ENGLISH

LANGUAGE IV
2021


English for Academic Purposes (EAP)

The term English for Academic Purposes (EAP) covers language research and instruction that
focuses on the communicative needs and practices of individuals working in academic
contexts. It therefore includes a range of activities from designing listening materials to
describing the discourse of doctoral defences, and while often characterised as a practical
affair, it goes beyond preparing learners for study in English to understanding the kinds of
literacy found in the academy. EAP is, then, a branch of Applied Linguistics, consisting of a
significant body of research into effective teaching and assessment, descriptions of the
linguistic and discoursal structures of academic texts, and analysis of the textual practices of
academics.

à Hyland, K. & Shaw, P. (2016). The Routledge Handbook of English for Academic Purposes.
New York: Routledge.




















 Academic Genre Network

à Feak, C. & Swales, J. (2009). Telling a research story: Writing a literature review. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
 The Research Article

Research Articles (RAs) are relatively short works (ranging from a few pages in the hard
disciplines to 20 – 30 in the soft areas) and they occupy a special status in EAP as the most
thoroughly researched expert genre. This is in part because of their importance for academic
writers. The peer-reviewed RA, particularly if it appears in a top-ranked Journal, triggers the
academic reward system at all levels. It is an extremely prestigious form of publication across
the university and the one which is most likely to be used as a measure of research
productivity.

The research article has been described as having a canonical structure consisting of four main
parts:

à Introduction
à Methods
à Results
à Discussion

…as well as additional features such as:

à Title
à Abstract
à References

This prototypical structure – known as IMRD, after the four principal components – is subject
to disciplinary variation.









Some classifications of scientific disciplines:

à Natural Sciences / Social Sciences / Humanities

à Hard sciences vs. Soft sciences

à Hard Pure / Soft Pure / Hard Applied / Soft Applied




The IMRD structure is most likely to occur in pure form in the scientific, technical, engineering
and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. By contrast, in literary studies it is very difficult to
separate the methodological approach from the findings, and subject headings are more
likely to be thematic rather than generic. Even in those fields in which conformity to the IMRD
model is more prevalent, variations are found in terms of its precise realization or in terms of
how the sections are labelled. For instance, the introduction can be broken down into a
shorter introduction and a separate literature review, or the findings and conclusions can be
merged. Instead of ‘introduction’, the initial section could be called ‘background’; the
‘methods’ section can be called ‘methods and materials’; ‘conclusions’ can be used instead of
‘discussion’, and so forth. The sections of a research article have fundamentally different
functions:


The purpose of the introduction is to present the background to the work, in order to situate
the new work in relation to it.

The methods section describes the research procedures, in part (at least in some subject
areas) so that they can be repeated by other researchers and in part because it is not possible
to assess the value of findings without understanding how they were produced.

The results section is an account of the significant findings.

And the discussion puts the findings in context, indicating what their implications are,
whether they signal the need for further research, etc.



à Swales, J. & Feak, C. (2012). Academic Writing for Graduate Students. Essential tasks and
skills. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.


TASK 1