Enhancing Coherence in Academic Discourse: On the Role of Keywords in Encoding Themes of Higher Textual Units
Abstrakt
The poster looks at the role of keywords in higher textual units of academic discourse, viz. paragraphs and paragraph groups. Following an earlier study (Pípalová, 2018) which examined the distribution of keyword items (tokens) across individual sections of Research Articles and subsequently scrutinized their FSP roles at several levels (viz. at main clause, subordinate clause, and phrase levels), the present paper focuses on the role of keywords in constructing the themes of higher text units (Hyperthemes).
More specifically, it investigates the role keywords take in the thematic build-up of academic paragraphs and paragraph groups. The paper employs the methodology correlating U-themes (i.e., utterance level themes) and P-themes (Paragraph themes), designed by Daneš (1994, 5) and elaborated on by Pípalová (2005, 2008).
Established on a specialized corpus of recent linguistic Research Articles drawn from prominent peer-reviewed international journals, the paper strives to uncover the leading tendencies which assert themselves in the thematic build-up of three distinct sections of Research Articles, viz. Abstracts, Introductions and Conclusions.
Firstly, the sections are scrutitized with respect to the thematic build-up of their paragraphs and paragraph groups. Secondly, attention is paid in the role of keywords in encoding these higher themes (Hyperthemes).
The paper strives to balance quantitative and qualitative considerations. The results of the paper should enhance the current research into FSP and may have practical impact on Academic writing courses.