La escritura académica: análisis textolingüístico

Abstract

This article sheds light on those factors which are essential for an article to be appropriate to its social; cultural; and linguistic context. In the first section; we analyze an academic text written by a second language student. By analyzing the interference errors; working “ex negativo” as it were; we can observe how discourse mechanisms such as reference; theme and rheme patterns; use of logical connectors to organize discourse; and finally the level of synthesis as demonstrated in the grammatical metaphors of nominal style all contribute to the cohesion of the discourse. In addition to these internal cohesion devices we will see that text is also a function of external cohesion; or register in the sense of the fine tuning of the text to its communicative and interpersonal context. The second section discusses aspects of the intertextuality of texts. The way in which a text conforms to a certain genre will be revealed through the similarities in textual development. Finally; we will show that the above mentioned devices are not the only factors which make successful text but that ideological factors are also at play. The rhetorical devices we've analyzed and others serve to define the author's point of view as well as to take on and support a certain ideology and claim membership in a certain theoretical school. It is indispensable that a novice academic writer not only learn to work with theoretical techniques but also with the strategies necessary to employ them at an intertextual and ideological level.