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1.3Englishacademicdiscourse:Previousstudies
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textbook),theaudience(studentsorexperts),theimmediatesetting(course
lectureorofficehours)andthediscipline(Biber,1988,2006a,b;Swales,1990,
2004;Hyland,2000,2006,2008a,b;Groom,2005;Fløttumetal.2006a,b;
Simpson-Vlach,2006;Thompson,2006;Vold,2006a,b;BiberandBarbieri,
2007;LorésSanz,2008).Inanattempttooffersomegeneralunderstandingof
thenatureofthelinguisticchoicespreferredinacademiccontextsandrules
ofthumbastohowtowriteuacademically”forlessexperiencedmembersof
thecommunity,manytextbooksandstudyguidespointtosuchfeaturesofac-
ademic(written)registersasformalityoflanguagemanifestinthechoiceof
formalalternativesonthewordandsentencelevelandtheavoidanceofdirect
questions;objectivityofthetonereflectedinthehigherfrequencyofimper-
sonalstructuresaswellasavoidanceofdirectappealstothereaderandadverbs
whichshowthewriter)spersonal,subjectiveattitude;precisionofexpression
visibleincarefulselectionofvocabularyitems,limiteduseofapproximators
andavoidanceofverygeneralsuperordinateterms;clarityofexpositionmain-
tainedbyestablishingclearconnectionsbetweenideasthroughlinkingwords;
andtentativenessoflanguagewhenitcomestoclaims,hypotheses,inferences
andextrapolations(ArnaudetandBarrett,1984;Williams,1990;Swalesand
Feak,1994;Jordan,1999;Bailey,2003).Acloserlookatanyofthesefeatures,
though,revealsthatanymeaningfuldiscussionofacademicregistermustbe-
ginwithamoredetaileddescriptionofthetypeofinteraction.
Possiblythemostclearlymarkedoppositioninacademicregistersisthat
betweenspokenandwrittendiscourses,muchunlikeinothervarietiesofEng-
lish,wherethedistinctionbetweenspeechandwritingisoftennotmoreim-
portantthanotherparameters(Biber,2006a).Thisdivideisreflected,among
manyotherfeaturesreportedbyBiber(2006a,b),intheuseof1
st
and2
nd
per-
sonpronounsandepistemicstanceexpressions,morefrequentinspokenlan-
guageregardlessoffurthercontextualspecifications,andcomplexnounphras-
es,morecommoninallwrittenacademicregisters.
Animportantsourceofvariationinacademicdiscourseisthecomplexsys-
temofgenreswhich,ontheonehand,realisedifferentcommunicativegoals
andstructuretherelationshipbetweentheauthorandthereadershipinadif-
ferentway,andontheotheraresubjecttodisciplinaryconventionsandspec-
ificityintermsoftextorganisation,thepreferreddegreeofinterpersonali-
ty,andtheamountofspeculativereasoning(Swales,1990).Moreover,Swales
(2004)observesthatgenresdifferalsointheirstatusorcentralitywithinthe
setoftexttypesutilisedbyaparticulardiscipline,withthemonograph,forex-
ample,insomefieldsdocumentingthehighestacademicachievementsofthe
author,inothersleaningtowardsmorepopulartopicsortreatment.Giventhe
