
the most important grammatical changes in English over the past
200 years (rather than beingconservative and resistant tochange).
Supportedthroughoutwithtextualevidence,thisworkisessential
readingfordiscourseanalysts,sociolinguists,andappliedlinguists,as
well as descriptive linguists and historicallinguists.
douglas biber is Regents’ Professor of Applied Linguistics in the
English Department atNorthern Arizona University.
bethanygrayisAssistantProfessorofEnglish(AppliedLinguistics
and Technology) at Iowa State University.
studies in english language
Generaleditor: Merja Kytö (Uppsala University)
Editorialboard:BasAarts(UniversityCollegeLondon),JohnAlgeo(Universityof
Georgia),SusanFitzmaurice(UniversityofSheffield),ChristianMair(University
of Freiburg),Charles F. Meyer (University ofMassachusetts)
The aim of this series is to provide a framework for original studies of English,
bothpresentdayandpast.Allbooksarebasedsecurelyonempiricalresearchand
represent theoretical and descriptive contributions to our knowledge of national
andinternationalvarietiesofEnglish,bothwrittenandspoken.Theseriescovers
a broad range of topics and approaches, including syntax, phonology, grammar,
vocabulary, discourse, pragmatics and sociolinguistics, and is aimed at an inter-
national readership.
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Grammatical Complexity inAcademic English: Linguistic ChangeinWriting
Earlier titles notlistedarealsoavailable

GRAMMATICAL COMPLEXITY
IN ACADEMIC ENGLISH
Linguistic Change in Writing
DOUGLAS BIBER
NorthernArizonaUniversity
BETHANY GRAY
IowaStateUniversity
UniversityPrintingHouse,Cambridgecb28bs,UnitedKingdom
CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge.
ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof
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www.cambridge.org
Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107009264
©DouglasBiberandBethanyGray2016
Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements,
noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten
permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublished2016
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloguinginPublicationData
Biber,Douglas,author.
GrammaticalcomplexityinacademicEnglish:linguisticchangeinwriting/DouglasBiber,Northern
ArizonaUniversity; BethanyGray,IowaStateUniversity.
pagescm.– (StudiesinEnglishlanguage)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
isbn978-1-107-00926-4(Hardback)
1. Englishlanguage–Grammar. 2. Complexity(Linguistics) 3. Academicwriting–Research.
4. Linguisticchange. I. Gray,Bethany,author. II. Title.
p128.c664b472015
425–dc23 2015028909
isbn978-1-107-00926-4Hardback
CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracy
ofURLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication,
anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,
accurateorappropriate.
Contents
List of figures page x
List of tables xiii
1 Academic writing: Challenging the stereotypes 1
1.1 Academese:Obtuseorinformational? 1
1.2 Describingthegrammarofacademicwriting 5
1.2.1 Academicwrittentexts:Allbasicallythesame? 7
1.2.2 Academicwriting:Complexgrammarandexplicitmeanings? 14
1.2.3 Academicwriting:Resistanttochangeordynamic? 19
1.3 GrammaticalchangeinEnglish:Belowtheradar? 27
1.4 Twotypesofgrammaticalchange 30
1.5 ThelocusofhistoricalchangeinEnglish:Speechorwriting? 32
1.6 Overviewofthepresentbook 39
2 Using corpora to analyze grammatical change 43
2.1 Introduction 43
2.2 Situationalchangewithinacademicresearchwriting 50
2.3 Corporaanalyzedinthebook 51
2.3.1 Representingacademicwritingovertime:Descriptionofthe
diachronicacademiccorpora 52
2.3.2 Synchronicanddiachroniccomparisonsbetweenacademic
writingandotherspokenandwrittenregisters 57
2.4 Corpusanalysisprocedures 58
2.5 Grammaticalfeaturesinvestigated 59
2.5.1 ‘Core’grammaticalfeaturesand‘colloquial’features 60
2.5.2 Phrasalandclausalcomplexityfeatures 60
2.5.3 Corpusanalysesofgrammaticalcomplexityfeatures 65
3 Phrasal versus clausal discourse styles: A synchronic
grammatical description of academic writing contrasted
with other registers 67
3.1 Introduction 67
3.2 Previouslinguisticresearchonacademicwriting 72
vii
viii Contents
3.2.1 Studiesofparticulargrammaticalfeaturesinacademicwriting 74
3.2.2 Acomprehensivesurveyofthedistinctivegrammaticalfeatures
ofacademicwriting:ContributionsfromTheLongman
GrammarofSpokenandWrittenEnglish 76
3.2.3 Studiesofregistervariationthatincludeacademicwriting 83
3.3 Casestudiesillustratingthedistinctivegrammaticalcharacteristics
ofacademicresearchwriting 87
3.3.1 Academicwritingcontrastedwithconversation:Whichismore
grammaticallycomplex? 87
3.3.2 Universitytextbookscontrastedwithuniversityclassroom
teaching:Isthereageneralacademicstyle? 100
3.3.3 Grammaticalfeaturesofacademicwritingcontrastedwith
popularwrittenregisters 104
3.3.4 Grammaticalvariationamongwrittensub-registersfrom
differentacademicdisciplines 111
3.4 Chaptersummary 123
4 The historical evolution of phrasal discourse styles in
academic writing 125
4.1 Grammaticalcomplexityineighteenthcenturywrittentexts 125
4.1.1 Theinfluenceofpopularizationversuseconomyinhistoricalchange 128
4.1.2 PrevioushistoricalresearchonthenounphraseinEnglish 130
4.2 GeneralpatternsofchangeinwrittenEnglishregisters 132
4.2.1 Increasinguseofcolloquialfeatures 136
4.2.2 Historicalchangeintheuseofcomplexityfeatures 140
4.2.3 Exploringthemagnitudeofchange:Theevolutionofaphrasal
discoursestyle 145
4.3 Whatfeatureshavedecreasedinuseinacademicprose? 154
4.4 Historicalchangeacrosssub-registerswithinacademicresearchwriting 157
4.5 Chaptersummary 166
5 The functional extension of phrasal grammatical features in
academic writing 167
5.1 Introduction 167
5.2 Phrasalfeaturesfunctioningaspre-modifiersofaheadnoun 170
5.2.1 Nounsasnominalpre-modifiers 170
5.2.2 Attributiveadjectivesasnominalpre-modifiers 184
5.2.3 Noun–participlecompoundsasnominalpre-modifiers 187
5.3 Phrasalfeaturesfunctioningaspost-modifiersofaheadnoun 190
5.3.1 Prepositionalphrasesasnominalpost-modifiers 190
5.3.2 Appositivenounphrasesasnominalpost-modifiers 202
5.4 Thesystemic‘drift’towardsstructuralcompression,motivatedby
economyofexpression 207