Tuesday, October 17th, 3:30 – 4:30 PM EDT

Zoom Information:
msu.zoom.us/my/sommerfarias
Meeting ID: 296 919 6867
Password: Ametista

Larissa Goulart, Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Montclair State University

Several studies of undergraduate student writing have described the language patterns of undergraduate assignments taking a Multi-Dimensional (MD) approach. These studies have examined the extent to which university writing varies across different assignment types (Gardner et al., 2019; Goulart, 2021; Hardy & Friginal, 2016; Staples et al., 2018; Tasker, 2019), disciplines (Conrad, 1996; Gardner et al., 2019; Hardy & Römer, 2013; Nesi & Gardner, 2012; Moran, 2013), and language background (Staples & Reppen, 2016; Weigle & Friginal, 2015). Collectively, these studies show that (i) more personal registers (e.g., self-reflection, narratives) differ linguistically from more concrete/technical assignments (e.g., explanations, case studies), (ii) disciplines in humanities tend to be more elaborate, while disciplines in physical sciences tend to be more compressed, and (ii) L1-English students generally use more language features associated with condensed informational discourse whereas L2-English students tend to use more elaboration. Although these studies document linguistic differences across assignments, disciplines, and language backgrounds, no study considers all three factors together. In this talk, we will examine the relative influence of these three variables (discipline, communicative purpose, and language background) in the linguistic variation of undergraduate student writing in a corpus of 938 assignments.