English MA theses at a German university before and after the Bologna reform : Comparing global rhetorical structures and stance in Linguistics and Cultural Studies 1
Creators: name: Schmied, Josef
name: Ivanova, Marina
Publisher: name: Jan Kochanowski University Press
Year: 2024

description: Contents 7 Josef Schmied, Marina Bondi, Olga Dontcheva-Navratilova, Carmen Pérez-Llantada, Language variation and change in academic writing: Recent trends through globalisation and digitalisation 25 Olga Dontcheva-Navratilova, Academic writing conventions in Czech English-medium linguistics journals: Continuity and change over the last 30 years 55 Marina Bondi, Jessica Jane Nocella, Academic writing conventions in English-medium linguistics journals in Italy: Continuity and change over the last 30 years 89 Marina Ivanova, German English-medium linguistics journal abstracts over the last 30 years: Quantitative and qualitative structural developments 115 Giuliana Diani, Research article abstracts in English and Italian: Generic and cross-linguistic variation over the last 20 years 143 Krystyna Warchał, Concluding sections over 30 years of research writing: The case of a Polish scholar 169 Josef Schmied, Marina Ivanova, English MA theses at a German university before and after the Bologna reform: Comparing global rhetorical structures and stance in Linguistics and Cultural Studies 197 Tereza Guziurová, “The aim of this paper is…”: Frame markers in English as a lingua franca of academic writing 223 Enrique Lafuente Millán, European research project websites and corporate websites: Patterns of evaluation and genre evolution Varia 251 Cecilia Lazzeretti, Language, narrative and structure of story telling in museum communication: A diachronic approach 277 Gloria Mambelli, “It is a long road from sorrow to joy”: Metaphors of happiness and sadness in Late Modern English private correspondence 301 Giulia Rovelli, Towards a historical corpus of Canadian English letters and diaries 325 Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Acquiring epistolary literacy in nineteenth-century New England Reviews 357 Michael Skiba, Participial Prepositions and Conjunctions in the History of English, Munich: utzverlag, 2021, 235 pp. (Reviewed by Rafał Molencki, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland)
description: This contribution analyses changing practices of academic writing with special reference to MA theses. It considers theses as the central genre that introduces students to independent academic writing and thinking and the first step towards an academic writing career. A small empirical case study compares 20 MA theses written at Chemnitz University of Technology after the introduction of the Bologna reform (2012-20) with 20 Magister theses written before (2002-12). Two well-known metadiscourse variables are analysed: global rhetorical structures, i.e., IMRAD, from Introduction/issue, Methodology, Research (question) to Discussion or conclusion, and the expression of personal evaluation through metalanguage, i.e. stance. The focus is on a particularly interesting stance variable, evaluative that complement clauses (e.g., suggest that, claim that) and their functions indicating different strengths of authorial stance. A corpus-linguistic analysis reveals important differences between the English subdisciplines. The MA theses show similar teaching-induced trends, though to a different degree. Linguistics follows the patterns and perceived standards in international social science models more than Cultural Studies. This can be interpreted as functional adaptation to changing rhetorical situations in a wide social context.