Discourse variation in medical texts : schema, theme and cohesion in professional and journalistic accounts
This study is undertaken as an exercise in Comparative Discourse Analysis. Working within the framework of the branch of Discourse Analysis known as Genre-Analysis, this thesis examines differences in the organization of discourse in three parallel genres of written medical texts - the Abstract (ABS) accompanying a medical research paper, the Research Article Proper (RAP) and the equivalent Journalistic Reported Version (JRV) of the research article in a popular science magazine or in a newspaper. The corpus for the study consists of 45 texts: 15 triadic sets of parallel texts representing an equal number of texts from each of the three genres on which the study is based. The approach to the analysis of features of discourse organization is eclectic and comparative. Thus, texts in the corpus are analysed for differences at three levels of organization - the levels of schematic structure, Thematic Progression (TP) and Cohesion. A number of differences are observed across the three genres. First, the genres are found to differ distinctively in the way information is organized into hierarchical schematic units. Less di stinctive pragmatic differences are observed in the realization and di stribution of formal
Nwogu, Kevin N.
Linguistics
Discourse variation in medical texts : schema, theme and cohesion in professional and journalistic accounts. This study is undertaken as an exercise in Comparative Discourse Analysis. Working within the framework of the branch of Discourse Analysis known as Genre-Analysis, this thesis examines differences in the organization of discourse in three parallel genres of written medical texts - the Abstract (ABS) accompanying a medical research paper, the Research Article Proper (RAP) and the equivalent Journalistic Reported Version (JRV) of the research article in a popular science magazine or in a newspaper. The corpus for the study consists of 45 texts: 15 triadic sets of parallel texts representing an equal number of texts from each of the three genres on which the study is based. The approach to the analysis of features of discourse organization is eclectic and comparative. Thus, texts in the corpus are analysed for differences at three levels of organization - the levels of schematic structure, Thematic Progression (TP) and Cohesion. A number of differences are observed across the three genres. First, the genres are found to differ distinctively in the way information is organized into hierarchical schematic units. Less di stinctive pragmatic differences are observed in the realization and di stribution of formal
discourse variation medical_text schema theme cohesion professional journalistic account study undertaken exercise comparative discourse_analysis working within_framework branch discourse_analysis know genre analysis examine difference organization discourse parallel genre write medical_text abstract accompany medical paper article proper equivalent journalistic reported version article popular_science magazine newspaper corpus study_consist text triadic set parallel text represent equal genre study_base analysis feature discourse organization eclectic comparative thus texts corpus analyse difference three_level organization level schematic structure thematic progression cohesion number difference observe across_three genre first genre find differ distinctively way information organize hierarchical schematic unit less pragmatic difference observe realization formal