Title: A Combined Corpus and Systemic-Functional Analysis of the Problem-Solution Pattern in a Student and Professional Corpus of Technical Writing
Abstract: This article reports on research describing similarities and differences between expert and novice writing in the problem-solution pattern, a frequent rhetorical pattern of technical academic writing. A corpus of undergraduate student writing and one containing professional writing consisted of 80 and 60 recommendation reports, respectively, with each corpus totaling approximately 250,000 words. Drawing on two analytic perspectives, the methodology included searches for key words that provided linguistic evidence for the problem-solution pattern. A more delicate examination of the linguistic meanings encoded in the problemsolution reports involved a systemic-functional approach to analysis of evaluative texts, APPRAISAL (Martin, 2000, in press), as well as an analysis of the lexicogrammatical patterning of the key word problem within a framework of causal relations. Along with many similarities between the expert and the novice writing, findings highlight important differences in the use of problem within the causal relation patterns. Pedagogical implications are discussed. The problem-solution rhetorical pattern appears frequently in technical reports and other academic writing, perhaps most notably when the author introduces the issue that the report or paper discusses as a problem and then presents the main point of the paper as a solution. As a consequence, successful academic English writers draw on important aspects of their rhetorical knowledge and strategic competence when they exploit the linguistic resources required to express the problemsolution pattern in a range of academic writing. Accordingly, ESL/EFL teachers need to understand this common pattern, particularly in terms of how it is realized linguistically by novice and expert writers. This study
Publication Year: 2003
Publication Date: 2003-10-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 85
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