Academic Writing: An Exploratory Study of Quadrigrams

Authors

  • Patricia P. Bértoli Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
  • Tania M. G. Shepherd Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

Keywords:

Academic Writing, Key Quadrigrams, Learner Corpus, English as a Foreign Language.

Abstract

This study investigates a selection of key quadrigrams in a learner corpus of English as a foreign language. The corpus consists of written academic essays submitted by undergraduates as assigned homework. The analysis unveils the nature of the quadrigrams in terms of frequency, in addition to examining their cotext. It is argued that, collectively, the novice writers investigated use certain quadrigrams more often than their native counterparts. In addition, they use the same quadrigrams in inadequate cotexts.

Author Biographies

Patricia P. Bértoli, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

Patrícia Bertoli is Adjunct Professor at the English Department of the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro; PhD in Applied Linguistics from the Catholic University of São Paulo; visiting Professor at Federal University of Minas Gerais (2012); researcher mainly in Corpus Linguistics, TEFL, academic language and discourse analysis.

Tania M. G. Shepherd, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

Tania Shepherd is Associate Professor of English and Linguistics at UERJ, where she holds a FAPERJ research grant. She did her PhD at Birmingham University and postdoctoral studies with Tony Berber Sardinha at PUC-SP. She has co-edited Caminhos da Linguística de Corpus, Corpus nas receitas and Linguística da Internet.

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Issue

Vol. 36 No. 2 (2015)

Section

Papers

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