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Article published In:
English Text Construction
Vol. 14:2 (2021) ► pp.203–230

Attribution in novice academic writing

| University of Oslo

Academic attribution, the direct acknowledgement of external sources, is investigated in two corpora of novice academic English, representing first and second language writing in linguistics. The forms and uses of attribution are analysed in a formal-functional framework. There is an overall underrepresentation of attribution in the learner corpus. However, the corpora have a similar proportional distribution of integral and non-integral attribution, but a difference in subtypes of these. Undated attributions are discussed as a special case. They occur in specific contexts, of which reference to course reading is peculiar to novice writing. Comparisons with expert corpora in Norwegian and English indicate that some, but not all, of the differences between the novice corpora may be linked to influence from the learners’ first language and culture.

Keywords: academic English, novice writing, attribution, Norwegian learners of English
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
  • 3.Material and method
    • 3.1Corpora and software
    • 3.2Identification and classification of attributions
  • 4.Corpus analysis
    • 4.1Frequency and dispersion of attribution
    • 4.2Categories of attribution in the corpora
      • 4.2.1Verb-controlling attribution
      • 4.2.2Naming attribution
      • 4.2.3Non-integral attribution
    • 4.3The use of undated attribution
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1The frequency of attribution in novice texts
    • 5.2Attribution types
  • 6.Closing remarks
  • Notes
  • Primary data
  • References
Published online: 24 May 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.00047.has
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