A Corpus-based Study on Engagement in English Academic Writing: Published Journal Articles and Korean Graduate Students' Master's Theses in Applied Linguistics

Abstract

Based on the pragmatic concept that writing is a social process of purposeful interaction with readers, it is widely acknowledged that the key aspect of successful writing should be to manage the writer-reader relationship effectively. Despite such importance, previous literature on the interpersonal dimension of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing has largely focused on how writers convey their ideas, while the more reader-oriented dimensions have been relatively neglected. The present study seeks to fill this gap by investigating the resources available for engagement in EAP writing. Engagement relates to the ways that writers acknowledge the presence of their readers by quite explicitly bringing them into the text (Hyland, 2005a). An appropriate level of reader engagement is especially crucial for academic writing, the ultimate aim of which is to secure ratification of the offered claims. Existing studies have commonly indicated that student writers significantly underuse engagement resources. However, these studies predominantly analyzed undergraduate writing and mostly focused on their quantitative aspects. Based on the needs, this study explores how master's theses written in English by Korean graduate students differ from internationally-acknowledged journal articles written in English in terms of their engagement practices. Within the specific discipline of applied linguistics, the current study compares the density and proportion of engagement devices in five subcategories: Reader references, directives, questions, appeals to shared knowledge, and personal asides. It further examines individual instances of each strategy within an extended context to reveal its rhetorical functions within the Introduction through Conclusion sections. The results revealed that overall, Korean graduate students significantly underuse engagement devices, which concurs with the previous findings. In terms of the subcategories, reader references, directives, and questions were more heavily employed by the expert writers while shared knowledge appeals and personal asides did not present any significant differences. In both corpora, directives were the most preferred strategy, followed by reader references. Qualitative analysis revealed more insightful novice-expert variations. First, Korean graduate students had a tendency to address undefined general audiences quite often, while the experts mostly addressed the specific discourse participants at hand. Accordingly, interaction enacted via reader references (especially the inclusive we) became less-dialogic and less effective for the critical argumentation of the graduate students. Further, directives and questions were not readily available strategies for the Korean novice writers. Korean graduate students preferred to deploy less imposing textual directives for emphasizing certain literature or concepts, rather separated from the main discussion. Similarly, their use of questions was confined to the Introduction and Conclusion sections and largely functioned to present research topics or suggestions, often as broad questions addressed at a general audience. These findings provide certain valuable implications for the Korean EAP writing context. Korean novice writers need to consider academic writing as more dialogic and reciprocal, and actively employ reader-oriented strategies into more appealing argumentation. To do so, Korean student writers need to develop their writer identities as equally independent researchers and also address a more specific audience as their disciplinary companion. In these ways, they can build more convincing argumentation while also displaying an appropriate level of authority and audience awareness.