TY - JOUR
T1 - Verb form indicates discourse segment type in biological research papers
T2 - Experimental evidence
AU - de Waard, Anita
AU - Pander Maat, Henk
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2012 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2012/12/1
Y1 - 2012/12/1
N2 - Corpus studies suggest that verb tense is a differentiating feature between, on the one hand, text pertaining to experimental results (involving methods and results) and on the other hand, text pertaining to more abstract concepts (i.e. regarding background knowledge in a field, hypotheses, problems or claims). In this paper, we describe a user experiment that investigates whether for biological readers, this tense correlation has a psychological correlate. To study this, we defined seven distinct discourse segments types and modified them either by changing the verb tense/mood (for all segment types), negation (for Problems), or presence of an epistemic matrix clause (‘These results suggest…’) for Implications. Regardless of the original segment type, we found that for Facts, Results and Hypothesis segments, present tense yielded more Fact classifications, past tense more Result interpretations, and modal auxiliaries more Hypothesis interpretations. Methods statements were less sensitive to verb form. Problem segments required negations to be recognized, while Implications required introductory matrix clauses.
AB - Corpus studies suggest that verb tense is a differentiating feature between, on the one hand, text pertaining to experimental results (involving methods and results) and on the other hand, text pertaining to more abstract concepts (i.e. regarding background knowledge in a field, hypotheses, problems or claims). In this paper, we describe a user experiment that investigates whether for biological readers, this tense correlation has a psychological correlate. To study this, we defined seven distinct discourse segments types and modified them either by changing the verb tense/mood (for all segment types), negation (for Problems), or presence of an epistemic matrix clause (‘These results suggest…’) for Implications. Regardless of the original segment type, we found that for Facts, Results and Hypothesis segments, present tense yielded more Fact classifications, past tense more Result interpretations, and modal auxiliaries more Hypothesis interpretations. Methods statements were less sensitive to verb form. Problem segments required negations to be recognized, while Implications required introductory matrix clauses.
KW - Discourse analysis
KW - Genre analysis
KW - Research articles
KW - Scientific discourse
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84866558985&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jeap.2012.06.002
DO - 10.1016/j.jeap.2012.06.002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84866558985
SN - 1475-1585
VL - 11
SP - 357
EP - 366
JO - Journal of English for Academic Purposes
JF - Journal of English for Academic Purposes
IS - 4
ER -