This paper is a corpus-based study of how native speaker computing students and experts use the pronoun "I" when elaborating their methodology ("methodological I"). Using two corpora, (i) a student corpus of about 62,000 words of postgraduate computing project reports, written at the end of the MSc programme and roughly equivalent to the master's…

This paper reports on the results of a move analysis [Swales, J. (1990). "Genre analysis." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] of 60 biochemistry research articles. First, a corpus was systematically compiled to ensure that it represents core journals in the focused discipline. Then, coding reliability analysis was conducted to demonstrate…

This paper reports on the perceptions of business lecturers about the linguistic and conceptual problems encountered by their Chinese students. The views of 45 business lecturers at five tertiary institutions in Hong Kong were gathered by means of semi-structured interviews and group discussions. When asked about the status of their students'…

The paper presents a contrastive analysis focusing on the differences in the use of two selected metatext categories, previews and reviews, in English and Slovene research articles. The analysis is based on the hypothesis that the use of the selected metatext categories is more restricted in Slovene academic writing than in English academic…

In the past few years, several corpus-based studies have been carried out which either explicitly in some cases, but more subtly in others, draw on aspects of genre theory for their analyses. The purpose of this paper is to review those corpus studies which specifically draw on either the English for Specific Purposes (following the Swales…

This Research Note reports on a large-scale staff-student project focussing on the use of English for Specific Business Purposes in a number of promotional genres (TV commercials, annual reports, corporate web-sites, print advertising) within several of the EU member states: Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Spain. The project as a…

Grammatical metaphor in the form of nominalized processes is widely recognized as an important feature of scientific writing. It is also believed that this development began with Newton in the late 17th century. Linguistic development must however be seen against the background of the context in which it is produced. One of the elements which must…

This article will provide an overview of current research focussing on the use of English as a "lingua franca" in international business contexts. It selectively reviews research investigating the role of written and spoken communication in English and the work that has been done on specific text genres used by the international business…

This article presents selective findings from a study that investigated how facework is used to achieve interpersonal goals in intercultural sales negotiations. The article reports on linguistic analyses of what Spencer-Oatey has termed ''rapport management'' which, in a negotiation context, is aimed primarily, but not exclusively, at building a…

The article is based on findings from research into communication and language use in two international corporations, both formed as a result of a merger between a Swedish and a Finnish company. A questionnaire was sent to representatives of each case company, focusing on language use, communication practices, and cultural views. Using some of the…

This research note reports on a study to investigate what English language skills are used by new graduate employees in their daily work in various departments in four banks in Hong Kong. Through interviews with 16 new bank employees across these four banks and the use of questionnaires, my aim was to determine what proportion of their daily…

To show how coordinated activities involving shared assessment instruments and results between two business schools, one in Singapore, the other in the US/Midwest, have helped faculty shift their research and teaching from a focus on language to an emphasis on communicative competence in English for the global workplace.

Whereas former research on academic discourse has paid a great deal of attention to writing and its hedging strategies, this paper aims to show that a complementary and equally important feature of academic spoken discourse is the use of modal certainty. An examination of modal selections in two American Dissertation Defenses additionally reveals…

Acquiring proficiency in different discourse genres involves an awareness of which syntactic structures are the most appropriate to the communicative context and purpose. This article examines two scientific research genres--conference proceedings articles and conference presentations--and compares the syntactic behaviour of a group of native…

When 45 biologists from eight countries were asked to critically read and amend the English in Discussion sections of three Dutch-authored draft research papers, many of their alterations impacted on the hedging. This article discusses these alterations. In particular, it focuses on the hotspots in the texts, i.e., the points on which several…