PhDr. Jana Chamonikolasová, Ph.D.
Katedra
anglistiky a amerikanistiky
Filozofická fakulta Masarykovy univerzity
Comparing the structures of academic
texts written in English and Czech
Struktura anglických
a českých akademických textů
Key words: stylistics, informative text, lexico-grammatical structure, text organization, English and Czech
Annotation: The article is a comparative
stylistic study of written academic style, outlining certain differences in the organizational, and the lexico-grammatical
structures of academic texts written by Anglophone and Czech authors.
The different conventions in the two languages have
linguistic, as well as historical and cultural roots. Czech academic writing, sharing many features with the
writing styles of other Central
and East European languages, is more intellectual and less reader-friendly than the
Anglo-American academic style. Anglophone authors tend to present their ideas
in a clear and easily comprehensible way: they organize
their texts carefully, indicating text-organization by transparent graphical
signals, and apply simpler lexical
and grammatical patterns, including repetition. Many Czech authors, by contrast, prefer more complex grammatical structures, and—in agreement with the Czech
stylistic norm—avoid the repetition
of words by an extensive use of synonyms. Czech
texts are often less logically and less transparently
organized than texts written in English. English academic texts are primarily oriented towards the reader,
while Czech texts focus on the topic and
the presentation of all its
complexity.
Anotace: Článek je srovnávací studií
psaného akademického stylu. Věnuje se
rozdílům v organizační a lexiko-gramatické struktuře textů anglofonních a
českých autorů. Rozdílné konvence ve srovnávaných jazycích mají lingvistické,
ale i kulturně historické kořeny. Český akademický styl, který sdílí mnohé rysy
s jazyky střední a východní Evropy, je intelektuálnější, ale méně vstřícný
ke čtenáři než styl angloamerický. Anglofonní autoři obvykle podávají problém
jasným a snadno pochopitelným způsobem. Soustředí se na logické uspořádání
textu a organizační strukturu naznačují meta-textovými signály. Používají
jednodušší lexikální a gramatické prostředky a opakují stejné výrazy. Svou
identitu naznačují použitím zájmen první osoby jednotného čísla a volí
asertivní formulace. Naproti tomu české texty působí skromnějším dojmem,
protože autoři v souladu s českou stylistickou normou používají buď
první osobu čísla množného nebo neosobní vazby. Autorská skromnost je dána také
volbou méně asertivních formulací a modálních prostředků. Čeští autoři usilují
o květnatý sloh – používají složitější gramatické struktury a opakování slov se
vyhýbají bohatým užitím synonym. České texty jsou mnohdy méně přehledně
uspořádány než texty anglické. Zatímco anglické texty jsou zaměřeny na čtenáře,
české texty se soustředí především na podání tématu v celé jeho
složitosti.
Comparing the structures of academic texts written in English and Czech
One of the basic skills
that an educated person is expected to possess in English speaking countries is
the ability to write coherent and effective academic texts. Academic writing
receives a lot of attention and is practised at all levels of education. At
many British and American universities, academic writing is part of the
compulsory curriculum—not only in humanities but also in the natural and
technological sciences. Anglophone students are trained to produce texts
displaying a high degree of clarity, consistency, and a logical formal layout.
By contrast, the traditional Czechoslovak educational system was focussed on
making students memorize large amounts of factual information, rather than
developing their creative thinking. Academic writing skills were developed as a
marginal goal within Czech and Slovak language classes and even there, the main
focus was on learning correct grammatical forms and spelling. Owing to gradual
European and global integration, however, professionals in Central and East-European
countries have recognized the importance of effective written communication. A
well designed application, academic article, or business contract can help its
author achieve desired academic or business goals and prepare the ground for a
successful professional career. Czechs, as well as Slovaks, are more and more
often required to produce texts in foreign languages, especially English,
because in communication across frontiers—with the exception of the Czecho-Slovak frontier—their native language is virtually
useless.
Teaching
academic writing at Anglo-American and Czech academic-writing
styles. I will focus on the formal structure and content of academic texts (1)
and the use of lexical and grammatical means (2); I will conclude by
highlighting the differences in the overall orientation of the texts (3). The
features discussed in this paper only describe the main tendencies in Anglo-American
and Czech writing; no assumption is made that every author follows the outlined
conventions.
1 Formal structure and division of
content
1.1 Division into larger units
Texts written in
English display a more fixed formal structure and division of content than
texts written in
Figure 1 – Required structure of
academic texts (modified version of Laaken et al. 2001:
15)
|
Introduction |
Body |
Conclusion |
|
General information |
Specific information |
General information |
|
No details |
Details—but only details related to thesis |
No (new) details |
|
5-15 % |
70-80 % |
5-15 % |
Figure 2 – Example of logical
hierarchical numbering of chapters and subchapters in an academic paper (Prince
1981)
|
Toward a Taxonomy of Given–New Information Ellen F. Prince 1. ON THE CONVEYING OF INFORMATION IN LANGUAGE 2. “GIVEN–NEW” 2.1 Givennessp:
Predictability/Recoverability 2.3 Givennessk:
“Shared Knowledge” 2.4
Relatedness of the Three Types of Givenness 3. SO-CALLED “SHARED KNOWLEDGE” 3.1
Terminology 3.2
The Problem 3.3
The Taxonomy 4. ILLUSTRATION 5. AREAS FOR FURTHER STUDY |
Figure 3 – Example of an essay in the
MLA (Modern Language Association) format (Fowler et al. 2001: 216)
The
structure of Czech academic texts, compared to texts written in English, is
relatively free. The division into introduction, body, and conclusion is less
consistent and less clearly identifiable. Works cited do not always form a
separate section—they are often listed in footnotes. An explicit thesis is not
strictly required in Czech academic texts; many authors resist the idea of
revealing their intentions at the very beginning of their paper and prefer to
disclose them only gradually. The body thus often contains information that the
reader cannot predict after reading the introduction. This lesser degree of
transparency of the author’s intentions is also a consequence of the less
consistent use of formal means: in Czech academic writing, the indication of
the division of the text into chapters or sections by headings and numbers is often
less logical, and sometimes it is missing completely. Figure 4 presents
extracts from an article published in 1964, which is an example of such less
transparent text division. The beginnings of individual sections and
subsections are indicated by Arabic numbers but no headings. Sections (i.e.
units dealing with information of a higher level) are set off from subsections
(i.e. units dealing with information of a lower level) only by the use of a
cipher in bold type. The conventions of text division are changing gradually,
however, and recent Czech publications, especially monographs and textbooks, often
follow the more systematic ‘western’ model of text division displayed in Figure
2. The required length of Czech essays and even articles to be submitted for
publication is still usually relatively flexible; it is set in numbers of pages
rather than numbers of words. A precise graphical lay-out is usually not
required. The contents page is traditionally placed at the end of the book.
Figure 4 – Example of a less
transparent division of an academic paper (Jelínek 1964)
|
VÝRAZY PŘEDLOŽKOVÉ POVAHY V DNEŠNÍ SPISOVNÉ ČEŠTINĚ 1. Zkoumáme-li slovní zásobu dnešní spisovné češtiny,
zjistíme v ní vrstvu výrazových prostředků, které jsou frazeologicky ustáleny
a které se blíží svým významem předložkám. Pátráme-li po historii těchto
výrazů, .... 2. .... 3. .... 4. .... 5. Pokusím se nyní podat stručnou klasifikaci nových
výrazů předložkové povahy. Třídění provedu podle základních vztahových
funkcí, které tyto výrazy plní. Vedle tohoto hlediska se nabízí ještě
hledisko formální, .... 1. Poměrně vyhraněná je skupina vyjadřující vztah
souvislosti a shody. Rozpadá se ve dvě podskupiny, jak to vyplývá
z vymezení daného vztahu. ... 2. Několik výrazů slouží k označení vztahu
společenství (koexistence). Lze tu rozeznávat dvě hlavní podskupiny .... 3. .... 4. .... 5. .... |
1.2 Division into paragraphs
Different conventions of text
division in English and Czech also apply at paragraph level. Anglophone
students are trained in paragraph development, and handbooks of writing
describe different paragraph types. The preferred paragraph structure resembles
the structure of the entire text: it begins with a topic sentence which serves
as an introduction to the information presented in the body of the paragraph,
and the paragraph may end with a concluding sentence which closes the frame.
Such paragraph structure is not unusual even in Czech texts, and some Czech
scholars have paid a lot of attention to the analysis of paragraph structure
(e.g. Mathesius 1942, Daneš
1994, and Čmejrková et al. 1999) but Czech writers
are not always aware of the need for logical paragraph division and divide the
text intuitively. A paragraph is usually defined as a stretch of text devoted
to one compact topic. It is, however, impossible to measure the degree of
‘compactness’ needed for determining the boundaries between paragraphs.
Different authors may divide texts at different ‘turning points’. Paragraphs in
English academic texts devoted to linguistic topics are usually longer than
paragraphs in comparable Czech texts. Čmejrková et
al. (1999: 163) claims, however, that paragraphs in Czech texts related to
humanities are often too long. The precise relation between the average lengths
of paragraphs in different languages and different text-types has, to my
knowledge, not been ascertained yet.
2 Use of lexical and grammatical
means
2.1 Lexical and syntactic variation
Academic texts written in English
are usually less complex at the lexical and syntactic levels than academic
texts written in
2.2 Expression of author identity
In describing their research
methods, or their intentions and conclusions, Anglophone authors usually
indicate their identity by the use of pronouns of the first person singular
(e.g. I would like to illustrate that ...
My data indicate that ...). Quite frequently, author identity remains
unexpressed, e.g. in passive-voice constructions and in sentences containing
third person subjects that are not directly related to the author (e.g. The measurements have been carried out in
conditions of ..., The experiment indicates that ...). The use of pronouns
of the first person plural is restricted to texts written by two or more
authors (e.g. We have analyzed a corpus of..., Our data are
in agreement with ...).
The
use of the first person singular in Czech texts is generally uncommon; it
occurs only in more recent publications (e.g. V závěru této kapitoly se pokusím objasnit ...). As in English texts, identification of
the author is often avoided by the use of third person subjects, impersonal
constructions and passive-voice constructions, especially the reflexive
passive-voice constructions (e.g. Experiment
probíhal v podmínkách ...,
Je známo, že ..., Do této kategorie se řadí ...). Most
frequently, the author’s identity—even in writings of a single author—is
expressed by first person plural pronouns or verb forms. Two subcategories are
distinguished, i.e. the ‘authorial’ plural used by a single author (V této kapitole se pokusíme nastínit ...), and the ‘inclusive’ plural through which
the author indicates the inclusion of the reader in the academic discourse (Věnujme se nyní otázce ..., Tyto jevy označujeme jako ...). The use of the authorial plural is quite
common in other Slavic languages as well, e.g. Slovak, Polish, and Russian, but
also in the German language; the authorial plural is thus determined by
cultural and geographical, rather than linguistic factors (cf. Stašková 2004; and Čmejrková et
al. 1999: 47-48). The use of the authorial plural is one of the most common
mistakes in English academic texts written by native speakers of
2.3 Expression of author’s
self-confidence
On average, Anglophone authors
demonstrate a greater level of self-confidence than Czech authors. The
impression of authorial self-confidence in texts written in English is achieved
by the choice of certain lexical and syntactic means. One of them is the use of
the first person singular pronoun mentioned above. Other language means are the
use of assertive statements (The analysis
indicates that ..., The results of my analysis
corroborate the hypothesis ...) and assertive titles of articles and
monographs that directly name the topic (Modal
particles in German, The present situation in ...).
Czech
authors, in contrast, avoid assertive language means and prefer to demonstrate
authorial modesty (see Čmejrková et al. 1999: 29-30).
The impression of modesty is achieved by the use of first person plural forms
mentioned above and structures containing modal expressions (Tento jev by snad bylo možno
interpretovat jako ..., Zdá se, že
..., Z těchto poznatků můžeme vyvodit závěr...). Čmejrková et al.
(1999: 28-29) describes this feature as ‘modalization’.
Authorial modesty is also demonstrated by modest formulations of the titles,
suggesting that the article is only a minor contribution to a complex topic (Několik poznámek o užití modálních částic v němčině, K současnému stavu ...).
Patterns such as Několik poznámek o ...
or K otázce
... are very common also in German and other Slavic languages, and their
use seems to be determined by the close ties between Slavic and Non-Slavic
cultures in Central and
3 Conclusion: Overall orientation of
the text
It is possible to outline certain
different tendencies in both the organization and the lexical and grammatical
structures of texts written in English and in
The
main focus of Anglophone authors is to make the reader understand a certain
theory or problem. Authors try to present their ideas as clearly as possible
and in a way which requires least effort on the part of the reader. They
organize their text carefully, and select lexical and grammatical means that
allow a smooth comprehension of the relationships between phenomena described
in the text. Anglophone authors assume responsibility for the readers’
comprehension of the presented material; their texts are primarily oriented
towards the reader (cf. Čmejrková et al. 1999: 25-30).
The
main focus of most Czech authors, in contrast, is to present a certain theory
or problem in all its complexity. They therefore often employ complex syntactic
structures capable of covering as many details of the theory as possible. Czech
authors anticipate potential queries and try to answer them in advance or to
present their findings through less assertive, ‘modalized’
formulations, suggesting that a different interpretation of the phenomenon in
question is possible. Smooth comprehension of the text is not the writer’s main
priority. Authors pay less attention to organizing their texts in a logical way
and sometimes obscure their message by excessive lexical variation. The
responsibility for decoding the message is assigned to the reader. Czech
academic texts are primarily oriented towards the topic (cf. Čmejrková et al. 1999: 25-30).
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