Following a large body of research on metadiscourse in academic writing, this paper explores one feature of textual metadiscourse, code glosses, in English L2 academic texts written by Czech ...university students. The study draws on Hyland’s metadiscourse model (2005), which characterizes code glosses as devices that elaborate propositional meanings by rephrasing or explaining what has been said. Thus, they can help readers understand the writer’s intended meaning or contribute to the formation of persuasive arguments. The corpus consists of 48 English L2 Master’s theses representing three disciplines – linguistics, literature and English language teaching (ELT) methodology, totalling almost 950,000 words. The results are compared with professional writing represented by English L1 research articles from the same disciplines. The findings reveal differences in the frequency and functions of several code glosses, as novice writers are shown to overuse certain devices. The findings also indicate cross-disciplinary variation, as reformulation and exemplification proved to be much more prominent in linguistics and methodology than in literary studies.
Aim. The paper focuses on the divergence of views of experts from four European educational institutions on key competences, which would become the basis for a successful performance of a mentor ...position. They should be taken as the key items of a mentor competence profile.
Methods. A panel discussion – specifically, a focus group interview as its alternative form – was used to determine how the experts assessed particular competences of the mentor competence profile, i.e. to identify which competences they considered to be the key ones of the mentor competence profile. The panel discussion was led by six focus groups, members of which were experts representing four different countries from six universities: two from Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and one from Hungary and Serbia.
Results. The intention of the conducted panel discussion was to find a common view and consensus on the key competences required for a successful performance of the mentor position. However, the results of the panel discussion showed a significant divergence of the opinions on the fundamental mentor competences depending on the country the experts were from. Differences in the views on the issue examined by experts representing different institutions from the same country also occurred, but proved to be inconclusive.
Conclusion. Mentoring is currently considered one of the most important means of developing pedagogical competences of future and novice teachers. The results of the conducted panel discussion may contribute to the creation of a platform on which an adequate professional mentor training can be designed.
There is probably no doubt that English is a lingua franca of academia nowadays. Previous research has shown that one of the tendencies observed in academic English as Lingua Franca (ELF) speech is ...enhanced explicitness (Mauranen 2012). A common manifestations of explicitation is discourse reflexivity (Mauranen 2017), making discourse organisation more visible and enhancing the clarity in the contexts where interlocutors do not share a common linguistic and/or cultural background. Drawing on these findings this paper aims to investigate reflexive phenomena in written academic ELF, namely in the SciELF corpus. The corpus consists of research articles written by L2 users of English, which have not undergone any professional proofreading. The paper focuses on one reflexive category, code glosses, which “supply additional information by rephrasing, explaining or elaborating what has been said” (Hyland 2005: 52). The findings are compared with the corpus of published research articles written by Anglophone writers, which has been designed on the basis of SciELF. The results reveal significant differences in the frequency and functions of several code glosses, but at the same time show the importance of discourse reflexivity in both corpora.
There is probably no doubt that English is a lingua franca of academia nowadays. Previous research has shown that one of the tendencies observed in academic English as Lingua Franca (ELF) speech is ...enhanced explicitness (Mauranen 2012). A common manifestations of explicitation is discourse reflexivity (Mauranen 2017), making discourse organisation more visible and enhancing the clarity in the contexts where interlocutors do not share a common linguistic and/or cultural background. Drawing on these findings this paper aims to investigate reflexive phenomena in written academic ELF, namely in the SciELF corpus. The corpus consists of research articles written by L2 users of English, which have not undergone any professional proofreading. The paper focuses on one reflexive category, code glosses, which “supply additional information by rephrasing, explaining or elaborating what has been said” (Hyland 2005: 52). The findings are compared with the corpus of published research articles written by Anglophone writers, which has been designed on the basis of SciELF. The results reveal significant differences in the frequency and functions of several code glosses, but at the same time show the importance of discourse reflexivity in both corpora.
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