Orna-Montesinos Concepcion. Constructing Professional Discourse: A Multiperspective Approach to Domain-Specific Discourses

Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012. — xvi, 235 pp. — ISBN: (10): 1-4438-3629-X, ISBN: (13): 978-1-4438-3629-6.This book explores the fascinating role that language plays in the construction of non-verbal objects by mapping out the ontological meaning of the specialised concepts and the domain-specific knowledge embedded in them. In doing so, it provides a comprehensive linguistic insight into the discourse of professional domain-specific communities and hence, into the communication practices and procedures of those communities. In this respect, the book offers a response to the claims made by many of the most influential applied linguists today, such as Vijay Bhatia (1993, 2004), John Swales (1990, 2004) or Ken Hyland (2002), among others, who have consistently defended the need for applied linguistic research into the textual, generic and social perspectives on the under-researched interrelatedness of the discoursal and professional practices of a discipline. Specifically, this book provides readers with an integrative multi-perspective approach to the study of professional, domain-specific discourses.While it mainly draws on the tenets of genre theory and discourse semantics, it also nurtures from the theoretical and empirical foundations of applied linguistics, cognitive linguistics, corpus linguistics and ontological engineering. The book starts from the analysis of domain specific texts as final written products with specific lexico-grammatical, semantic and rhetorical features to later enquire into the written products as textual artefacts closely linked to the social context of production and interpretation of the text. This integrative approach provides fresh new insights into the way the processes of writing are affected by the community-specific, institutional and socio-historical circumstances in which domain-specific texts are produced.Discourse Practices of Domain-specific Professions
Professional Writing–The Text and the Context
Professional Writing–The World of Applications
Methodological Approaches to Professional Discourses
Using Corpus-based Methodology
Retrieving and Interpreting Corpus Results
Lexical Density
Analysis of Frequency
Analysis of Key Words
The Formal Profile of Building
Researching Professional Genres: A Situational and Contextual View
The Textbook Genre: An Interplay of Individuals, Communities and InstitutionsThe Semantic Profile of Domain-specific Discourses
Textualization of Domain-Specific Discourses
From Lexis to Semantics
Semantic Relations in Domain-Specific Discourses
Hyponymy and Meronymy in Lexical Ontologies
Collocations and Lexico-grammatical Features of Domain -specific Discourses
Information Organization of Disciplinary Writing
Lexical Cohesion in Disciplinary Writing
Rhetorical Elements in Science and Technology Writing
Patterns of Textual DevelopmentThe Discourse Semantics of Domain-specific Discourses: Creating the Image of the Building
Contextualization of Disciplinary Writing
Meaning in Use: Disciplinary Knowledge Embedded in Lexical Items
Discourse Functionality of Domain-specific Concepts
From Lexico-grammatical Patterns to Disciplinary Views
Value Creation in Disciplinary WritingConstructing Professional Discourse: A Global View