Academic phrase bank for writing in Estonian: a language resource to aid in the learning and teaching of writing
The present paper gives an overview of the Academic Phrase Bank for Writing in Estonian. The phrase bank is a language resource that supports the thesis writing process. The phrase bank is primarily intended to be used as a pedagogical tool during the supervision process, the resource can also be used by students independently.
The phrase bank is a publicly available resource (teadustekst.ut.ee) which includes approximately 750 expressions in Estonian. The expressions are organized according to their function (e.g. stating the aim, indicating a gap, introducing the method, making conclusions, etc.), which are in turn connected to the three major sections in the Estonian thesis (Introduction, Main Body, and Conclusion).
The phrase bank has been compiled based on empirical analysis of Bachelor and Master’s theses defended at the University of Tartu in 2013–2017. The semi-random sample consisted of 200 theses, divided equally between the four faculties of the university – Humanities and Arts, Social Sciences, Science and Technology, and Medical Sciences. As such, the phrases in the phrase bank are not associated with any particular field or discipline, but with the academic register in general. All the original content has been removed and the phrase bank only presents academic expressions, such as the aim of the present thesis is to, the remainder of the paper is structured as follows, these results indicate.
The phrase bank is developed for students writing in Estonian as L1 as well as L2, and primarily supports thesis writing at bachelor and master level. This language resource is also useful for users writing in other academic genres, such as essays or research articles.
Anson, Chris M. 2016. The Pop Warner chronicles: a case study in contextual adaptation and the transfer of writing ability. – College Composition and Communication 67 (4), 518–549.
Anthony, Laurence 2018. AntConc (Version 3.5.7) [Computer Software]. Tokyo: Waseda University. http://www.laurenceanthony.net/ (11.03.2019).
Biber, Douglas, Federica Barbieri 2007. Lexical bundles in university spoken and written registers. – English for Specific Purposes 26 (3), 263–286.
Biber jt 2000 = Douglas Biber, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad, Edward Finegan. Longman Grammar of Written and Spoken English. Harlow: Longman.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2006.08.003.
Cortes, Viviana 2013. The purpose of this study is to: connecting lexical bundles and moves in research article introductions. – Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (1), 33–43.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2012.11.002.
Cotos jt 2017 = Elena Cotos, Sarah R. Huffman, Stephanie Link. A move/step model for methods sections: demonstrating rigour and credibility. – English for Specific Purposes 46, 90–106.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2017.01.001.
Davis, Mary, John Morley 2015. Phrasal intertextuality: the responses of academics from different disciplines to students’ re-use of phrases. – Journal of Second Language Writing 28, 20–35.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2015.02.004.
Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein 2014. They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. New York, London: WW Norton & Company.
Hyland, Ken 2008. Academic clusters: text patterning in published and postgraduate writing. – International Journal of Applied Linguistics 18 (1), 41–62.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1473-4192.2008.00178.x.
Lancaster, Zak 2016. Do academics really write this way? A corpus investigation of moves and templates in “They Say/I Say”. – College Composition and Communication 67 (3), 437–464.
Moreno, Ana I., John M. Swales 2018. Strengthening move analysis methodology towards bridging the function-form gap. – English for Specific Purposes 50, 40–63.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2017.11.006.
Morley, John s. a. Phrasebank: a university-wide online writing resource. https://tinyurl.com/lgbsxd6 (11.03.2019).
Rapp, Christian, Peter Kauf 2018. Scaling academic writing instruction: evaluation of a scaffolding tool (Thesis Writer). – International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education 28 (4), 590–615.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2017.11.006.
