A Longitudinal Study in the Use of Direct Quotation in Literary Analysis by L2 Bachelor Students

Bc. Peter Docherty

Master's thesis

Anotácia:

The thesis is a quantitative longitudinal comparative analysis of direct quotation use in L2 Bachelor writing in EAP (literary studies). The aim of the study is to examine how the students' use of direct quotation changed over the period of their Bachelor studies. The analysis is of two corpora of texts written approximately 3 years apart. The first corpus contains 32 essays written by the Bachelor students at entry level. The second corpus contains extracts of Bachelor theses written by the same students. The corpora were interrogated for direct quotation meta-data, and the results compared. The study uses a new approach to classifying the function of direct quotation in academic writing by examining the co-text around the quotation and determining if the quotation is supporting an idea or argument of the writer, or presenting an idea or argument from the source.

Abstract:

The thesis is a quantitative longitudinal comparative analysis of direct quotation use in L2 Bachelor writing in EAP (literary studies). The aim of the study is to examine how the students' use of direct quotation changed over the period of their Bachelor studies. The analysis is of two corpora of texts written approximately 3 years apart. The first corpus contains 32 essays written by the Bachelor students at entry level. The second corpus contains extracts of Bachelor theses written by the same students. The corpora were interrogated for direct quotation meta-data, and the results compared. The study uses a new approach to classifying the function of direct quotation in academic writing by examining the co-text around the quotation and determining if the quotation is supporting an idea or argument of the writer, or presenting an idea or argument from the source.

Keywords

Direct quotation, learner corpora, L2 academic writing, rhetorical function

Jazyk práce: English

Datum vytvoření / odevzdání či podání práce: 12. 8. 2020

Obhajoba závěrečné práce

• Obhajoba proběhla 9. 9. 2020
• Vedúci: Mgr. Jana Pelclová, Ph.D.
• Oponent: doc. PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová, CSc.

Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Master programme / odbor:
Philology / English Language and Literature