ACADEMIC

DISCOURSE

NUR RAHMAH WAHYUDDIN

Academic Discourse

Academic discourse refers to the ways of thinking and using language

that exist in the academy.
– Textbooks
– Essays
– Conference presentations
– Dissertations
– Research articles
The Important of Academic
Discourse
– First, many countries in Europe, Asia and Australasia have
witnessed a huge expansion of Higher Education as a result of
greater social inclusion policies.
– Second reason for this growing interest in academic discourse has
been the power it wields in the careers of individual academics.
– Third major incentive for studying academic discourse comes from
a very different direction: the questioning of a positivist, empirical
view of scientific knowledge.
What Do We Know about
Academic Discourse?

1. Academic genres are persuasive and systematically structured to

secure readers’ agreement;
2. That these ways of producing agreement represent disciplinary
specific rhetorical preferences;
3. That language groups have different ways of expressing ideas and
structuring arguments;
4. That academic persuasion involves interpersonal negotiations as
much as convincing ideas.
How Is Academic Discourse
Studied?

GENRE
ANALYSIS

ANALYSING
SCHEMATIC

VALIDATING
ANALYSES
Genre Pattern

Genre is an activity that people engage in through the use of

language within a particular context.

TWO TYPES OF GENRE

1. Spoken genres: academic lectures, casual conversations, etc.
2. Written genres: reports, academic essays, textbook, etc
 Advantages of genre-based academic
discourse

Explicit Makes clear what is to be learnt to facilitate

the acquisition of writing skills.

Systematic
Provides a coherent framework for focusing on
both language and contexts.

Needs-Based Ensures that course objectives and content are

derived from students’ needs.
Supportive Gives teachers a central role in scaffolding
students’ learning and creativity.

Empowering Provides access to the patterns and

possibilities of variation in valued texts.

Critical Gives students the resources to understand

and challenge valued discourses.
PEDAGOGY

– Academic discourse should be taught through

apprenticeship format, dialogue and a socially situated
problem solving process
– Teachers need to first analyze, identify, and explicitly
teach students the academic conventions and ways of
thinking process required in different discourse
communities.
Pedagogical Strategies

– Initiation - modeling, exploring, negotiating,

meaning making, reading-to-write
– Enculturation- creating social/tasks Dialogically-
collaborating, interacting, problem solving
– Expert-novice- scaffolding, coaching,
THANK YOU