Cover not available

Article published In: International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Vol. 20:4 (2015) ► pp.469–499

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Variation across university genres in seven disciplines

A corpus-based study on academic written Spanish

 | Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso
Published online: 21 January 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.20.4.03par
This paper focuses on the identification of academic written genres from two corpora of reading material in Spanish that undergraduate and graduate university students are assigned in order to access specialized information across seven disciplines, namely Biotechnology, Chemistry, Economics, History, Linguistics, Literature and Physics. A group of 31 genres were identified across the discourses of the disciplines under study. Among the most frequent genres, “Textbook”, “Research Article”, and “Disciplinary Text”, were identified. Contrasting reading material, the importance of the “Research Article” is highly relevant, as it was the only genre that emerged in all seven disciplines. What I am proposing is that, regarding generic variation, there are clear-cut differences in the academic discourse of disciplines pertaining to Social Sciences and Humanities (SS&H) and Basic Sciences (BS), as it has been initially proposed (Parodi 2010a, 2014). However, the findings show that Economics academic discourse is closer to BS in terms of genre constitution.
References (74)
Alcaraz, E., Mateo, J., & Yus, F. (Eds.) (2007). Las Lenguas Profesionales y Académicas. Barcelona, Spain: Ariel.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Balak, B. (2006). McCloskey’s Rhetoric: Discourse Ethics and Economics. London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bazerman, Ch. (1994). The Informed Writer: Using Sources in the Disciplines. New York, NY: HMH.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2012, June). A genre based theory of literate action. Paper presented at the International Conference Rethinking Genre 20 Years Later , Ottawa, Canada.
Bazerman, Ch., Bonini, A., & Figueiredo, D. (Eds.) (2009). Genre in a Changing World. Los Angeles, CA: The Clearing House & Parlor Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bazerman, Ch., & Paradis, J. (1991). Introduction. In Ch. Bazerman & J. Paradis, Textual Dynamics of the Professions (pp. 3–10). Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bhatia, V. (2002). Applied genre analysis: Analytical advances and pedagogical procedures. In A. Johns (Ed.), Genre in the Classroom (pp. 279–283). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2004). Worlds of Written Discourse. A Genre-based View. Sydney, Australia: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bathia, V. (2012a, June). Critical genre analysis. Paper presented at the International Conference Rethinking Genre 20 Years Later , Ottawa, Canada.
Bhatia, V. (2012b). Critical reflexions on genre analisys. Ibérica, 241, 17–28.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Biber, D. (1988). Variation across Speech and Writing. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2005). Representativeness in corpus design. In G. Samson & D. McCarthy (Eds.), Corpus Linguistics: Reading in a Widening Discipline (pp. 174–197). London, UK: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Biber, D., Connor, U., & Upton, J. (2007). Discourse on the Move. Using Corpus Analysis to Describe Discourse Structure. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolívar, A., & Parodi, G. (2015). Academic and professional discourse. In M. Lacorte (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Hispanic Applied Linguistics (pp. 459–476). New York, NY: Roudledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bondi, M. (1996a). World of fact and world of hypothesis in Economics textbooks. In V. Negri Zamagni (Ed.), Annale 1994/1995 (pp. 341–354). Cesena, Italy: Società Editrice Il Ponte Vecchio.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1996b). Language variations across genres. Quantifiers and worlds of reference in (and around) economics textbooks. Asp (Anglais de Specialité), 21, 24–47.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boudon, E., & Parodi, G. (2014). Artefactos multisemióticos y discurso académico de la Economía: Construcción de conocimientos en el género Manual. Revista Signos. Estudios de Lingüística, 47(85), 164–195.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burdiles, G. (2012). Descripción de la organización retórica del género Caso Clínico de la medicina a partir del Corpus CCM-2009 (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Christie, F., & Maton, K. (Eds.) (2011). Disciplinarity: Functional Linguistics and Sociological Perspectives. London, UK: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cooper, A., & Bikowski, D. (2007). Writing at the graduate level: What tasks do professors actually require? Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 6(3), 206–221. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Freedman, A., & Medway, P. (Eds.) (1994). Genre and the New Rhetoric. London, UK: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ganobcsik-Williams, L. (2004). A Report on the Teaching of Academic Writing in UK Higher Education. London, UK: Royal Literary Fund.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gardner, S., & Nesi, H. (2013). A classification of genre families in university writing. Applied Linguistics, 34(1), 25–52. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Graves, R., Hyland, T., & Samuels, B. (2010). Undergraduate writing assignments: An analysis of syllabi at one Canadian college. Written Communication, 27(3), 293–317. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldschmidt, N., & Szmrecsanyi, B. (2007). What do economists talk about? A linguistic analysis of published writing in economic journals. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 66(2), 335–378. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, M., & Matthiessen, C. (2006). Construing Experience through Meaning: A Language-based Approach to Cognition. London, UK: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Handford, M. (2010). What can a corpus tell us about specialist genres? In A. O’Keeffe & M. McCarthy (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics (pp. 255–269). London, UK: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hasan, R. (1996). The nursery tale as a genre. In C. Cloran, D. Butt & G. Williams (Eds.), Ways of Saying. Ways of Meaning (pp. 156–187). London, UK: Cassell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Henderson, W., Dudley-Evans, A., & Backhouse, R. (Eds.) (1993). Economics as Language. London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyland, K., & Bondi, M. (Eds.) (2006). Academic Discourse across Disciplines. Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyon, S. (1996). Genre in three traditions: Implications for ESL. TESOL Quarterly, 30(4), 693–722. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ibáñez, R. (2010). Disciplinary text genre as a means for accessing disciplinary knowledge: A study from genre analysis perspective. In G. Parodi (Ed.), Academic and Professional Discourse Genres in Spanish (pp.189–212). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jarpa, M. (2012). Macrogénero académico evaluativo: Descripción retórica-estructural en la comunidad de aprendizaje de Postgrado en Biotecnología (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johns, A. (Ed.) (2002). Genre in the Classroom. Multiple Perspectives. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Klamer, A. (1990). The textbook presentation of economics discourse. In W. Samuels (Ed.), Economics as Discourse (pp. 129–154). London, UK: Kluwer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maci, S., & Sala, M. (Eds.) (2012). Genre Variation in Academic Communication. Emerging Disciplinary Trends. Bergamo, Italy: CELSB Libreria Universitaria.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, J. (1992). English Text. System and Structure. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, J., & Rose, D. (2008). Genre Relations. Mapping Culture. London, UK: Equinox.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, J., & Veel, R. (Eds.) (1998). Reading Science. Critical and Functional Perspective on Discourses of Science. London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martínez, J.D. (2012). Descripción y variación retórico-funcional del género Tesis Doctoral: Un análisis desde dos disciplinas y dos comunidades discursivas a partir del Corpus Te DiCE-2010 (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martínez, J.M. (2009). El léxico del español de los negocios. Investigaciones Lingüísticas en el Siglo XXI1, 169–187.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matthiessen, C. (1995). Lexicogrammatical Cartography: English Systems. Tokyo, Japan: International Language Sciences Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McCloskey, D. (1983). The rhetoric of Economics. Journal of Economic Literature, 31(2), 482–504.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1985). The Rhetoric of Economics. Madison, WS: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1994). Knowledge and Persuasion in Economics. Cambridge, UK: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mosini, V. (2011). Reassessing the Paradigm of Economics: Bringing Positive Economics Back into the Normative Framework. London, UK: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paltridge, B. (2002). Genre, text type, and the English for Academic Purposes. In A. Johns (Ed.), Genre in the Classroom (pp. 73–90). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parodi, G. (2005). Lingüística de corpus y análisis multidimensional: Exploración de la variación en el Corpus PUCV-2003. In G. Parodi (Ed.), Discurso Especializado e Instituciones Formadoras (pp. 83–126). Valparaíso, Chile: EUV.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2007). Variation across register in Spanish: Exploring the El Grial PUCV Corpus. In G. Parodi (Ed.), Working with Spanish Corpora (pp. 11–53). London, UK: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (Ed.) (2010a). Academic and Professional Discourse Genres in Spanish. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2010b). University academic genres: A miscellaneous discourse. In G. Parodi (Ed.), Academic and Professional Discourse Genres in Spanish (pp. 83–100). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2010c). Written discourse genres: Towards an integral conception from a sociocognitive perspective. In G. Parodi (Ed.), Academic and Professional Discourse Genres in Spanish (pp. 17–36). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2010d). The Textbook genre and its rhetorical organisation across four scientific disciplines: Between abstraction and concreteness. In G. Parodi (Ed.), Academic and Professional Discourse Genres in Spanish (pp. 171–188). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2011). The rhetorical organisation of the Textbook genre across disciplines: A “colony-in-loops”? Discourse Studies, 12(1), 195–222. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2012a). ¿Qué se lee en los estudios doctorales?: Estudio empírico basado en géneros a través del discurso académico de seis disciplinas. Revista de Linguistica Teórica y Aplicada, 50(2), 89–119. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2012b). University genres and multisemiotic features: Accesing specialized knowledge through disciplinarity. Fórum Linguístico, 9(4), 259–282. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2014). Genre organisation in specialised discourse: Disciplinary variation across university textbooks. Discourse Studies, 16(1), 65–87. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parodi, G., Boudon, E., & Julio, C. (2014). La organización retórica del género Manual de Economía: Un discurso en tránsito disciplinar. Revista de Lingüística Teórica y Aplicada, 52(2), 133–163. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parodi, G., & Burdiles, G. (2013, November). El pronombre ELLO como mecanismo encapsulador en el discurso académico de la Economía: función gramatical y referencia textual. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Sociedad Chilena de Lingüística (SOCHIL) , Concepción, Chile.
. (Eds.) (2015). Leer y Escribir en Contextos Académicos y Profesionales. Géneros, Corpus y Métodos. Santiago de Chile, Chile: Ariel.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parodi, G., & Gramajo, A. (2007). Technical-professional discourses: Specialized and dissemination text types. In G. Parodi (Ed.), Working with Spanish Corpora (pp. 145–172). London, UK: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parodi, G., Ibáñez, R., & Venegas, R. (2010). Discourse genres in PUCV-2006 Academic and Professional Corpus of Spanish: Criteria, definitions, and examples. In G. Parodi (Ed.), Academic and Professional Discourse Genres in Spanish (pp. 37–64). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sinclair, J. (2005). Corpus creation. In G. Sampson & D. McCarthy (Eds.), Corpus Linguistics: Readings in a Widening Discipline (pp. 78–84). London, UK: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stagnaro, D. (2011, November). ¿Qué analizan los economistas?: Exploración del proceso “analizar” en artículos de Desarrollo Económico del período 2000-2010 . Paper presented at XII Congreso Internacional de la Sociedad Argentina de Lingüística , Santa Fé, Argentina.
. (2012, July). Negociación interpersonal en las conclusiones del artículo de investigación de economía: Exploración de los recursos expresivos del compromiso frente a las propuestas . Paper presented at the XIII Congreso de la Sociedad Argentina de Lingüística , San Luis, Argentina.
Swales, J. (1990). Genre Analysis. English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2004). Research Genres: Exploration and Applications. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2009). Worlds of genre-Metaphors of genre. In Ch. Bazerman,A. Bonini & D. Figueiredo (Eds.), Genre in a Changing World (pp. 3–16). Los Angeles, CA: The Clearing House & Parlor Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2012, June). Texts and commentaries: Toward a reception study of “Genre Tradition” (Hyon, 1996) . Paper presented at the International Conference Rethinking Genre 20 Years Later , Ottawa, Canada.
Tognini-Bonelli, E. (2001). Corpus Linguistics at Work. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Dijk, T. (1977). Text and Context. London, UK: LongmanGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhu, W. (2004). Writing in business courses: An analysis of assignments types, their characteristics, and the required skills. English for Specific Purposes, 1(2), 11–135.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (10)

Cited by ten other publications

Checa-Garcia, Irene
2023. An experimental approach to colloquiality perception in L1 and L2 Spanish. Register Studies 5:1 ► pp. 111 ff. DOI logo
SEZGİN, Hatice
2023. Multimodality in EAP Objectives and Practice. The Literacy Trek 9:1 ► pp. 30 ff. DOI logo
Kamrotov, Mikhail, Ekaterina Talalakina & Denis Stukal
2022. Technical vocabulary in languages for special purposes: The corpus-based Russian economics word list. Lingua 273 ► pp. 103326 ff. DOI logo
Bello Viruega, Iria & Elisa Narváez García
2021. A study of coherence relations in the English scientific register. In “All families and genera”, ► pp. 265 ff. DOI logo
Parapar, Maikel Chao
2021.  En cualquier caso. Marcadores de distanciamiento en textos científicos en español. Pragmática Sociocultural / Sociocultural Pragmatics 9:1 ► pp. 51 ff. DOI logo
Parodi Sweis, Giovanni, Tomás Moreno-de-León & Cristobal Julio
2020. Comprensión de textos escritos: reconceptualizaciones en torno a las demandas del siglo XXI. Íkala 25:3 ► pp. 775 ff. DOI logo
Parodi, Giovanni & Gina Burdiles
2019. Los pronombres neutros ‘esto’, ‘eso’ y ‘aquello’ como mecanismos encapsuladores en el discurso de la economía. Spanish in Context 16:1 ► pp. 104 ff. DOI logo
Cautín-Epifani, Violeta & Jadranka Gladic Miralles
2018. PATRONES DE FORMULACIÓN DE OBJETIVOS EN ARTÍCULOS DE INVESTIGACIÓN EN LAS DISCIPLINAS DE LINGÜÍSTICA Y BIOTECNOLOGÍA ESCRITOS EN INGLÉS. Linguagem em (Dis)curso 18:1 ► pp. 35 ff. DOI logo
Cotos, Elena
2017. Language for Specific Purposes and Corpus‐based Pedagogy. In The Handbook of Technology and Second Language Teaching and Learning, ► pp. 248 ff. DOI logo
Parodi, Giovanni
2015. Corpus de aprendices de español (CAES). Journal of Spanish Language Teaching 2:2 ► pp. 194 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue