Дискурсивно-стилистический анализ английской письменной научной речи

Министерство науки и высшего образования Российской Федерации 

САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГСКИЙ 

ПОЛИТЕХНИЧЕСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ ПЕТРА ВЕЛИКОГО

Е. С. Клочкова

ДИСКУРСИВНО-СТИЛИСТИЧЕСКИЙ 

АНАЛИЗ  

АНГЛИЙСКОЙ  ПИСЬМЕННОЙ  

НАУЧНОЙ  РЕЧИ

Учебное пособие

Санкт-Петербург

2019

ПОЛИТЕХ-ПРЕСС
Санкт-Петербургский
политехнический университет
Петра Великого

ББК 81.432.1-99(=432.1)я73

К50

Р е ц е н з е н т ы: 

Доктор педагогических наук, профессор кафедры  

лингвистики и межкультурной коммуникации СПбПУ  

А. В. Рубцова

Кандидат филологических наук, доцент кафедры  

иностранных языков, старший научный сотрудник НИЧ  

Самарского государственного социально-педагогического университета  

С. А. Стройков

Клочкова Е. С. Дискурсивно-стилистический анализ английской пись-

менной научной речи : учеб. пособие / Е. С. Клочкова. – СПб. : ПОЛИТЕХ-
ПРЕСС, 2019. – 88 с.

Основной целью пособия является формирование системы знаний о 

стилистических особенностях английского научного стиля, а также умений 
и навыков лингвистического анализа оригинальных научных текстов 
на английском языке. Пособие предлагает также систему заданий по формированию 
умений репродуктивной и продуктивной речевой деятельности, 
а именно умений, направленных на создание и редактирование научного 
текста на английском языке. 

Пособие может быть использовано для подготовки будущих специали-

стов к работе с английскими научными текстами, в переводческой и педагогической 
деятельности.

Печатается по решению

Совета по издательской деятельности Ученого совета 

Санкт-Петербургского политехнического университета Петра Великого.

© Клочкова Е. С., 2019
© Санкт-Петербургский политехнический
 
университет Петра Великого, 2019
doi: 10.18720/SPBPU/2/id19-188
ISBN 978-5-7422-6688-4

The Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation

PETER THE GREAT 

SAINT-PETERSBURG POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY

E. S. Klochkova

STYLISTIC  AND  DISCOURSE 

ANALYSIS  OF  

ENGLISH  ACADEMIC  TEXTS

Textbook

Saint-Petersburg

2019

Peter the Great 
St.Petersburg Polytechnic 
University

POLYTECH-PRESS

doi: 10.18720/SPBPU/2/id19-188
ISBN 978-5-7422-6688-4

P e e r  r e v i e w e d  b y:

PhD habil., Professor, Department of Linguistics and Intercultural 

Communication, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University 

A. V. Rubtsova

PhD, Associate Professor, Departments of Foreign Languages,  

Samara State University of Social Sciences and Education  

S. A. Stroykov

Klochkova E. S. Stylistic and Discourse Analysis of English academic texts : 

textbook / E. S. Klochkova. – SPb. : POLYTECH-PRESS, 2019. – 88 p.

The textbook presents information about the salient features of the English 

academic style as well as basic methods of linguistic analysis of authentic academic 
texts written in English. The textbook also contains training tasks and exercises 
aimed at developing reproductive and productive speech skills, in particular the 
skills to write and edit English academic texts.

Printed by the Publishing Council 

of the Peter the Great St. Petersburg polytechnic university Academic Council.

© Klochkova E. S., 2019
© Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic
 
University, 2019

ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ

Предисловие ......................................................................................... 6
Part I. English academic style .............................................................. 7

1. Salient features of English academic texts .................................... 7

Formal style ................................................................................ 7

2. Academic vocabulary .................................................................... 10

Vocabulary shift ........................................................................... 10
Academic word list ...................................................................... 17
Word families ............................................................................... 17
Nouns vs. verbs in academic writing ........................................... 18
Synonyms and confusing pairs .................................................... 22

3. Grammatical features of English academic texts .......................... 27

Word order ................................................................................... 27
Nouns Keeping Foreign Plurals .................................................. 31
Articles ........................................................................................ 33
Relative clauses ........................................................................... 36

Part II. Academic text: composition and texture ............................... 42

1. Paragraphing .................................................................................. 42

Paragraph structure .................................................................... 42
Topic Sentence ............................................................................. 43
Paragraph development .............................................................. 46
Cohesion and coherence ............................................................. 48
Transitional words ...................................................................... 52
Punctuation ................................................................................. 57

2. Essay .............................................................................................. 62

Essay structure ............................................................................ 62
Types of essays ............................................................................ 63

References .............................................................................................. 72
Appendix A. Academic Word List ....................................................... 74
Appendix B. Evaluating a paragraph ................................................. 84
Appendix C. Supplementary texts for analysis (Students’ essays) .....  86

ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ

Учебное пособие «Дискурсивно-стилистический анализ ан-

глийской письменной научной речи» составлено в соответствии  
с программой курса «Переводческие аспекты публикационной 
деятельности» (направление подготовки – 45.04.02 «Лингвистика», 
магистратура). 

Настоящее пособие включает в себя описание характерных 

лексических, грамматических и композиционных особенностей 
английского научного стиля в целом и отдельных речевых жанров 
в частности. Теоретические положения иллюстрируются 
примерами из аутентичных научных текстов на английском языке. 
Отработка и закрепление полученных теоретических знаний 
обеспечивается заданиями, нацеленными на лингвистический 
анализ фрагментов научных текстов, написанных на английском 
языке. Пособие также снабжено практическими упражнениями, 
направленными на отработку отдельных лексико-грамматических 
умений. 

Пособие состоит из двух частей. Часть I содержит общие 

сведения о характерных чертах английского научного стиля, его 
доминирующих стилевых чертах, особенностях отбора лексики 
и грамматических конструкций, а также типовой структуре  
абзаца. 

Часть II нацелена на отработку навыка создания письменного 

научного текста на английском языке. В качестве образца научного 
текста рассматривается жанр академического эссе. Обучающимся 
предлагается алгоритм написания эссе, соответствующих 
стандартам, принятым в англоязычной образовательной 
среде. 

Настоящее пособие предназначено для магистрантов направ-

ления подготовки «Лингвистика». Кроме того, отдельные разделы 
пособия могут быть использованы при обучении аспирантов 
английскому языку для академических целей. 

PART 1. ENGLISH ACADEMIC STYLE

1. Salient features of English academic texts

The main features of an English academic text include the follow-

ing aspects:

1. Formal style.
2. Academic vocabulary and terminology.
3. Complex syntactic structures and long sentences.
4. Discourse conventions.
5. Specific patterns of text organization. 

Formal style

Academic writing tends to be accurate, objective and impersonal. 

When writing an academic text, an author should consider the follow-
ing guidelines.

1. Do not use idiomatic or colloquial vocabulary; instead use stan-

dard English: 

kids => children 
boss => manager.
2. Use vocabulary accurately. There is a difference between “rule” 

and “law”, or “weather” and “climate”, which you are expected to 
know if you study these subjects.

3. Be as precise as possible when dealing with facts or figures. 

Avoid phrases such as “about a hundred” or “hundreds of years ago”. 
If it is necessary to estimate numbers, use “approximately” rather 
than “about”.

4. Conclusions should use tentative language. Avoid absolute state-

ments such as “unemployment causes crime”. Instead, use cautious 
phrases: “unemployment may cause crime” or “tends to cause crime”.

5. Avoid adverbs that show your personal attitude: luckily, remark-

ably, surprisingly.

6. Do not contract verb forms: don’t, can’t. Use the full form: do 

not, cannot.

7. Although academic English tends to use the passive more than 

standard English, it should not be overused. Both are needed. Compare:

Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter.
The moons of Jupiter were discovered by Galileo.
In the first case, the focus is on Galileo, in the second (passive) on 

the moons.

8. Avoid the following:
• like for introducing examples. Use such as or for instance.
• thing and combinations with “thing”, for example nothing or 

something. Use factor, issue or topic.

• lots of. Use a significant/considerable number.
• little/big. Use small/large.
• “get” phrases such as get better/worse. Use improve and dete-

riorate.

• good/bad are simplistic. Use positive/negative (e.g. the changes 

had several positive aspects).

9. Do not use question forms such as “Why did war break out in 

1914?” Instead, use statements: There were three reasons for the out-
break of war...

10. Avoid numbering sections of your text, except in reports 

and long essays. Use conjunctions and signposting expressions to  
introduce new sections (e.g. Turning to the question of detecting 
cancer...).

11. When writing lists, avoid using etc. or and so on. Insert “and” 

before the last item: 

The main products were pharmaceuticals, electronic goods and 

confectionery.

12. Avoid using phrasal verbs if there is a suitable synonym.
Go on => continue
Bring up => raise

Exercise 1. a) Read the following paragraph. Underline the exam-

ples of a poor style. 

How to make people work harder is a topic that lots of people have 

written about in the last few years. There are lots of different theories 

etc and I think some of them are ok. When we think about this we 
should remember the old Chinese proverb, that you can lead a horse to 
water but you can’t make it drink. So how do we increase production? 
It’s quite a complex subject but I’ll just talk about a couple of ideas.

b) Poor style examples can be explained as follows. Complete the 

table using the guidelines listed above.

Examples
Reasons

How to make people work harder ... Imprecise vocabulary – use “moti-

vation”

... lots of people ...
Vague – provide references

... the last few years.
Vague – specify the dates

lots of different ...
Avoid “lots of”

... etc ...
... I think ...
... are ok. 
When we think about this ...
... the old Chinese proverb ...
So how do we increase production? 
It’s quite a ...
... I’ll just talk about a couple ...

c) The paragraph could be re-written in more suitable style. Read 

the new version, compare it with the previous paragraph. Analyze and 
list the differences.

Motivation has been the subject of numerous studies during re-

cent decades, but this essay will focus on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs  
theory (1943) and Herzberg’s two-factor theory (1966). Their con- 
temporary relevance to the need to motivate employees effectively 
will be examined critically, given that this can be considered crucial  
to a firm’s survival in the current economic climate.

Exercise 2. a) Read the paragraph. Underline the examples of poor 

style. Complete the table similar to that in Exercise 1. 

Capital is a difficult thing to understand. We can explain it in dif-

ferent ways, and in accounting we can look at it from different angles. 

Accountants talk about legal capital, financial capital and physical 
capital. How we apply financial and physical concepts of capital isn't 
easy because people in business use it differently.

Examples
Reasons

Is a difficult thing…
Avoid “thing” and combinations 
with “thing”

…
…

…
…

b) Rewrite the paragraph in more suitable style.

2. Academic vocabulary

Vocabulary shift

English often has several choices to refer to a concept. The choice 

is between synonyms which can be more or less formal. 

For example, a phrasal or prepositional verb is considered to 

be less formal while a single verb is more formal. In addition, 
words with Germanic origins are regarded as neutral or less formal  
whereas the words with Latinate origins increase the formality of 
writing. 

In lectures and other instances of everyday spoken English, neutral  

or less formal vocabulary is often used; however, for written aca- 
demic style, there is a tendency for academic writers to use a formal  
synonyms when possible. In some fields this is a very noticeable sty-
listic characteristic. Here is an example.

Given our fast-paced society, people must routinely put creative 

solutions to unexpected problems into practice.

Given our fast-paced society, people must routinely implement  

creative solutions to unexpected problems.

We tried to find a new way of understanding the data.
We attempted to find a new way of understanding the data.

Exercise 3. Find formal synonyms for the following words.

More Formal
Neutral/Less formal

A
1. appear
a. seem

2. ascend
b. tell

3. assist
c. use

4. cease
d. help

5. commence
e. get

6. consume
f. go

7. decrease
g. show

8. demonstrate
h. end

9. depart
i. keep

10. desire
j. ask

11. enquire
k. stop

12. finish
l. keep

13. inform
m. climb

14. obtain
n. live

15. preserve
o. begin 

16. reject
p. shorten

17. release
q. mend

18. repair
r. free

19. require
s. want

20. reside
t. need

21. retain
u. say no

B
1. comprehension
a. house

2. deficiency
b. sight

3. opportunity 
c. sweat

4. perspiration
d. lack

5. residence
e. understanding

6. vision
f. chance

C
1. finally 
a. again and again

2. immediately
b. on and off