Books by Milada Walkova
This book bridges the gap between theory and practice in the teaching of academic writing within ... more This book bridges the gap between theory and practice in the teaching of academic writing within English for Academic Purposes (EAP). Reviewing existing research on the language of academic writing and drawing respective pedagogical implications, the book focuses on the key issues of theoretical frameworks relevant to teaching academic writing, core written academic genres, the integration of language and content, textual organization and interaction, and formative feedback on writing. The author richly illustrates its key themes with authentic examples from student and expert writing, points out common myths and controversies in the teaching of academic writing, and identifies gaps in current research. To demonstrate how theoretical knowledge on academic writing can be applied in teaching practice, Milada Walková provides examples of suggested teaching activities for a variety of learner levels and contexts. The book serves as a comprehensive yet accessible resource for both novice and experienced EAP practitioners involved in the teaching and scholarship of academic writing.
Academic Writing by Milada Walkova
ESP Today, 2022
Argument construction is an important aspect of academic writing. Although literature presents a ... more Argument construction is an important aspect of academic writing. Although literature presents a number of theoretical and pedagogical models of argument, research is lacking into authentic argument construction in expert writing. Moreover, it is not clear how disciplinary variation affects the construction of argument. Therefore, this paper analyses argument in four disciplines – philosophy, literature, chemistry, and computational science. The results show a degree of variation among disciplines. Three models of argument have been found, called here premise-based argument (found in philosophy and literature), hypothesis-based argument (found in computational science and to a lesser degree in literature) and exposition-based argument (in chemistry). These models differ from the theoretical and/or pedagogical models proposed in the literature, suggesting that EAP students might be asked to produce arguments very different from arguments encountered in the reading in their discipline. Given the disciplinary variation observed, the paper supports applying English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) as well as English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) approach to teaching argument construction.
Journal of English for Research Publication Purposes, 2020
This paper attempts to map the territory of ERPP, both in terms of pedagogical theory and its pra... more This paper attempts to map the territory of ERPP, both in terms of pedagogical theory and its practical application, in the United Kingdom. The aim of the paper is threefold. First, the paper reviews specific challenges of researchers writing in English as their additional language and working in ‘periphery’ countries. Second, based on the review and working within the framework of critical pragmatic EAP (Harwood & Hadley, 2004), the paper proposes five ingredients of a comprehensive ERPP curriculum, namely (a) publication process, (b) language and rhetorical conventions of ERPP genres, (c) writing for an international audience, (d) collaboration, and (e) sharing research outcomes. Taken together, these develop not only Kwan’s (2010) four competences for research publication, but also three additional competences for ERPP proposed here – collaborative competence, outreach competence and competence in building resilience. Finally, the paper discusses ERPP provision available at the Russell Group universities in the UK and evaluates it against the proposed curriculum, highlighting examples of good teaching practice and areas for further pedagogical development.
Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2020
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate current EAP textbooks in terms of pedagogy of transition... more The purpose of this paper is to evaluate current EAP textbooks in terms of pedagogy of transition markers. Transition markers, e.g. moreover, therefore, are interactive metadiscourse devices which facilitate the reader’s understanding of the text (Hyland, 2005). Previous research shows that they pose a challenge to learners of academic English, who tend to overuse transition markers and misuse them both semantically and stylistically. Recommendations for teaching transition markers from the literature were used to evaluate 39 published EAP textbooks. The results show a rather low application of the principles identified, ranging from 0% to 59%, with an average of 21% (median 18%). The study has implications for EAP practitioners as well as materials writers. Most importantly, EAP teachers should supplement textbooks with authentic academic texts and possibly with concordance lines from corpora, explicitly discourage overuse of transition markers, teach syntactic distinctions between conjunctions and adverbials and raise stylistic awareness related to the use of transition markers in formal academic texts.
English for Specific Purposes, 2019
Self-mention in academic writing has been studied extensively, especially from the point of view ... more Self-mention in academic writing has been studied extensively, especially from the point of view of rhetorical functions. In this paper I argue that rhetorical functions represent only one dimension of self-mention. Adding the dimensions of grammatical forms and of hedging and boosting, I propose a three-dimensional model of self-mention. I then employ the model in the analysis of three types of writing in the field of linguistics – L1 English, L1 Slovak (a typologically different language), and L2 English writing by Slovak authors. The study shows that authors employ various degrees of the three dimensions of self-mention to meet expectations of their readers while maintaining a balanced power of self-mention. The results suggest that some, but not all, discourse practices related to self-mention might be transferred to L2 English from one's L1.
Discourse and Interaction, 2018
The tension between the need to present oneself in academic discourse unobtrusively on the one ha... more The tension between the need to present oneself in academic discourse unobtrusively on the one hand and promotionally on the other hand results in a range of options of hiding and revealing authorial presence in the text. The choice from among these options is, among other factors, determined by cultural background. This paper explores how Anglophone writers and Slovak authors writing in Slovak and in non-native English position themselves in linguistic research papers as individuals or as part of a society, and as participants or non-participants of the given communicative exchange. The study concludes that English academic culture is largely individualistic while Slovak academic culture is largely collectivist, a trait that Slovak authors also transmit into their writing in English for a mainly local audience.
Jazykovedný časopis, 2017
Citation in research articles is an important gateway to acceptance by academic community. When c... more Citation in research articles is an important gateway to acceptance by academic community. When citing others, scholars follow the conventions of the genre, of the academic discipline, and of their culture. This paper focuses on the cultural aspects of citation by comparing and contrasting a corpus of linguistic papers written in English and in Slovak. The results show that while English native writers prefer making their papers more objective through a higher incidence of generalisations and reporting verbs denoting the process of research, Slovak native writers opt for making the cited authors more visible by a greater amount of integral citations and reporting verbs denoting mental states and processes. A higher number of quotations, including floating quotations, suggests that Slovak scholars have a high regard for the work of others.
Academic writing in English and Slovak. A case study of articles in linguistics.
The study compa... more Academic writing in English and Slovak. A case study of articles in linguistics.
The study compares English and Slovak academic writing on the basis of an analysis of research articles (RAs) in linguistics. The structure of English RAs is rather rigid; the introduction and the conclusion always state a research thesis and objectives, outline theoretical background and implications, and often give limitations and disclaimers. Each paragraph develops a new idea in a number of relatively short sentences. The text tries to attract the reader with a current topic, drawing attention to its importance, and a catchy title. A single author presents him/herself in the first person singular when assuming full responsibility for the research and in plural when involving the reader or academic community as a whole. This switching of persons sometimes appears inconsistent in the
sample. In contrast, Slovak RAs usually lack explicit formulation of a thesis and goals. They focus on time-honoured topics, data classification, and definition of terms. Texts may lack an introduction and conclusion. Paragraphs are rather short, with long sentences. Authorial plural as a manifestation of modesty is used.
Cross-Cultural Challenges in British and American Studies (Slovak Studies in English IV), 2014
The success of research in natural sciences and technology depends, among other things, on the ab... more The success of research in natural sciences and technology depends, among other things, on the ability to present research in a concise, logically structured, and well-written form. Thus hard sciences crucially depend on an aspect of humanities, namely the art of academic writing. This paper focuses on the English academic writing skills of students of technical fields. In particular, it is a study of the language use in the English language abstracts of bachelor theses, master theses and doctoral dissertations by students of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. Ten basic categories of errors are discussed and illustrated. The study involves a qualitative analysis as well as a quantitative assessment as to which errors occur in most students at three levels of university education. The results thus indicate areas that English language teaching and academic writing teaching need to address
Forlang - cudzie jazyky v akademickom prostredí
Research has shown that non-native speakers tend to overuse some language patterns and avoid some... more Research has shown that non-native speakers tend to overuse some language patterns and avoid some others (e.g. Ellis 1997). The paper compares the use of selected items of academic vocabulary (e.g. focus, dissertation, current) in native and non-native, namely Slovak, academic writing in English. Drawing on data from several corpora of academic writing, I examine the frequency and relevant collocations of these items. The study points to differences between synonymous expressions and has implications for teaching academic writing to non-native speakers.
Forlang. Cudzie jazyky v akademickom prostredí. Periodický zborník vedeckých príspevkov z medzinárodnej vedeckej konferencie konanej 20.-21. júna 2013. Eds. Eva Kaščáková & Kristína Mihoková., 2013
University students of non-philological fields of study enrolled in a general course of English w... more University students of non-philological fields of study enrolled in a general course of English were assigned a number of short written essays on textbook-related topics. The paper discusses the types
of errors students typically made. I propose that drawing students’ attention to these errors prior to a writing task may help them write better English.
Cudzie jazyky – celoživotná výzva : zborník z medzinárodnej konferencie : Košice, 26.–27. júna 2008. - KKošice : KJ TU, 2008 PP. 166-169. - ISBN 978-80-553-0063-4 , 2008
The insufficient and conflicting guidance on self-mention in academic writing handbooks may lead ... more The insufficient and conflicting guidance on self-mention in academic writing handbooks may lead to uncertainty regarding presenting oneself in a text. The paper explores manifestations of author’s voice in journal articles from three disciplines (chemistry, linguistics, business). The passive voice is used most frequently across disciplines, but personal pronouns are not evaded either. Other means for expressing author’s presence are exploited as well, some being potential sources of ambiguity.
Scholarship in EAP by Milada Walkova
The Language Scholar, 2021
Narrative of scholarship
Semantics by Milada Walkova
Aspectual properties of English particles still lack a satisfactory account, as neither the stand... more Aspectual properties of English particles still lack a satisfactory account, as neither the standard (Brinton 1985,) nor a more recent (Cappelle and Chauvin 2010) account can be generalized over all aspectual particles. By analyzing aspect in terms of scalarity this paper argues that particles are either scalar or non-scalar, which leads to their different aspectual and syntactic behavior. Scalar particles are marked for scalarity; they can affect the argument structure of the verb root and enforce telicity. In contrast, non-scalar particles are unmarked for scalarity; they do not affect the argument structure and do not enforce telicity. Both scalar and non-scalar particles systematically appear in atelic and telic sentences, depending on the verb root and its arguments. Scalarity, like telicity, is a feature built compositionally and monotonically.
English versus Slavic. Lexicon in a Morphological and Semantic Perspective
Research has shown that there are two types of English particles and Slavic prefixes, differing i... more Research has shown that there are two types of English particles and Slavic prefixes, differing in transitivity and telic aspect (e.g. Brinton 1985, McIntyre 2001, Milićević 2004, Svenonius 2004, di Sciullo and Slabakova 2005). This paper argues that aspectual English particles and Slovak prefixes also differ in Case assignment. One type of particles and prefixes, which are typically part of telic complex verbs, assign structural Case. The respective complex verb is obligatorily transitive (possibly alternating with the unaccusative subject construction), even licensing a direct object unselected by the verb root. In Slovak, the direct object position can also be occupied by a reflexive particle in accusative. Particles and prefixes of the other type are typically part of atelic complex verbs and block structural Case unless the event is measured by Path. In the line of the event-based theory of syntax (e.g. van Hout 2000; 2004, Kiparsky 1998, Kratzer 2004, Richardson 2007), this paper argues for a mapping relation between Case and aspect without claiming a one-to-one correspondence between them.
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The relation of the head a
nd
the modifier
in nominal compound names of medicinal herbs
... more 164
The relation of the head a
nd
the modifier
in nominal compound names of medicinal herbs
Milada Walková,
Technical University of Košice
The paper presents research into nominal compound names of medicinal herbs in four languages - Dutch, English, French and Slovak. Only endocentric compounds are considered. From the morphological point of view, the head noun in these compounds is typically modified by a relational adjective, noun or noun phrase, genitive construction, or prepositional phrase. From the semantic point of view, the modifiers in herb names typically refer to various perceptual properties or environmental conditions, meaning that herbs are construed as natural kinds. However, the modifier can also refer to the purpose or effect of herbs; some other inherent properties or other plants and creatures.
The paper presents a corpus-based study of English aspectual particle verbs. The standard view (B... more The paper presents a corpus-based study of English aspectual particle verbs. The standard view (Brinton 1985) is that particles mark telicity; a more recent account argues that particles are comparative and/or resultative (Cappelle & Chauvin 2010). However, neither account applies to all particles. Therefore I propose that there are two types of aspectual particles, which differ in aspect-marking. As corpus data show, the two types of particles also differ in other aspectually relevant properties, namely the type of verb root with which particles combine, transitivity and type of direct objects the respective particle verbs license. In particular, particles with a continuative meaning (about, along, around, on) combine with manner verbs rather than result verbs. They form intransitive particle verbs, or else transitive particle verbs with an unaffected direct object. Particles which mark telicity (down, off, out, over, through, up) typically combine with result verb roots. They form particle verbs which are either intransitive or transitive, with either an affected or unaffected direct object.
Studia Anglica Resoviensia 11 , 2014
English aspectual particles in phrasal verbs have been since Brinton (1985) commonly treated as m... more English aspectual particles in phrasal verbs have been since Brinton (1985) commonly treated as markers of telicity, i.e. markers of an inherent endpoint of events, e.g. eat (atelic) – eat up (telic). The present paper tests this assumption on 100 aspectual phrasal verbs with ten different particles. Minimal pairs of sentences with and without particles have been created and tested by two of Dowty’s (1979) aspectual tests. For these tests acceptability judgments have been elicited from native speakers. The paper points out methodological problems which should be taken into consideration in any study that relies on eliciting acceptability judgments. Most importantly, the results of the present study suggest, contra what is standardly assumed, that aspectual particles are not primarily markers of telicity. Instead, particles contribute other aspectual and non-aspectual meanings.
Semantics-Syntax Interface, 2014
The theory of situation-type aspect based on scales (e.g. Tenny 1994; Jackendoff 1996; Rappaport ... more The theory of situation-type aspect based on scales (e.g. Tenny 1994; Jackendoff 1996; Rappaport Hovav 2008; Rappaport Hovav and Levin 2010) is applied in the present study to aspectual English verb particles and Slovak verbal prefixes. I argue that both particles and prefixes come in two types, non-scalar and scalar, depending on how they describe the change denoted in the verb root. Non-scalar particles and prefixes do not alter argument structure, e.g. The children walked (on) in silence. They appear in predicates without an underlying scale, which are consequently atelic. In contrast, scalar particles and prefixes appear in predicates with an underlying scale, which are potentially telic. Scalar prefixes and particles can alter argument structure because scales require an obligatory realization of the measured participant, e.g. Ally slept *(off) a headache. The study reviews manifestations of argument-structure alternations as well as factors that determine the effect of particles and prefixes on telicity.
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Books by Milada Walkova
Academic Writing by Milada Walkova
The study compares English and Slovak academic writing on the basis of an analysis of research articles (RAs) in linguistics. The structure of English RAs is rather rigid; the introduction and the conclusion always state a research thesis and objectives, outline theoretical background and implications, and often give limitations and disclaimers. Each paragraph develops a new idea in a number of relatively short sentences. The text tries to attract the reader with a current topic, drawing attention to its importance, and a catchy title. A single author presents him/herself in the first person singular when assuming full responsibility for the research and in plural when involving the reader or academic community as a whole. This switching of persons sometimes appears inconsistent in the
sample. In contrast, Slovak RAs usually lack explicit formulation of a thesis and goals. They focus on time-honoured topics, data classification, and definition of terms. Texts may lack an introduction and conclusion. Paragraphs are rather short, with long sentences. Authorial plural as a manifestation of modesty is used.
of errors students typically made. I propose that drawing students’ attention to these errors prior to a writing task may help them write better English.
Scholarship in EAP by Milada Walkova
Semantics by Milada Walkova
The relation of the head a
nd
the modifier
in nominal compound names of medicinal herbs
Milada Walková,
Technical University of Košice
The paper presents research into nominal compound names of medicinal herbs in four languages - Dutch, English, French and Slovak. Only endocentric compounds are considered. From the morphological point of view, the head noun in these compounds is typically modified by a relational adjective, noun or noun phrase, genitive construction, or prepositional phrase. From the semantic point of view, the modifiers in herb names typically refer to various perceptual properties or environmental conditions, meaning that herbs are construed as natural kinds. However, the modifier can also refer to the purpose or effect of herbs; some other inherent properties or other plants and creatures.
The study compares English and Slovak academic writing on the basis of an analysis of research articles (RAs) in linguistics. The structure of English RAs is rather rigid; the introduction and the conclusion always state a research thesis and objectives, outline theoretical background and implications, and often give limitations and disclaimers. Each paragraph develops a new idea in a number of relatively short sentences. The text tries to attract the reader with a current topic, drawing attention to its importance, and a catchy title. A single author presents him/herself in the first person singular when assuming full responsibility for the research and in plural when involving the reader or academic community as a whole. This switching of persons sometimes appears inconsistent in the
sample. In contrast, Slovak RAs usually lack explicit formulation of a thesis and goals. They focus on time-honoured topics, data classification, and definition of terms. Texts may lack an introduction and conclusion. Paragraphs are rather short, with long sentences. Authorial plural as a manifestation of modesty is used.
of errors students typically made. I propose that drawing students’ attention to these errors prior to a writing task may help them write better English.
The relation of the head a
nd
the modifier
in nominal compound names of medicinal herbs
Milada Walková,
Technical University of Košice
The paper presents research into nominal compound names of medicinal herbs in four languages - Dutch, English, French and Slovak. Only endocentric compounds are considered. From the morphological point of view, the head noun in these compounds is typically modified by a relational adjective, noun or noun phrase, genitive construction, or prepositional phrase. From the semantic point of view, the modifiers in herb names typically refer to various perceptual properties or environmental conditions, meaning that herbs are construed as natural kinds. However, the modifier can also refer to the purpose or effect of herbs; some other inherent properties or other plants and creatures.
well as by the overall frequency of the first person singular in individual texts, which is high especially in subjective narrative texts. The results show that there is no statistically significant increase in the use of the first person singular. Formally, the most frequent means of the first person singular is the verb. Pragmatically, the most frequent rhetorical functions of the first person singular are textual signposting and expression of author’s viewpoint and argumentation.
In comparison to children acquiring Germanic languages, children acquiring Slovak produce fewer lexical innovations, which has consequences for research methodology. I suggest a diary method is more suitable than a corpus method in studying lexical innovations in Slovak. In addition, language typology affects the succession of word-formation processes involved in the production of lexical innovations. Unlike children acquiring Germanic languages, who proceed from conversion and compounding to derivation, children acquiring Slovak apply derivation first, then compounding, and lastly combined compositional-derivational processes. Within derivation, they proceed from suffixation and prefixation to grammatical postfixation and circumfixation. In time, child’s word-formation approaches the adult model.
Participants and setting. The longitudinal study follows speech directed to three children in two families from the age 1;9 to 3;0.
Hypotheses. It was hypothesised that the incidence of the first and second person singular pronouns and verb marking as expressions with shifting reference grows with the child’s age while the incidence of proper names and category names as expressions with stable reference decreases with the child’s age.
Statistical analysis. Occurrences of first and second person singular pronouns and verb marking as expressions with shifting reference as well as proper names and category names referring to the speaker and addressee as expressions with stable reference were found and analysed. Simple regression analysis testing was conducted on the data.
Results. The results confirm the hypothesis, showing an increase in the first and second person singular pronouns and verb marking over time, at the expense of proper names and category names referring to the speaker and the addressee.
Study limitations. The study is limited by the size of the sample.