USING OF PHRASEBANKS IN ENGLISH ACADEMIC TEXTS

Abstract

This work aims to present such an innovation as the ‘Academic Phrasebank’ and the possibilities of its application while writing and/ or editing English academic prose, in particular research articles (RA) and dissertations. The concept ‘The Academic Phrasebank’ is based on the approach to analysing academic texts pioneered by the outstanding British linguist John Swales in the 1980s. He identified some rhetorical patterns and defined a ‘move’ as a part of a text serving a specific communicative function. John Swales was also interested in showing the specificity of the language used to achieve the communicative purpose of a move. The move as a unit of rhetorical analysis is now applied as one of the key organising sub-categories of the Academic Phrasebank. It is generally recognised that there is a significant phraseological dimension in the up-to-date academic language. The Academic Phrasebank is an overall resource for academic and scientific writers. It provides the phraseological components organised according to the main sections of a research article or dissertation. It helps to organise of one’s own writing, or the phrases can be incorporated in a text to the point. In this article, the issues of style and phraseology of scientific prose according to the classical sections of a research article or a dissertation have been studied. These sections are normally summarised as follows: Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions. The criteria of the phrases applicable for including into banks have been analysed. The specificity of the style of academic writing reflected in a Phrasebank has been exemplified in detail. The problem of avoiding plagiarism in academic texts has been mentioned. The universal recommendations with regard of the ‘Academic Phrasebank’ usage in academic writing apart from a subject area, a genre and a scope of a paper have been given.