Institutional Academic Disourse in European University websites

Institutional Academic Discoursein European Universities’ websites

CLAVIER 13 conference

Marco [email protected]

Chiara [email protected]

Modena, 6-8 November 2013

Research project

� Multidisciplinary research project on ‘internationalisation’ at the University of Napoli Federico II

Research project


� University governance: analysis of institutional and regulatory process

� Economics: analysis of effects of competition within a general regulatory framework

� Linguistics: analysis of European university websites

Research project


� University governance: analysis of institutional and regulatory process

� Economics: analysis of effects of competition within a general regulatory framework

� Linguistics: analysis of European university websites

� University of Bologna in Forlì

� AcWaC-EU

Outline

� Context

� Previous work

� Corpus

� Some findings

� Conclusions

� Future steps

Context

Context

� Great impact on the way Universities disseminate knowledge on the web

� Accommodate the information provided to the needs of their international audience

Marketization of university discourse via the use of ELF

Previous work

• Marketization of University discourse

� Fairclough (1993); Mautner (2005); Morish and Sauntson (2013); Swales (2004).

• Corpus linguistics

� Biber (2006) – academic and institutional genres [catalogues, course syllabi, handbooks, programme web pages]

• ELFA in academic domain

� Mauranen (2010) – English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings

• Academic Web-as-Corpus

� Bernardini, Ferraresi, Gaspari (2010), Vigo, Bernardini, Ferraresi, Gaspari e Venuti (2012), Bernarini, Ferraresi(2012, 2013)

Corpus

• “acWaC-EU” (an acronym for “academic Web-as-Corpus in Europe”),

• nearly 90-million words of web pages in English crawled from the websites of European universities.

• Bernardini and Ferraresi (8th Web as Corpus Workshop (WAC-8) @ Corpus Linguistics 2013)

http://mrscoulter.sslmit.unibo.it/acwac/acwac-eu.html

Keywords

� Comparison between native and ELF websites

� Keywords (WordSmith Tools 5, Scott 2008) as a tool to identify differences / similarities:

� Content (Scott and Trible 2006)

� Style (web-based genres)

� Communicative function (descriptive, interactive)

� Key words are those words found in a corpus we are interested in, whose frequency is high in comparison with a corpus we have taken as reference corpus.

Keywords

Keywords

� Native university websites vs. ELF universitywebsites

� ELF university websites vs. native universities’websites

� First 400 keywords

Keywords

Common keywords

� Native corpus:

� Places (London, Ireland, Dublin, Glasgow)

� Nationalities (British, Irish)

� Departments, subjects (physics, mathematics)

� ELF corpus:

� Places (Russia, Ukraine, France, Paris, Germany, Dublin, Amsterdam)

� Nationalities (Russian, Ukrainian, French)

� Departments, subjects (economics, sciences)

‘native’ keywords

� Personal pronouns and possessive adjectives

� you (4), our (6), your (7), we (9), my (235)



� you (4), our (6), your (7), we (9), my (235)

Ex. You will give yourself the best possible chance if you apply as early as possible once you have decided on your course and institution

Ex. We will provide you with the information you need to make an informed choice about courses at Birmingham City University

Ex. Hi, my name is Vicki and I'm studying Food Production and Supply Management. My time



� you (4), our (6), your (7), we (9), my (235)

� Modality

� will (14), may (94), can (181), need (281), would (378)



� you (4), our (6), your (7), we (9), my (235)

� Modality


you will be, you will need, students will be, you will have,

you will find, the university will

you may be, you may have, you may also, you may not,

the university may, you may find



� you (4), our (6), your (7), we (9), my (235)

� Modality


� Imperative forms

� find (24), click (77), contact (87), visit (150), provide (151),open (167), see (175), ensure (190), include (199), make (218), trust (227), undertake (252), do (277), apply (278), talk (315),deliver (329), use (336), explore (363)


� Course organisation and description + useful info

� hons (17), postgraduate (19), modules (26), campus (30), course (32), advice (39), details (46), information (48), scheme (49), careers (54), prospectus (61), skills (62), honours (65), facilities (69), undergraduate (73), enquiries (91), staff (99), links (100), opportunities (131), employability (139), module (142), fees (143), services (160), bursaries (163), community (169), disability (180), bursary (205), queries (206), accessibility (209), employers (215), enquiry (222), progression (233), accommodation (234), qualifications (243)



� Promotional language

� range (12), available (36), award (95), awards (107), full (108), creative (189), ensure (190), exciting (197), delighted (238), fantastic (256), wide (266), committed (268), excellent (365), flexible (372), bespoke (374), supportive (382), reputation (385)





� Wh- words and deixis

� how (88), what (198), here (122), this (133)





� Wh- words and deixis

� how (88), what (198), here (122), this (133)

� Overseas students

� overseas (254)

ELF keywords

� University organisation and description

ELF keywords


� faculty (8), rector (20), prof (29), professors (31), institutions (44), administration (51), admission (52), studies (54), bachelor's (62), specialists (64), according (68), thesis (92), faculties (112), documents (115), semester (123), activities (139), teachers (140), training (163), researches (178), projects (179), candidate (196), laboratories (221), laboratory (225), departments (255), specializations (286), institution (290), internship (311), specialities (316), personnel (321), tasks (326), representatives (342), curricula (351), problems (358), institute (359), official (361), president (362), informational (367), rectors (372)

ELF keywords


� faculty (8), rector (20), prof (29), professors (31), institutions (44), administration (51), admission (52), studies (54), bachelor's (62), specialists (64), according (68),thesis (92), faculties (112), documents (115), semester(123), activities (139), teachers (140), training (163), researches (178), projects (179), candidate (196), laboratories (221), laboratory (225), departments (255), specializations (286), institution (290), internship (311), specialities (316), personnel (321), tasks (326), representatives (342), curricula (351), problems (358), institute (359), official (361), president (362), informational (367), rectors (372)

ELF keywords


� Mobility

ELF keywords


� Mobility

� relations (76), language (108), integration (127), agreements (134), mobility (135), abroad (176), sphere (186), implementation (218), participants (238), languages (262), affairs (292), bilateral (331), Mediterranean (333), Euromed (376), joint (377), passport (388)

ELF keywords


� Mobility

� Erasmus

ELF keywords


� Mobility

� Erasmus

� European (18), ECTS (35), exchange (40), erasmus (48), europe (129), euro (295), euros (345)

ELF keywords


� Mobility

� Erasmus

� Bologna process

� Bologna (201)

ELF keywords


� Mobility

� Erasmus

� Bologna process

� Descriptive verbs

ELF keywords


� Mobility

� Erasmus

� Bologna process


� was (60), organizes (220), organize (301), participated (350), became (375), took (396)

ELF keywords


� Mobility

� Erasmus

� Bologna process


� (limited) Promotional language

ELF keywords


� Mobility

� Erasmus

� Bologna process


� (limited) Promotional language

� specialists (64), possibility (203), different (267), specializations (286), specialities (316), goal (332), possibilities (343), speciality(387)

Preliminary findings

� ‘native’ websites:

� Marketisation


� User oriented (choice of content)

� More dialogic nature

� Genre conscious communication


� ‘native’ websites:

� Marketisation


� User oriented (choice of content)

� More dialogic nature

� Genre conscious communication

� ELF websites:

� More monological nature

� Institution oriented (choice of content)

� Lack of web-communication features


� Internationalisation / integration of a common European Higher education system:

� ELF websites:

� Little or no competition

� Lack of awareness of web-based communication


� Internationalisation / integration of a common European Higher education system:

� ELF websites:

� Little or no competition

� Lack of awareness of web-based communication

� Compliance to regulations

� Need to improve web mediated communication

� Need to improve communicative competence in ELF

Further research

� More detailed, qualitative linguistic analysis

� Multimodal analysis of a sample of ‘native’ and ELF websites

� Analysis of university governance and of integration/competition of European University system

Institutional Academic Disourse in European University websites

Documents

Transcript of Institutional Academic Disourse in European University websites