Local grammar, discourse acts, and disciplinarity: A case study of definition

Abstract

This study employed the local grammar approach to explore disciplinary variations in the use of the discourse act ‘definition’ in research articles in Linguistics, Education, Physics, and Civil Engineering. The study aimed to unveil the intricate connection between language use and disciplinarity, and to offer an alternative approach to examine disciplinary discourses. Four corpora, i.e., LinDEAP, EduDEAP, PhysDEAP, and CivDEAP from the DEAP (Database of English for Academic Purposes) Corpus, were used for the study. Instances of definition were retrieved by searching for a set of lexico-syntactic markers, and the subsequent local grammar analyses of these instances identified 37 relatively frequent patterns associated with definition. We then deliberated on the similarities and differences in the distribution of local grammar patterns of definition between the soft and hard sciences as well as between the pure and applied disciplines. It was argued that the variations in the use of definition not only reflect but also construct the disciplinary epistemologies. The implications for EAP/ESP writing research and pedagogy were also discussed.