Academic Discourse: English in a Global Context

Hyland (education, U. of London) presents an introductory text on academic discourse in English, for undergraduate and postgraduate students, general readers and specialists in other areas of applied linguistics or language teaching. The text draws on several corpora of academic written and spoken discourse, with examples from Chinese, American and British academic institutions. Hyland begins with discussion of the nature of academic discourse and its significance to academic life, theoretical and methodological approaches used in studies of text and talk in the academy, and the concepts of "community" and "discipline." He then explores these approaches and concepts in relation to contemporary settings and genres, with analysis of four types of discourse--research, instructional, student, and popular academic discourse--followed by an examination of the effects of academic discourse on political and economic contexts, on perceptions of science, and on international scholarship. Annotation 穢2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)