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1 – 10 of 81Mehrdad Vasheghani Farahani and Vahid Pahlevansadegh
In spite of the growing interest in using corpora in language teaching and learning, applying computers and software (especially corpora software) is still new in second language…
Abstract
Purpose
In spite of the growing interest in using corpora in language teaching and learning, applying computers and software (especially corpora software) is still new in second language teaching and learning. In addition, employing a learner corpus-based perspective in teaching metadiscourse features in International English Language Testing System (IELTS) writing tasks is not reported to the best knowledge of the researchers. Understanding and spotting this gap, the purpose of this paper is to utilize a learner corpus-based approach in teaching metadiscourse features and investigate its possible impacts on IELTS writing performance of the Iranian second language learners. Therefore, this study addressed the following research questions and hypotheses.
Design/methodology/approach
The current research utilized a quasi-experimental research design. In addition, this research used a learner corpus-based methodology. The corpus-based methodology was exploited to enable the researchers to have access to a large body of authentic language materials. In other words, a corpus-based methodology was used due to the fact that it made it possible for the researchers to elicit the metadiscourse features from a large number of authentic writing materials and to employ them during the treatment process with authentic examples.
Findings
The findings showed that there was a positive correlation between teaching metadiscourse features and writing performance of IELTS learners; in that, teaching metadiscourse features could soar the writing performance of the subjects. In addition, interactional metadiscourse features had more impact than interactive metadiscourse features on writing performance.
Practical implications
The results of this research can have useful implications for second language teachers and learners as well as researchers in learner corpus as they can learn the creation and application of learner corpora in second language teaching and learning.
Originality/value
This paper is value in that it uses corpus software and methodology in teaching metadiscourse features in writing section of IELTS test.
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Marlane C. Steinwart and Jennifer A. Ziegler
This paper explores the implications of using Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs as a “paradigm case” of transformational leadership by comparing the practical…
Abstract
This paper explores the implications of using Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs as a “paradigm case” of transformational leadership by comparing the practical metadiscourse of remembrances published at the time of his passing to the theoretical metadiscourse of transformational leadership. The authors report the frequency of transformational leadership characteristics that appeared in characterizations of Jobs in the months after his passing in October 2011. Results show that people do remember Jobs as a leader, and as one who possessed three key personal characteristics of a transformational leader: creative, passionate, and visionary. People also remembered Jobs as an innovator, which is not typically associated with transformational leadership but which does reflect the discourse of the consumer electronics industries upon which he had an impact. However, the results also show that two important interpersonal characteristics of a transformational leader were absent in the remembrance discourse: empowering and interactive. The authors discuss the implications of the two missing terms for pedagogy and theorizing, including how problematizing Jobs as a paradigm case might lead to fruitful discussions about the importance of a transformational leader’s engagement with followers.
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Recent failures and scandals in the banking and financial services industry have served as catalysts for anxiety about operational risk. In particular, the Basel II accord…
Abstract
Purpose
Recent failures and scandals in the banking and financial services industry have served as catalysts for anxiety about operational risk. In particular, the Basel II accord emphasises the need to develop methodologies for assessing and managing this category of risk. However, operational risk is said to be an elusive and problematic concept. This paper aims to examine how certain events in the banking and financial services industry become enframed and constructed as operational risk and how such risk is managed.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on the sociology of risk literature to analyse how an “unauthorised trading” event (and associated losses) that occurred in the currency options trading desk of the National Australia Bank (NAB) was enframed and constructed as operational risk. Data are gathered through metadiscourse analysis of textual materials relating to this event.
Findings
The analysis reveals the social and institutional mechanisms underlying the construction of risk and the contested nature of risk knowledge. In particular, it highlights the significant role of media discourse in articulating risk claims and dominating public discourse about risk. It also highlights the moral character of the concept of risk and how the moralising of risk discourse leads to the creation of particular forms of subjectivities and the operationalisation of certain risk management rationalities in NAB.
Originality/value
The paper will be helpful in improving researchers' and practitioners' understanding of how, in a given field of possibilities, particular events become constructed as operational risk.
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Using composite style measures of the letter to shareholders, the purpose of this paper is to elaborate dominant rhetorical profiles and qualify them from an impression management…
Abstract
Purpose
Using composite style measures of the letter to shareholders, the purpose of this paper is to elaborate dominant rhetorical profiles and qualify them from an impression management (IM) perspective. In addition, the paper examines how institutional differences affect rhetorical profiles by comparing intensity and contingencies of rhetorical profiles of UK and US companies.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use automated text analysis to capture linguistic style characteristics of a panel of UK and US companies and employ factor analysis to determine rhetorical profiles. Next, the authors investigate company-level and country-level determinants of a company’s rhetorical stance.
Findings
The authors document three prominent rhetorical profiles: an emphatic acclaiming stance, a cautious plausibility-based framing position, and a logic-based rationalizing orientation. The profiles represent distinct self-presentational logics and have different readability effects. Rhetorical IM is stronger in US companies, but higher expected scrutiny in the US institutional environment affects sensitivity of rhetorical postures to message credibility and litigation risk, while marginally increasing the less litigation-sensitive defensive framing style in US letters.
Originality/value
The authors develop replicable archival-based measures of prominent rhetorical IM traits of the shareholder letter, based on composite style features. The authors argue that they are qualitatively different from content-based IM proxies. The authors investigate their institutional and organizational relevance by examining how company features and country-level differences affect incentives and constraints for style-based rhetorical IM.
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Robin Sydserff and Pauline Weetman
This paper responds to a call in the literature for methodological and empirical studies to advance research into accounting narratives, in the light of acknowledged areas of…
Abstract
This paper responds to a call in the literature for methodological and empirical studies to advance research into accounting narratives, in the light of acknowledged areas of weakness and gaps in the accounting literature and with a view to investigating impression management. A general line of critique in the accounting literature points to a need to expand both the syntactic and thematic dimensions, with a particular focus on developing objective methods of analysis that allow computer‐based measurement. The paper draws on the literature of managerial business communications, supported by that of applied linguistics, in bringing to accounting research a transitivity index and the application of DICTION analysis. Both have the potential to extend computer‐based analysis of accounting narratives, subject to careful initial research design and specification. The potential for a richer empirical analysis is demonstrated through an illustrative empirical application.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate textual issues and communication patterns of CEOs/chairmen/presidents’ letters to shareholders in the post-2008 financial crisis…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate textual issues and communication patterns of CEOs/chairmen/presidents’ letters to shareholders in the post-2008 financial crisis period. By taking a global perspective, the work specifically explores how 307 banks from 15 countries communicated the issues of financial crisis with shareholders, customers and other stakeholders in their letters to shareholders published in the banks’ annual reports.
Design/methodology/approach
By using content analysis and qualitative research, the work specifically analyzes 307 letters to shareholders that constitute 1,028 pages.
Findings
Results of the work suggest that textual features and communication patterns of letters to shareholders remain distinct regarding corporate messages that banks delivered to their shareholders. There was little resemblance between financial institutions regarding their communicative patterns. This could be the result of cultural issues, diverse business environments, regulatory standards, discursive information and hidden business practices.
Research limitations/implications
Within our limited data (307 banks), the significance of this paper lies in its timeliness and relevance to the post-2008 financial crisis period and its worldwide business disruptions.
Practical implications
Practitioners need to use the results of this research and should be familiar with the main causes of the crisis that remain controversial and complex.
Social implications
Global markets and society as a whole were impacted by the severity and longevity of this crisis because of losses, socioeconomic disruptions and business bankruptcies.
Originality/value
Original value of this work falls within the domains of global financial markets and multinational banks.
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The purpose of this study is to explore Master’s students’ literature reviews to better understand the literacies required for engaging in complexity in this genre and to inform…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore Master’s students’ literature reviews to better understand the literacies required for engaging in complexity in this genre and to inform graduate student pedagogy.
Design/methodology/approach
In this qualitative study, data were collected in the form of student literature review papers (23 drafts and 23 final versions) from students attending a research seminar course in an all-course Master’s program. All papers were analyzed for citations patterns, genre awareness and levels of complexity.
Findings
Results highlight the nature of complexity in this genre – that this complexity is underpinned by discursive issues such as “truth”, “claims” or “facts” that often mislead novice academic writers, and recognizing that knowledge contested in academic contexts is important to understanding and teaching students about complexity in writing.
Originality/value
One of the most challenging writing tasks graduate students face, is the literature review. Literature reviews require sophisticated conceptual maneuverings. Despite being analytical in nature, many students find it difficult to engage with the layers of complexity required in this genre. How do we make the complexity in literature reviews more visible and accessible? The argument in this paper is that understanding the nature of complexity in literature reviews can enhance writing processes and intentional explicit pedagogy.
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Cinthia Salinas and Brooke Blevins
In this qualitative case study, we examine pre-service teachers’ understandings’ of history as narrative. This analysis specifically explores the kinds of new historical…
Abstract
In this qualitative case study, we examine pre-service teachers’ understandings’ of history as narrative. This analysis specifically explores the kinds of new historical narratives pre-service teachers create as a result of purposeful secondary social studies methods instruction that juxtaposes traditional narratives (e.g. individual achievement and motivation) and alternative narratives (e.g. those attentive to empathy and race, class, and gender) in an effort to help future teachers understand the nature of critical historical inquiry. In examining the understandings and initial efforts of young secondary social studies teachers, the study concludes that while troubling the traditional narrative is viable and likely event, the challenges of developing critical historical inquiry are clear and persistent.
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Wen Lou, Jiangen He, Qianqian Xu, Zhijie Zhu, Qiwen Lu and Yongjun Zhu
The effectiveness of rhetorical structure is essential to communicate key messages in research articles (RAs). The interdisciplinary nature of library and information science…
Abstract
Purpose
The effectiveness of rhetorical structure is essential to communicate key messages in research articles (RAs). The interdisciplinary nature of library and information science (LIS) has led to unclear patterns and practice of using rhetorical structures. Understanding how RAs are constructed in LIS to facilitate effective scholarly communication is important. Numerous studies investigated the rhetorical structure of RAs in a range of disciplines, but LIS articles have not been well studied.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the authors encoded rhetorical structures to 2,216 articles in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology covering a period from 2001 to 2018 with the approaches of co-word analysis and visualization. The results show that the predominant rhetorical structures used by LIS researchers follow the sequence of Introduction-Literature Review-Methodology-Result-Discussion-Conclusion (ILMRDC).
Findings
The authors' temporal examination reveals the shifts of evolutionary pattern of rhetorical structure in 2008 and 2014. More importantly, the authors' study demonstrates that rhetorical structures have varied greatly across research areas in LIS community. For example, scholarly communication and scientometrics studies tend to exclude literature review in articles.
Originality/value
The present paper offers a first systematic examination of how rhetorical structures are used in a representative sample of a LIS journal, especially from a temporal perspective.
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Joel Foreman and Tojo Joseph Thatchenkery
Science is a form of narrative that is regarded as the prime generator of knowledge. What about other forms of narratives such as novels and dramatic films? Claims this question…
Abstract
Science is a form of narrative that is regarded as the prime generator of knowledge. What about other forms of narratives such as novels and dramatic films? Claims this question is particularly important in organizational science because its narrative nature is easier to detect than is the case with the physical sciences. Using the metaphor of organizations as texts, contends that narrative fictions, especially films, are valuable sources in the study of organizations. What organizational researchers and film writers do are strikingly similar. For example, they enact rather than discover, test ideas against evidence, generalize, raise testable questions about the social world, and stay focused on the complexity of experience. An analysis of the film Rising Sun illustrates the use of narrative fiction as texts for organizational analysis. Discusses the implications of this approach.
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