ACADEMIC WRITING

Language Discourse Functions in Academic Writing



Language Discourse Functions in Academic Writing

Introduction

Many students and researchers are still confused about how to write good academic papers of various different kinds in English. Academic writing must be distinguished from other formal styles of writing such as official and business as stated by Jordan. The main characteristics of "good academic writing" have been the focus of much debate in the general field of writing skills, as have the significance of language discourse functions and the important role that they play when it comes to producing "good academic writing" (Brown, 1998, 78).

This essay will characterize what "academic writing" is and recognise the major characteristics of "good academic writing". The supreme objective of this term paper will be to investigate the function that language discourse functions have in such texts and give proposals on how to overwhelm the trials that might originate from such characteristics and functions for non-native speakers of English.

What is "academic writing?"

First of all, we should characterize what "academic writing" is to recognize its features. Jordan (1999, p. 8) states that "academic writing" should be in writing in a correct formal style, Hamp-Lyons and Poole furthermore characterize "academic writing" in periods of formality. They state that academic writing is a formal part of paper for which borrowing has to be granted to the author and that the work will comprise exact grammatical patterns, organization and argument.

They summarize the formality of academic writing suggesting it arrives from its readers who should be academics. Its contents that should be a grave considered and it should be assembled utilizing a kind of convoluted grammatical organizations which have no errors. The language used should be diverse and of a mechanical grade befitting to the subject matter (Carter¸1999, 74). Moreover, Anderson and Poole aim on characterizing the difficulty in academic writing. They claim that the first step should be to characterize the difficulty which engages working out what is being inquired in the inquiry or the title.

Major characteristics of "good academic writing"

There are numerous characteristics of "good academic writing". Many investigators for example Anderson and Poole (2001), Jordan, Hamp-Lyons and Heasley (2006), Treciak (2000), Greetham (2001), Brown and Hood (1998) and Carter (1999) talk about those characteristics in distinct ways. Professionals have delineated the major characteristics under the next sub-headings:

Organization

When we converse about organization in academic writing, we actually require aiming on a clear introduction, body and conclusion. The progression of concepts and paragraphing should be clear and sustained with examples. We furthermore have to present a sensible number of alternate points of outlook and to accomplish a sense of argumentation (Carter, 1999, 12).

Greetham focuses on the significance of the introduction, paragraphs and deduction that should be clear and coherent. He conceives that the introduction is a key part in which the author should understand the name or inquiry and notifies the readers the chart that they are going to pursue through the part of writing.

He furthermore emphasizes that the paragraphs, which are in the major ...