Treść książki
Przejdź do opcji czytnikaPrzejdź do nawigacjiPrzejdź do informacjiPrzejdź do stopki
1.2Theculturalfactorinacademiccommunication
21
featuresofacademictextswrittenbyGermanauthors,suchastheheavyuse
ofFachsprache,digressiveness,syntacticcomplexityandscarcityofadvance
organisers,maybetracedtotheneedtoconfirmthestatusofthewriter,who
byopaquescholarlyregisterpresentshimselforherselfasamemberofthe
enlightenedminority.Thesolitary,elitistpositionofthewritingscholarmay
alsocontributetothemonologiccharacterofacademictextswhichoriginate
intheGermanintellectualtradition,whichcontrastswiththemoreinterper-
sonal,openstyleofEnglishacademictexts,whoseauthorsengageinadia-
loguewiththereadership,creatingknowledgeratherthandisplayingexpertise.
Finally,differentattitudestowardsthereaderarereflectedinreaderor
writerresponsibilityforeffectiveinteraction(Hinds,1987).Whilecommuni-
cationpresupposesco-operationoftheinteractants,theshareofresponsibil-
ityforitssuccessmayvary.Thus,intheEnglishtraditionitisthewriterwho
isprimarilyresponsibleformakingclear,comprehensiblestatementsandfor
organisationofideasinawaywhichiseasytofollow.uIfthereisabreakdown
incommunication,forinstance,”Hinds(1987:143)argues,uitisbecausethe
speakerlwriterhasnotbeenclearenough,notbecausethelistenerlreader
hasnotexertedenougheffortinanattempttounderstand.”Thiskindofwrit-
er-responsiblediscourseembodieswhatFlower(1979:20)referstoasRead-
er-Basedprose,asuadeliberateattempttocommunicatesomethingtoaread-
er.”Englishacademictexts,whichexplicitlystatethepurposeofwritingearly
inthetext,useadvanceorganiserstoassistthereaderinfollowingthedevel-
opmentofargumentation,attachimportancetoclarityofexpressionanddef-
initionofkeyconcepts,dividethetextintomanageablethematicunits,and
avoiddigressions,exemplifyreader-basedstyle,wherethewriterisrespon-
sibleforsuccessfultransferofideasandtheirfavourablereception.Bycon-
trast,inJapanesetextsthesidewhichbearsprimaryresponsibilityforeffec-
tivecommunicationarelistenerslreaders,whoarerequiredtomakesenseof
theinformationsuppliedbytheauthorontheirown(Hinds,1987).Similar-
ly,Mauranen(1993b)reportsthatFinnishacademicrhetoricgivesmoreau-
tonomytothereader,whoisnotaccustomedtobeingtakenbythehand.Also
academictextswhichoriginateinGerman,CzechandPolishintellectualtra-
ditionsseemtofitthereader-responsiblecategory(Čmejrková,1996;seealso
Section1.4foramoredetaileddiscussionofthefeaturesofPolishacademic
communication).
Althoughculturalbackgroundhasbeenshowntoinfluenceinmanyim-
portantwaysthewriters)attitudestowardswriting,audiences,anddisciplinary
knowledge,andalthoughtheseattitudeshavebeenfoundtoleaveanidentifi-
ablestampontheirtexts,styleandlinguisticchoices,aquestionarises:ifwe
