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We All Speak English, but do We Write in the Same Language?

Proceedings
Proceedings

Abstract

This study aims to identify a series of differences between International and Romanian publications by running a linguistic analysis on a corpus of research articles coming from both Romanian and International journals. The outcomes of this paper can help researchers to improve their writing skills for their future publications, by providing them a guideline for raising the quality of their research articles by expanding the Discussion & Conclusion section. We identify a phrase bank that can be used afterwards by Romanian researchers in their attempts to publish their articles in International journals. The research question we are trying to answer in this study is: How is the low level of confidence in our researchers’ ability to communicate in English influencing the quality of Romanian journals?

This study is structured into two main parts: the first one is drawing a picture for the theoretical background in the research domain of linguistic analysis and it is identifying the niche among the latest studies conducted in the field, and the second section represents the empirical study, the actual linguistic comparison between discussion & conclusion sections of articles published in Romanian and International journals. The last part of the paper is a conclusion and limitation section for this study, providing discussion about the outcomes of this research and directions for future studies.

 

JEL Classification: B40, D83, G32, Z13

 

Table of contents:

1. Introduction

2. Problem Statement and Literature review

3. Research Questions/Aims of the research

4. Research Methods

5. Findings

5.1 Limitations and constraints feature

5.2 Specification of author’s contributions

5.3 Implications of the results for practitioners

5.4 Finding clusters or bundles that help creating a specific phrase-bank

6. Conclusions

 

1. Introduction

 

The academic community in Romania makes efforts to align its scientific communication standards to those abroad. There is a diversity of practices used in conducting and reporting research, but when it comes to publication of research results in international peer-reviewed journals, our researchers and practitioners meet some obstacles related firstly to the linguistic challenge of writing in English and secondly to other types of barriers like structural, methodological or system-related challenges (Bardi and Mureșan, 2014).

Latest studies (Mureșan and Pérez-Llantada, 2014 or Bardi and Mureșan, 2014) highlight the fact that Romanian researchers and practitioners are making big efforts to familiarize themselves with internationally-accepted research practices and to develop their writing in English skills.

This study aims to show that even if there were so many efforts made to disseminate Romanian research in high-profile publications, there are still rules that need to be followed in order to achieve international recognition.

 

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Contributo selezionato da Filodiritto tra quelli pubblicati nei Proceedings “International Conference on Economics and Social Sciences – Challanges and Trends in Economic and Social Sciences Research - 2018”

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Contribution selected by Filodiritto among those published in the Proceedings “International Conference on Economics and Social Sciences – Challanges and Trends in Economic and Social Sciences Research - 2018”

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Journal articles

[1] Biber, D. & Barbieri, F. (2007). Lexical bundles in university spoken and written registers. English for Specific Purposes,.26, pp. 263-286.

[2] Chen, Y.-H. & Baker, P. (2010). Lexical bundles in L1 and L2 academic writing. Language Learning anTechnology, 14(2): pp. 30-49.

[3] Cortes, V. (2004). Lexical bundles in published and student disciplinary writing: Examples from history and biology. English for Specific Purposes, 23, pp. 397-423.

[4] Hyland, K. (2008). As can be seen: Lexical bundles and disciplinary variation. English for Specific Purposes 27, pp. 4-21.

[5] Mur Dueñas, P. (2014), The main contribution of this study is...” An analysis of statements of contribution in English published research articles and L2 manuscripts, Journal of Writing Research; 2013, Vol. 5 Issue 3, p. 271. [6] Muresan, L. (2011), “A Genre-based Approach to Research Writing in Economics. The Case of Romanian Economists Using English as Lingua Francain Bungarten, T. (ed.), Files of the 9th International Conference of the European Association of Languages for Specific Purposes (AELFE 2010, Hamburg), Tostedt: Attikon , 2010. [6] Vázquez Orta, I. (2010), A contrastive analysis of the use of modal verbs in the expression of epistemic stance in Business Management research articles in English and Spanish, Ibérica: Revista de la Asociación Europea de Lenguas para Fines Específicos (AELFE), ISSN 1139-7241, 19, pp. 77-96.

 

Books

[1] Bhatia, V. (1994): Analysing Genre. Language Use in Professional Settings, London & New York:Longman. [2] Bardi, M.&Muresan, L. M. (2014), Changing Research Writing Practices in Romania: Perceptions and Attitudes.In: Bennett, K. The Semi-Periphery of Academic Writing: discourses, communities and practices. Palgrave, IN PRESS.

[3] Paltridge, B. & Starfield, S. (2007). Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language. A Handbook foSupervisors. London and New York: Routledge.

[4]  Römer,  Ute. (2012). Corpora  and  teaching  academic  writing:  Exploring  the  pedagogical  potential  of MICUSP. In: James Thomas & Alex Boulton (eds.). Input, Process and Product: Developments in Teaching and Language Corpora. Brno: Masaryk University Press. pp. 70-82.

[5] Swales, J. M. & Feak, C. B. (2008). Academic Writing for Graduate Students. Second Edition. Ann Arbor. The University of Michigan Press.

[6] Swales, J. M. (2004). Research genres: Explorations and applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.