A Corpus Based Study on Shell Nouns in Natural and Social Science Research Articles
A Corpus Based Study on Shell Nouns in Natural and Social
Science Research Articles
Correspondence:
|
Zahra
Rubab
|
Lecturer,
Department of English, Riphah International University, Faisalabad Campus,
Faisalabad, Pakistan
|
Prof.
Dr. Muhammad Asim Mahmood
|
Dean, Faculty of
Arts and Social Sciences, Government College University, Faisalabad, Pakistan
|
|
Arslan
Arshad
|
Research Associate,
University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan
|
Abstract
This study examined structural and
functional analysis of shell nouns in research articles of social and natural
science disciplines. The purpose of this research was to conduct an analysis of
shell nouns with reference to the lexico-grammatical patterns in the academic
compositions of Pakistani research article writers. In this regard, this research utilized both
qualitative and quantitative techniques for analysis through Antconc software
3.2.4. The data was randomly selected from 20 research articles that were
divided into two groups. The principles of Schimd’s (2000) lexico-grammatical
patterns, with their functions, were used as an analytic tool for this
research. The results revealed that social science writers used
lexico-grammatical patterns more frequently with their function in their
writing to develop more cohesiveness by following the taxonomy of Schmid (2000)
as compared to natural science research article writers.
Keywords: cohesion;
cohesive devices; lexico-grammatical patterns; research articles; shell nouns
1.
Introduction
One of the fundamental purposes of writing in an academic situation, is to make
such texts as are coherent and durable so as to build up useful correspondence in an academic network. In this
regard, the utilization of different cohesive devices has been of extraordinary
enthusiasm for researchers and language teachers engaged in the investigation
and instruction of academic writing (Connor, 1984; Francis, 1989; Hinkel, 2001;
Scarcella, 1984). In addition, cohesive
devices are commonly the focal point of classes committed to the enhancement of
academic writing abilities of the students of English. ESL students and
teachers frequently explore distinctive approaches to make cohesion in writing
with the assistance of different lexico-grammatical features, for example,
nouns, conjunctions, and adverbial phrases among others. Investigating how
these components work in an academic
text, to create cohesion, may reveal an insight into new development for the
teachers of English for specific purposes and
researchers.
As indicated by Connor (1984), the extensive use of
lexical cohesion is the main factor in the writings of ESL native researchers.
The results of her examination demonstrated that native researchers could carry
their ideas with diverse lexical items as cohesive connection in their written
work. So also, Scarcella (1984) found that high capability native speaker
writers utilized alternative basic structural and pragmatic source for cohesion
and coherence more successfully than nonnative speaker writers. Likewise, the
texts composed by native speakers with increasingly lexical connection as
cohesive device were not so much equivocal but rather more bound together than
those composed by non-native speaker writers. In the light of past research on the significance of lexical devices as
a cohesive device, the present research centers around a group of
lexico-grammatical patterns, abstract nouns, possibly used to create cohesion in the text and characterized as shell nouns. The findings of a
study, led by Hinkel (2001),
demonstrate that abstract nouns are not accurately utilized by some nonnative
writers since they are utilized in obscure
and summed up proclamations without respect to the real text referential
properties of these nouns. Therefore,
the utilization and capacity of these
nouns ought to be tended to in detail in the instructing of second language (L2) writing. In addition,
the effect as strong connections that these nouns make in text ought to be incorporated
into writing guidance (Hinkel,
2004). Just a couple of studies have
managed this issue, including the researches by Francis (1986, 1988, 1989) and
Flowerdew (2003) which demonstrate that lexico-grammatical patterns (as
cohesive devices) should be investigated
further to educate L2 writers for they assume an essential part in guidance about the association of the
ideas and themes in a text. However, none of these researches
introduces an authentic and complete investigation of these nouns in academic writing despite the fact that they stress more on the
significance of the convenience and probability of abstract nouns in academic writing. Therefore, this study
presents a complete concept of shell nouns as cohesive devices by investigating
the social and natural sciences research article texts to elaborate the
phenomena of cohesiveness.
2
Literature Review
2.1
Nouns and Their Functions
Halliday and Hassan (1976) determined five classes
and 19 subclasses of the cohesive ties. The five classes include; reference,
substitution, ellipsis, combination, lexical emphasis and collocation. Ellipsis
and substitution are considered as one. Different corpus based studies have
been conducted to examine these cohesive devices. A few studies concentrated on
significant classes of cohesive ties (Ahmad, Shah & Mushtaq, 2019; Ahmad,
Mahmood & Siddique, 2019; Halliday & Hassan, 1976), on shell nouns
(Aktas & Cortes, 2008), on conjunctive cohesion (Trebit, 2009), on
demonstratives (Gray, 2010) and on lexical bundles (Bal, 2010; Jablonkai, 2010;
Jalali & Ghayoomi, 2010). One of the classifications that leads to lexical
cohesion, is shell nouns. All through the literature, abstract nouns have been
characterized and considered by different linguists under various names.
One of the principal definitions, for abstract
nouns, was given by Francis (1986)
who named them as anaphoric nouns. According to her definition, the function of
anaphoric nouns, in content, is to give sign posts to the readers by the
assistance of which the writer keeps
the plan and creation of content in text
together inside a literary textual cohesion. Despite the fact that she
essentially centers on the anaphoric function of these nouns in this definition. Later on, she stresses every single co-referential
function of these nouns that conveys the idea
of naming with cataphoric and anaphoric functions i.e. where the mark goes before its lexicalization, it will be
named as advance label and where it flows
its lexicalization, and it will be
known as a review and retrospective label or mark (Francis, 2002).
Another definition was given by Ivanič (1991) and these nouns and their functions were
characterized as carrier nouns. According to Ivanič (1991),
there is a discourse function which is explicit to these nouns. They are
carrier nouns on the grounds that they secure short lived meanings which change
in different contexts. A couple of instances of carrier nouns given by Ivanič (1991) are idea, jact, jactor, reason, impact,
clarification, result, and so forth. Ivanič additionally recommends that these nouns are
possibly helpful for dialect students in a scholarly domain since they are not
subject-explicit. With respect to the essential functions these nouns perform in a content, Ivanič (1991) clarifies
that when they perform anaphoric function these nouns 'embody' going before
meaning and turn it into the given
data in resulting discourse and when
they perform cataphorically their meaning can be
found in a clause and they go
about as a guidance to find information of a particular type. The
writer concludes her paper with a proposition about these nouns. She proposes that these lie some place on a continuum among open
and close framework nominals, since they keep their meaning as in their lexicon and dictionary meaning,
and yet they have different meanings as pronouns do. In this way, they convey a function of alteration and
enumeration, which is normal for
open framework nominals, and furthermore another function of cohesiveness,
which is commonly normal for close
system nominals. Enumerative nouns’
title, assigned to these nouns by Tadros (1994), are a collection of general
nouns and as Hinkel (2001) demonstrates, they might be a standout amongst other
approaches to make cohesion in writings since they have explicit referents in
content, to which these nouns are associated. In particular, they are
exceptionally regular in academic and research writing since they can be
effectively used to build up cohesive links in research and academic
composition (Hinkel, 2004). Hinkel (2001) recommends that it is exceptionally
valuable to underscore this sort of employments and functions of enumerative
nouns or catch all nouns in educating ESL writings. The key principle of
cohesive functions of enumerative nouns is to tabulate and arrange themes and
ideas, as well as to start an elaboration. In addition, as Tadros (1994)
recommends that the enumerative nouns may function as content referential and
cohesive devices that can exhibit new substance and build new information or
repeat and restate information and material. A comparative definition was
proposed by Flowerdew (2003) marking these nouns as singling nouns, that belong
to any abstract nouns’ class the meaning of which must be made explicit by
reference to its context. Flowerdew (2003) presents a few instances of singling
nouns i.e. attitudes, assistance, difficulty process, reason, result etc. As
author states that these nouns have discourse functions that create cohesive
connections across and inside clauses and they are generally utilized in
academic and research compositions.
2.2
Cohesion as Text and Texture
Each language comprises of etymological units i.e.
morphemes, words, clauses, sentences, writings. ‘Content' is characterized as a
semantic unit of language being used (Stubbs, 2002). This implies that a
gathering of the language units cannot frame a content if the connection between
them is inadequate with regards to an importance. An accumulation of words,
clauses, sentences just turns into a content, when they are attached to one
another by importance. To stress this point, Lyons (1995) states that the units
of a text is formed, regardless of whether they are sentences or not, will be
not just hung together in succession, but rather should be associated in some
relevantly suitable way. Therefore, text must not be seen just as a protracted
section of different semantically associated sentences, rather it must be one
sentence or even a word. A text must contain a specific semantic structure, and
this structure is known as cohesion of a text’s sentences. In this way, a
significant and coherent connection of words and sentences are key parts of a
text.
2.3
Schmid’s Framework for Shell Nouns
Aside from the definitions given for abstract nouns,
Schmid (2000) additionally makes a commitment to the literature by thoroughly
breaking down these nouns under the name of shell nouns. According to Schmid's
(2000) comprehensive depiction, shell nouns are a subcategory of Halliday and
Hasan's (1976) general noun, since general nouns cover distinctive classes, for
example, human, non-human animate, animate concrete, inanimate concrete,
inanimate abstract, place, action and fact.
2.3.1
Taxonomy of Nouns
The taxonomy of nouns was developed to categorize
nouns in different classes. This taxonomy consists of three major classes i.e.
concrete, abstract, and deictic. Furthermore, the abstract class of a noun is
further subcategorized into three classes, i.e. shell nouns, adverbial head,
and other class of nouns. A concrete noun refers to the nouns that demonstrates
physical objects. Nouns are considered to be abstract if they are not touched
and seen e.g. student, kit, apparatus. A deictic noun belongs to a particular
contextual component. Such kind of nouns suggest direction to the reader
regarding the particular part of a text or about extra-linguistic elements of a
text i.e. diagram, figures, and charts etc. Deictic nouns develop information
within a context. The term shell noun, as set up by Schmid (2000), alludes to
abstract nouns that make reasonable conceptual limits by throwing bigger pieces
of information into nominal structures (Schmid, 2000). Shell nouns have been
known by different other names. In his examination of academic lectures and
textbooks, Flowerdew (2003) calls them singling noun, characterized as any
abstract noun, the meaning of which must be made explicit by reference to its
context. In this way, shell nouns are abstract nouns used incorporate itemized
information in an efficient manner. Another type of nouns, in taxonomy, is the
adverbial head nouns, which refer to the utilization of discourse markers.
Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, Finegan and Quirk (1999) also described this
term with reference to place, time, reason, way, and days as an adverbial head
noun. The last form of noun taxonomy is the other nouns. The nouns, that are
not categorized under the umbrella of shell nouns and adverbial nouns, are
classified as other nouns.
Schmid's (2000) shell nouns are a mixture of
concrete abstract and factual nouns e.g. idea, question, thought, induction,
viewpoint, fact, angle, reality, issue, result, process, cause, and so forth.
Schmid (2000) clarifies the function of these nouns by the methods for a
metaphor. The metaphor he utilizes refers back to the physical world and thinks
about the function of these nouns to be the function of a genuine shell which
consists of something to perform a function as shelter for things that would
somehow or another effectively be scattered or harmed. The motivation behind
why he utilizes this metaphor to clarify the function of these nouns is that it
is exceptionally hard to characterize these nouns since they establish a
functional linguistics’ class which signifies whether a given noun is a shell
noun or not, does not depend on unavoidable qualities innate in the noun,
however on its utilization. Then again, Schmid's metaphor could also be
communicated in a definition like Flowerdew's (2003) who considers shell nouns
as abstract nouns the meaning of which is just made explicit in reference to
their context. In this sense, shell nouns give the speakers a concept of
conceptual shell nouns to utilize them along as they need to express something
in discourse. Furthermore, Schmid (2000) introduced three major functions of shell
nouns i.e. (1) Semantic Function: this function is relevant to the complex
chunks of information. (2) Cognitive Function: this function consists of the
temporary function of formation. (3) Textual Function: this function belongs to
the concept of linkings. In addition, Schmid (2000) demonstrated three
functions of shell nouns in detail which are discussed below:
2.3.1.1 Characterization
Characterization of complex information is one of
the elements of shell nouns. Two sections of shell thing phrase, shell head
nouns and pre modifiers can understand this process of function (Schmid, 2000)
and as indicated by Aktas and Corter (2008), writers use shell nouns to
semantically depict and describe a bit of involvement in a general route and
for understanding the subtleties of the information reference to the context is
basic requirement. The lexico-grammatical designs related with this capacity
are ‘N+cl’ and ‘N+be+cl’ both with a cataphoric reference. The other example as
per Aktas and Corter (2008) is ‘a/an/the+N+of’ design.
2.3.1.2
Temporary Concept Formation
The concepts
and ideas can be expressed by a wide range of open class words. However,
explicit ideas are expressed by nouns. There is a consistent connection between
full content nouns and the experience they need to express as ideas while ideas
cannot be shaped by deictics, therefore shell nouns remain between the two
restricting shafts that are full content nouns and deictics. Like full content
nouns, they show a conceptual relationship to an explicit intermittent sort of
experience, and this idea of formation is made by the repeated utilization of a
word to refer to a specific experience (Schmid, 2000) and by enabling pursuers
to relate the descriptive information to a solitary nominal expression (Gray,
2010). There is a solid connection among characterization and temporary idea
formation. The pattern utilized for this process of function is
‘an/a/the+N+of’.
2.3.1.3
Linkings
So far as the function of linking is concerned, shell
nouns resemble with pronouns. For the explanation of shell nouns, one must
consider shell content that is communicated in the context or it can be
surmised from the context. This work is made by linking the nominal shell with
related text that gives the point by point information (Gray, 2010). The
pattern related with this process of function is ‘th-+N’ which passes on
anaphoric reference. The utilization of shell nouns may give the cognitive and
linking process of functions to represent this issue, as per Schmid (2000), the
shells speak to an impermanent semantic development that is intrinsically
connected to what he calls the shell content. Types of shell nouns with
examples, as given by Schmid (2000), include: (1) Factual e.g. thing, problem,
point, and fact; (2) Linguistic e.g. message, question, report, and news; (3)
Mental e.g. belief, notion, idea, and purpose; (4) Model e.g. ability, need,
and truth; (5) Eventive e.g. reaction, act, and move; and (6) Circumstantial
e.g. area, place, and context.
Schmid (2000) states that the idea of the types of shell
nouns (e.g. full content words, pronouns, and shell nouns) has originated from Ivanič (1991). According to Schmid (2000) full content
nouns have a potential to portray what speakers need to discuss. The reason is
that nouns like teacher, cat, adventure etc. have balanced and rich
denotations. In light of their particular meanings, full content nouns and
other open class items e.g. modifiers and verbs are the fundamental methods for
depicting people, animals, objects, what is more, plants and occasions. Pronoun
is another sort with anaphoric function that has an exceptionally constrained potential
for the portrayal of what the speakers need to discuss. The individual pronouns
e.g. ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he’ describe their referents just as for a few semantic
dimensions i.e. speaker versus recipient versus different roles, human versus
non-human etc. Shell nouns, on the other hand, hold a center position between
these boundaries. To a specific degree, speakers can in fact use them to
portray a bit of understanding and they determine their potential for the
portrayal from their denotations. However, nouns that can be utilized as shell
nouns ordinarily have abstract and unusual meanings. The ideas made by shell
nouns are entirely dynamic. They are of a transitory nature since content
changes in situational and linguistic context in which they are used.
Schmid (2000) further states that these types and
patterns of nouns (see table 1) are utilized in four lexcio-grammatical
patterns where they perform a function of interpretation of the content at the
position of anaphoric and cataphoric references. Schmid (2000) defines these
references as the interpretation of one expression with its antecedent or
background information, which provides the essential information for the
expression to fulfil the purpose of interpretation. On the other hand, cataphoric reference is defined as
convention of one expression with another expression that follows it. In this
way, the resultant expression is an
extract of a text that produces the information essential for the
interpretation of the following one. Thus, all of these expressions are responsible to create cohesive
connection within a sentence. Schmid's (2000) idea
of lexico grammatical patterns
covers the past research (i.e. Francis, 2002; Halliday & Hasan, 1976).
Table 1:
Lexico-grammatical Patterns of Shell Nouns
Function
|
Pattern
|
Abbreviation
|
Cataphoric
|
Shell nouns + clause / That clause/ to
infinitive clause/ wh clause
Shell nouns + be= complementing clause
|
N + c
N + be + cl
|
Anaphoric
|
Demonstrative adjective (this, that) + shell nouns
Demonstrative pronoun as subject (this, that) + be + shell nouns
|
Th + N
Th + be + N
|
Source: Schmid (2000)
2.4
Realization of Cohesive Devices in Academic Research Article
Some researchers (see e.g. Ahmad, Shah &
Mushtaq, 2019; Ahmad, Mahmood & Siddique, 2019; Liu & Braine, 2005; Witte
& Faigley, 1981) have discovered a relationship between cohesive devices
and writing quality. As per Richards and Renandya (2002), the trouble arises
both from producing and sorting out thoughts and making an interpretation of
these thoughts into the content. Halliday and Hasan (1976) believed that
cohesion and coherence, as the two essential literary components, have for
quite some time been perceived as an important element of good composition. It
is also believed that exceedingly scored papers incorporate more lexical
collocations than do low scored ones (Johns, 1980). They additionally held that
lexical cohesion is the most normally utilized classification in research
papers, followed by conjunction and reference (Johns, 1980; Meisuo, 2000).
2.5
Lexical Cohesion and Shell Markers as Cohesive Devices in Academic Writing
Halliday and Hasan's (1976), while introducing
cohesion theory, state that cohesion occurs when the semantic relations in a
text influence it to create a texture in the text. This concept has been
investigated by Carrell (1982) who asserts that the idea of cohesion is an
intuitive and interactive procedure between the text and the reader as opposed
to being situated in the cohesive and coherent text alone. This analysis takes
its beginning stage from reading, however cohesion can also be created in
writing. In addition, it manages thoughts regarding textual cohesion, for
instance, Hinkel (2004) states that cohesion refers to the relationship of
ideas and themes in paragraphs and sentences. Moreover, Hinkel (2004)
illustrates the contrast between cohesion and coherence, and characterizes the
capacity of cohesion as associating sentences and passages. So also, coherence
might be the association of all components that fit together in the text. As
indicated by Francis (1989), there is a great emphasis on the teaching of
grammatical devices for example, reference, substitution, and ellipsis in the
enhancement of writing aptitudes and very little interest is found for lexical
cohesion that could be created by a lot of lexical or lexico-grammatical
patterns. In another study by Francis (1988), it was observed that language
students obviously and much of the time improperly utilized the grammatical
devices chosen for the study i.e. students failed to utilize the lexical
patterns and devices, and they utilized an exceptional range of abstract nouns
over and again. In an investigation led by Connor (1984) to analyze the
relationship of coherence and cohesion in advance level ESL students writing in
contrast to the writing of native speakers. The system of the examination
concentrated on the investigation of cohesion through the amount and nature of
cohesive ties in T-units in the writings of native speakers and ESL students.
The results demonstrated that the quality and amount of cohesion was not a
differentiating factor between the local speakers and the ESL students.
In Scarcella (1984), the principle objective was to
see how native speakers utilized cohesive devices to accomplish cohesion and
coherence in their writings. The essays, composed by native and nonnative
speakers, were divided into proficiency levels and first language foundation,
and they were investigated by the scientific classification by Halliday and
Hasan (1976) to discover the utilization of cohesive devices including
conjunctive ties, lexical ties, and reference ties. The results demonstrated
that the quantity of cohesive devices was not a deciding variable for cohesion
in text, or maybe, the utilization of alternative structural and pragmatic
methods for cohesion and coherence was what made a text coherent. In addition,
high proficiency native writers were more effective than their partners in
utilizing diverse cohesive devices since they utilized progressively lexical
ties as cohesive devices in their writing. In another research (see Hinkel,
2001) on a native and nonnative speaker’s corpus of academic essays was
conducted to decide the explicit contrasts and similarities in the utilization of cohesive devices.
The focal point of the investigation was on the middle recurrence rates of utilization of cohesive devices, for
example, sentence transition, demonstrative pronouns, and enumerative and
resultative nouns. The results demonstrated that even nonnative speaker writers
did not utilize a wide range of
cohesive connections to compose a text.
Hinkel (2001) recommended that in second language writing guidance, the
utilizations and elements of enumerative and resultative nouns, for example,
advantage, factor, issue, reason, and
stage should be accentuated.
Halliday and Hasan (1976) have shown that lexical cohesion is a cohesive effect that is made by vocabulary decision, and general
nouns just as shell nouns have a
cohesive capacity on the ground that these nouns demonstrate a discrimination
among given and new data to make associations in the substance of a text. They additionally clarified the
lexico-grammatical cohesive elements of these nouns on a similar line to
what Ivanič
(1991) has proposed for her carrier
nouns, under which shell nouns are also set (Schmid, 2000), may have a cohesive
capacity since a general noun is itself a marginal case between lexical items
and grammatical cohesive devices.
3
Research Methodology
3.1
Type of Research
This study involves both quantitative and
qualitative analysis. Both types of analyses were done under the principles of
Schimd (2000) lexico-grammatical patterns with its function as analytic tools adopted for the
research. Hinkel’s (2004) list of
highly prevalent abstract nouns with cohesive functions (see table 3) was used in this research. Framing of the sentence
level analysis was done qualitatively, while word level analysis was carried
out quantitatively. For the purpose of word level analysis, Antconc 3.2.4w
software was used.
The target content comprised of research articles
written by Pakistani research writers that were divided into two major
categories i.e. social sciences disciplines (i.e. psychology, sociology,
literature, linguistics) and natural science (e.g. botany, zoology, environmental
science, and bio informatics) research articles. As the content was divided
into two categories, the cluster sampling technique was applied because to
select a particular number of research articles from both groups (40 in total.
20 from each group).
3.2
Research Tool
Schmid’s (2000) lexico-grammatical patterns and
functional analysis were used as an analytical tool. Lexcio-grammatical
patterns are presented in table 1. For the functional analysis of these
patterns, Schmid’s (2000) functional categories i.e. characterization,
temporary concept formation, and linkings have been employed to investigate the
shell nouns’ utilization as a cohesive connection within the research articles
of two disciplines i.e. natural and social science.
3.3
Procedure
The investigation of this research
consists of the analysis of cohesive
devices in constituent with a ‘lexical
cohesion’. For this part, the description of the quantitative analysis, as shown in table 2, demonstrates an insight for
the analysis of data including the
related steps of data analysis.
Table 2: Procedure of
Analysis
Research Question
|
Objective
|
Method of Analysis
|
Steps of Analysis
|
What are
the frequencies of the selected shell
nouns in the articles of natural and social science disciplines?
|
To check the frequency
analysis of 35 cohesive shell nouns in the articles of natural and social
science disciplines?
|
Quantitative
|
Analysis of the 35 shell nouns with Antconc software limitating the raw data only
to shell nouns type.
|
Which lexico- grammatical
patterns can be frequently recognized in the articles of natural and
social science disciplines
|
To recognize the most
frequent lexico-grammatical patterns in the articles of natural and social
science disciplines?
|
Quantitative
|
Investigation of the six
most frequent shell nouns in the articles of natural and social science
disciplines?
|
How do the shell nouns
function in different lexico-grammatical patterns as cohesive devices in the articles
of natural and social science disciplines?
|
To conduct the functional
analysis of the articles of natural and social science disciplines?
|
Qualitative
|
Investigation of the
functions of the six shell nouns in different lexico-grammatical patterns.
|
Are there any functional
differences between the use of shell nouns as cohesive devices in the
articles of natural and social science disciplines?
|
To find functional
differences between the natural and social science discipline articles.
|
Qualitative
|
Comparison of each noun for
its functions in different lexico- grammatical patterns between two corpora.
Recognition of the functional differences in two corpora.
|
Source:
Author’s Own Work
4
Results and Discussion
4.1
Quantitative Analysis
By utilizing Hinkle’s (2004) list of highly
prevalent abstract nouns with cohesive function (see table 3) were checked in
the corpora. The first stage of quantitative analysis was based on the
frequency analysis of 35 abstract nouns. The frequency analysis of both corpora
was explored through corpus software named as Antconc to determine whether the
use of these selected shell nouns was significant or not. The frequencies of
selected shell nouns of both corpora were counted by utilizing corpus software
Antconc. The results are presented in a table 3.
Table 3: Frequencies of Shell
Nouns
Natural Sciences
|
Social Sciences
|
||
Shell Nouns
|
Frequency
|
Shell Nouns
|
Frequency
|
Effect
|
35
|
Method
|
45
|
Result
|
33
|
System
|
40
|
Fact
|
25
|
Process
|
32
|
Form
|
29
|
Result
|
20
|
Type
|
18
|
Effect
|
28
|
Change
|
12
|
Reason
|
28
|
System
|
11
|
Fact
|
20
|
Process
|
10
|
Form
|
16
|
Problem
|
9
|
Problem
|
16
|
Approach
|
9
|
Change
|
10
|
Reason
|
9
|
Class
|
10
|
Purpose
|
9
|
Type
|
9
|
Characteristic
Form
|
8
|
Approach
|
9
|
Form
|
8
|
Issue
|
8
|
Issue
|
7
|
Purpose
|
8
|
Method
|
7
|
Trend
|
8
|
Factor
|
7
|
Category
|
8
|
Feature
|
6
|
Event
|
7
|
Manner
|
6
|
Stage
|
7
|
Event
|
6
|
Task
|
7
|
Stage
|
5
|
Challenge
|
7
|
Trend
|
5
|
Trend
|
6
|
Task
|
5
|
Phase
|
6
|
Category
|
5
|
Tendency
|
6
|
Challenge
|
4
|
Difficulty
|
6
|
Subject
|
4
|
Subject
|
5
|
Tendency
|
3
|
Manner
|
5
|
Aspect
|
3
|
Item
|
5
|
Class
|
3
|
Feature
|
4
|
Difficulty
|
3
|
Facet
|
4
|
Phase
|
2
|
Factor
|
3
|
Topic
|
2
|
Circumstance
|
2
|
Experience
|
0
|
Topic
|
2
|
Item
|
1
|
Characteristics
|
1
|
Facet
|
0
|
Aspect
|
0
|
Table 3 presents the frequency of each shell noun in
both corpora. The frequencies of both corpora clearly show that the authors of
social science articles used six shell nouns (e.g. effect, result, fact, type,
form, and change) more frequently than natural science article writers. The
occurrences of most frequent six shell nouns in both corpora are demonstrated
in Figure 1.
Figure
1: Comparison of Six Shell Nouns
4.2
Structural Analysis
4.2.1
Frequency of Shell Noun ‘Effect’
The most frequently used lexico-grammatical pattern
for the shell noun ‘effect’ was the collocation pattern i.e. ‘the+N+of’. The
frequency of shell nouns in both corpora is presented in tables 4 and 5.
4.2.2
Frequency of Shell Noun ‘Result’
The second most frequent shell noun was ‘result’.
The frequency of this shell noun is presented with comparison in tables 4 and 5
which clearly demonstrate that the most frequent lexico-grammatical pattern in
both corpora is ‘the+N+of’ which is similar in the case to the another shell
noun ‘effect’. The pattern ‘a(n)+n’ is used only by social science article
writers but the lexico-grammatical pattern ‘a(n)+N+of’ is used by both witers
i.e. natural and social science articles.
4.2.3
Frequency of Shell noun ‘Fact’
There were only two patterns that favoured the shell
noun ‘fact’. In this regard, the lexico-grammatical pattern ‘N+clause’ was
frequently used by social science article writers than the natural science
article writers as illustrated in tables 4 and 5. One of the occurrences of
another pattern for this shell noun was observed in the form of ‘th+n’ (i.e.
defined as demonstrative adjective + noun). The frequency of this pattern is
totally opposite to the other pattern’s frequency. This pattern is most
frequently used by natural science article writers.
4.2.4
Frequency of Shell Noun ‘Type’
In both of the corpora (i.e. social and natural
science articles), highest occurrence
of lexico-grammatical pattern was ‘the+n’. Social science writers used this
pattern more frequently than natural science writers. The second pattern of
this shell noun was ‘the+n+of’. It was frequently utilized by social science writers
only and the pattern of ‘a(n)+n’ was used by natural science writers only.
While the writers of social sciences only used the collocation pattern of
‘the+n+of’ and ‘a(n)+n+of’ with regard to this shell noun in their articles and the collocation pattern
‘a(n)+n’ was utilized by natural science writers in their articles.
4.2.5
Frequency of Shell Noun ‘Form’
This shell noun form was utilized most frequently by
the writers of social science discipline as compared to natural science article
writers. The distribution of
lexico-grammatical pattern, with regard to this shell noun i.e. ‘form’, is
presented in tables 4 and 5. One of the most frequent lexico-grammatical
pattern ‘n-cluase’, ‘the+n’ and ‘a(n)+n’ was used more frequently by the
writers of social science articles. On the other hand, the patterns ‘a(n)+n’,
‘the+n+of’ and ‘the+n’ were observed being less frequent pattern with this shell
noun in the natural science corpora.
4.2.6
Frequency of Shell Noun ‘Change’
The most frequent collocation patterns, for the shell
noun ‘change’, i.e. ‘the+n+of’ and ‘the+n’ were used by the writers of social
sciences than natural science writers. While the other two lexico-grammatical
patterns i.e. ‘a(n)+n’ and ‘a(n)+n+of’ were used only by the writers of natural
science and social science discipline writers avoided this pattern with regard
to this particular shell noun i.e. ‘change’.
4.3
Overall Frequency of Social Science Lexico-Grammatical Patterns
In social science articles’ corpora, as identified
by the frequency table of shell nouns, the most frequent shell noun result has
a very high frequency in the pattern of ‘the+n+of’.
Table 4:
Lexico-Grammatical Patterns' Frequency of Social Science Articles
Pattern
|
Effect
|
Result
|
Fact
|
Type
|
Form
|
Change
|
N + cl
|
0
|
0
|
15%
|
8%
|
2%
|
8%
|
N + be + cl
|
10%
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
The + be + n
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
The + n
|
18%
|
15%
|
25%
|
9%
|
35%
|
21%
|
The + n + of
|
20%
|
56%
|
0
|
7%
|
18%
|
40%
|
A(n) + n
|
5%
|
10%
|
15%
|
0
|
14%
|
9%
|
A(n) + n + of
|
12%
|
8%
|
40%
|
10%
|
0
|
12%
|
Table 4 shows that lexico-grammatical patterns
‘the+n+of’ and ‘the+n’ have been most frequently used with anaphoric function.
Furthermore, the most frequent shell noun, for these patterns, as utilized by
social science article writers, is ‘result’.
Table 5:
Lexico-Grammatical Patterns’ Frequency in Natural Science Articles
Pattern
|
Effect
|
Result
|
Fact
|
Type
|
Form
|
Change
|
N
+ cl
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
N
+ be + cl
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
The
+ be + n
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
The
+ n
|
0
|
15%
|
12%
|
3%
|
15%
|
15%
|
The
+ n + of
|
8%
|
7%
|
10%
|
0
|
6%
|
26%
|
A(n)
+ n
|
2%
|
0
|
0
|
10%
|
8%
|
12%
|
A(n)
+ n + of
|
0
|
6%
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
4%
|
According to the table 5, the most frequently used shell
noun by the natural science article writers is ‘change’, and ‘a(n)+n’ pattern
has been frequently used to express the shell noun ‘change’. While, the writers
of natural science did not utilize the patterns i.e. ‘n+cl’, and ‘n+be+cl’ as ‘shell
noun phrase+be+cl+that clause’, to infinitive clause, wh clause with cataphoric
reference. The other pattern was ‘the+be+n’ as demonstrative pronoun i.e.
subject this, that +be+shell noun with anaphoric reference in their articles.
4.4
Functional Analysis
Schmid (2000) introduced three functions of shell
nouns such as, characterization, temporary concept formation and linking. These
functions were observed in both corpora i.e. natural and social science
articles. Details are given below.
4.4.1
Characterization
The first function of lexico-grammatical pattern is
characterization. The writers of social science articles utilized this function
effectively with whole lexico-grammatical pattern. The patterns of this
function are ‘n+cl’, ‘n+be+cl’, ‘the+n+of’, ‘/an+n+of’ which are most
frequently utilized by social science article writers. The examples, taken from
social and natural science corpora, are presented in tables 6 and 7.
Table 6: Examples of
Lexico-Grammatical Patterns from Social Science Articles
Pattern
|
Example
|
N + cl
|
In fact there can be no divine revelation………
|
The + n + of
|
The result of both prior experience and
learning…….
|
A + n + of
|
A form of social practice………
|
An + n + of
|
An effects of the findings…….
|
Table 7: Example of Lexico-Grammatical
Patterns from Natural Science Articles
Pattern
|
Example
|
A + n + of
|
A type of disability which has many type……….
|
As table 7 shows, the writers of social science
articles utilized ‘characterization’ completely whereas the writers of natural
science utilized only one lexico-grammatical pattern for this function i.e.
‘a+n+of’ with the purpose of characterizing the piece of information
efficiently.
4.4.2
Temporary Concept Formation
The second function of lexico-grammatical pattern is
‘temporary concept formation’. This function refers to the repetition of
different patterns to convey a specific experience. Therefore, it has unique
and strong relationship with the concept of characterization. This function is
also associated with the involvement of cognitive skills to develop a word in
mind relevant to the concept. In this regard, social science article writers
used two basic patterns of this function while natural science article writers
used only one pattern of this function as demonstrated in tables 8 and 9.
Table 8: Examples of
Lexico-Grammatical Patterns from Social Science Articles
Pattern
|
Example
|
The
+ n + of
|
The result of both prior experience and learning…….
|
A
+ n + of
|
A
form of social practice………
|
An
+ n + of
|
An
effect of findings…….
|
Table 9: Examples of
Lexico-Grammatical Patterns from Natural Science Articles
Pattern
|
Example
|
The
+ n + of
|
The
change of the two properties of acrylic-based polyurethane……..
|
It is possible to say (in the light of results
presented in tables 8 and 9) that in the corpora of social science articles,
there are most distinct frequencies of temporary concept formation than in
natural science articles’ corpora. This function has very strong relationship
with characterization, because both are responsible to refer to experience.
Furthermore, the writers of natural science may have found it difficult to use
this function effectively in their writings because of its cognitive aspect. On
the other hand, the social science article writers have highly linked with
cognitive aspect behind the structure they have utilized in their articles.
4.4.3
Linking
This function is relevant
to the contextual aspect of writing in which
words create linking function that depends on the material they carry in the context. The lexico-grammatical
patterns, linked with this function,
are ‘the+n’ and ‘the+be+n’. The
writers of social sciences used both of these patterns in their writing while natural science writers only utilized one
pattern of this fnction as depicted in tables 10 and 11.
Table 10: Examples of
Lexico-Grammatical Patterns from Social Science Articles
Pattern
|
Example
|
The
+ n
|
The
fact is that before producing a text…….
|
The
+ be + n
|
The
form may be merge into this……..
|
Table 11: Examples of
Lexico-Grammatical Patterns from Natural Science Articles
Pattern
|
Example
|
The
+ n
|
The
fact is that concentrations of toxic metals increase…..
|
In this way, it can be said that the most frequent
lexico-grammatical pattern with three functions introduced by Schmid (2000) is
highly utilized by the writers of social science articles to create
cohesiveness while the writers from natural science discipline have used less
patterns and function in their articles.
5.
Conclusion
This study examined the structural and functional
categories of shell nouns in research articles of social and natural
science disciplines. The result indicated that out of 35, social science
writers utilized six shell nouns (i.e. effect, result, type, change, fact,
form) most frequently. In this way, social science article writers frequently
used three lexico-grammatical patterns such as ‘n+cl’, ‘the+be+n’, ‘the+n’ with
their function of characterization, temporary concept formation and linking to
create more cohesive writings. On the other hand the writers of natural science
articles most frequently utilized
only one pattern of Schmid’s (2000) shell nouns’ category that was ;the+n’ with
the function of linking and another one was
‘a+n+of/an+n+of’ with the
function of characterization. As
Schmid (2000) states that shell nouns carry two naïve linguistic phenomena i.e.
the first one is that it performs three basic functions of cohesiveness such as
characterization, temporary concept formation, and linking which equally
belongs to different linguistic elements to produce more cohesive writings, and
the second reason is that shell nouns perform these function by creating an
effective balance between conceptual stability and informational flexibility.
Therefore, it can be concluded that social science writers use lexico-grammatical
patterns more frequently with their function to develop more cohesiveness in
their articles by following the taxonomy of Schmid (2000) rather than natural
science article writers.
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