From text to corpus

This contrastive study focuses on the functions of first person subject pronouns in economics article introductions in French and English. It combines a qualitative analysis of the way the pronouns are used within a typical CARS (Create a Research Space) -type introduction (Swales 1990, 2004) with a more quantitative concordance-based analysis of the varying authorial roles played by the pronouns and their distribution within the different rhetorical moves of the introductions. The text-to-corpus approach adopted gives rise to a number of recommendations concerning the combinations of discourse analysis and corpus investigation for teaching purposes. Keywords: first person pronouns; authorial roles; economics research article introductions; CARS move model; English-French contrastive analysis; corpora and language learning