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Teaching and Researching Writing
Fourth Edition
Ken Hyland
Fourth edition published 2022
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2022 Ken Hyland
The right of Ken Hyland to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or
other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Pearson Education 2002
Third edition published by Routledge 2016
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hyland, Ken, author.
Title: Teaching and researching writing / Ken Hyland.
Description: Fourth edition. | New York, NY : Routledge, 2022.
Series: Applied linguistics in action | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021014892 (print) | LCCN 2021014893 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Written communication--Study and teaching. |
Written communication--Research.
Classification: LCC P211 .H95 2022 (print) | LCC P211 (ebook) |
DDC 808/.04207--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021014892
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021014893
DOI: 10.4324/9781003198451
SECTION I
Understanding Writing 1
1 An Overview of Writing 3
1.1 Text-Oriented Understandings 4
1.2 Writer-Oriented Understandings 12
1.3 Reader-Oriented Understandings 25
1.4 Conclusion 34
Further Reading 35
SECTION II
Researching Writing 89
SECTION III
Teaching Writing 171
Glossary 314
References 322
Index 352
Series Editors’ Preface
Note from Routledge: Christopher Candlin and David Hall were founding
editors of the Applied Linguistics in Action series when Pearson Education
Limited was the series’ publisher. After David passed away in February
2014, Christopher continued as general editor of the series for Routledge
until his passing away in May 2015. To honor their invaluable work for and
involvement in books that they commissioned for the series, we are retaining
their original series preface for this volume.
Applied Linguistics in Action, as its name suggests, is a series which
focuses on the issues and challenges to teachers and researchers in a range
of fields in Applied Linguistics and provides readers and users with the
tools they need to carry out their own practice-related research.
The books in the series provide the reader with clear, up-to-date, accessible
and authoritative accounts of their chosen field within applied linguistics.
Starting from a map of the landscape of the field, each book provides infor-
mation on its main ideas and concepts, competing issues and unsolved ques-
tions. From there, readers can explore a range of practical applications of
research into those issues and questions, and then take up the challenge of
undertaking their own research, guided by the detailed and explicit research
guides provided. Finally, each book has a section which provides a rich array
of resources, information sources and further reading, as well as a key to the
principal concepts of the field.
Questions the books in this innovative series ask are those familiar to all
teachers and researchers, whether very experienced, or new to the field of
applied linguistics:
What does research tell us, what doesn’t it tell us and what should it
tell us about the field? How is the field mapped and landscaped? What
is its geography?
How has research been applied and what interesting research possibi-
lities does practice raise? What are the issues we need to explore and
explain?
What are the key researchable topics that practitioners can undertake?
How can the research be turned into practical action?
x Series Editors’ Preface
Where are the important resources that teachers and researchers need?
Who has the information? How can it be accessed?
Chris Candlin
David Hall
Preface
I would like to thank my students and friends for their support and
advice and give a particular mention to Susan Dunsmore, my copy-
editor, who helped make the book more accessible and reader-friendly
than I could have managed on my own. I would also like to acknowl-
edge colleagues and fiends who have shared their research and materi-
als with me. Here I would particularly like to thank John Swales and
Chris Feak for extracts from their writing guides for graduate students;
Derek Wallace and Janet Holst of the Victoria University of Wellington
for the materials and comments on Writ 101. More formally, I would
like to thank the following for allowing me to use their material and
websites.
Laurence Anthony for permission to reprint screenshots of his AntConc
programme in Figures 8.1 and 8.2.
Mark Davies for permission to reprint a screenshot from the iWeb
corpus in Figure 8.3.
Dee Gardner and Mark Davies to reprint screenshots of their ‘Word
and Phrase’ site in Figures 8.4 and 8.5.
Academic Books for permission to reprint two figures: a writing frame
for planning a discussion and a writing frame for first draft of a discussion
as Figures 8.5 and 8.6 from Wray, D. & Lewis, M. (1997). Extending lit-
eracy: Children reading and writing non-fiction. London: Routledge.
Wikiversity for permission to reprint a screenshot of its main page in
Figure 8.8, under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
(CC-BY-SA).
West Texas A&M University for permission to reprint a student wiki
page from its website in Figure 8.9.
George Cusack and Carleton College for permission to reprint ‘Portfo-
lio guidelines’ and ‘holistic scoring guide’ from the Carleton Writing Pro-
gram webpage in Concepts 8.10 and 8.12.
Derek Wallace of the Victoria University of Wellington for permis-
sion to reprint pages from Writ 101: Becoming an Effective Writer in
Table 9.1.
xiv Acknowledgements
Jane Stokes and Laura Wakeland of the Centre for Applied English
Studies (CAES) at Hong Kong University for their English for Clinical
Pharmacy materials reproduced in Chapter 9. Lillian Wong for permis-
sion to reproduce screenshots and materials from The Hong Kong
Graduate Corpus and Thesis Writing for Graduate Students in Chapter 9,
Section 9.5.
Abbreviations
DOI: 10.4324/9781003198451-2
4 Understanding Writing
1.1 Text-Oriented Understandings
The study of the tangible, analysable aspects of writing has a long history
and perhaps informs most research into writing around the world today.
By looking at surface forms, these approaches share an interest in the lin-
guistic or rhetorical resources available to writers for producing texts, and
so reduce the complexities of communication to words on a page or
screen. Text-focused theories come in many guises, but I will describe the
two main ones here.
understand the composing act—not, that is, if we shift our focus from
the formal features of an isolated text toward the whole text as an
instance of language functioning in a context of human activity.
(Brandt ,1986: 93)
Modem perspectives, then, point out that an autonomous view of texts fails
to take account of the beliefs and knowledge writers assume readers will draw
on in reading their texts. Even legal contracts, which are the most explicit of
genres, are open to multiple interpretations and endless disputes by lawyers.
Similarly, the apparently unambiguous and impersonal surface of academic
articles draws on readers’ presumed background knowledge. Through techni-
cal jargon, references to other research and assumed familiarity with particular
ways of constructing arguments, writers work to establish a coherent context
which will persuade a particular community of readers (e.g. Bazerman, 1988;
Hyland, 2004a). In sum, inferences are always involved in recovering mean-
ings: no text can be both coherent and context-free.
We can see that the writer sets up a pattern in which the rheme of the first
sentence becomes the themes of the next three, clearly signposting the
progression. We feel comfortable about reading this until we reach the last
sentence where the theme breaks the sequence, surprising us and disturb-
ing our processing of the text.
A different strand of research has tried to identify how writers organise
stretches of texts to help readers see the unfolding purpose of their mes-
sage. What are pieces of text trying to do and how do they fit into a larger
structure? Winter (1977) and Hoey (1983), for example, distinguish several
text patterns which they label problem-solution, hypothetical-real and gen-
eral-particular. They show that even without explicit signalling, readers
can draw on their knowledge of familiar text patterns to infer the connec-
tions between clauses, sentences or longer passages of text. For example,
we all have a strong expectation of how a story will proceed; we anticipate
a problem-solution pattern where, following a context introducing the
participants and situation (Cinderella is a downtrodden girl bullied by her
sisters), we anticipate a problem will arise for the participants to solve (she
can’t go to the ball), then we look for a response to the problem (the fairy
godmother works some magic) and finally an evaluation whether the
response worked (she goes to the ball and marries the prince). This pro-
blem-solution pattern is found in other genres too, such as the conference
abstract in Concept 1.4.
8 Understanding Writing
Move Example
1 Reflecting Move The most rewarding achievement in my life, as I
approach middle age, is the completion of my doctoral
dissertation.
2 Thanking Move
2.1 Presenting During the time of writing I received support and help
participants from many people.
2.2 Thanks for I am profoundly indebted to my supervisor, Dr. Robert
academic help Chau who assisted me in each step to complete the
thesis.
2.3 Thanks for I am grateful to The Epsom Foundation whose research
resources travel grant made the field work possible and to the
library staff who tracked down elusive texts for me.
2.4 Thanks for Finally, thanks go to my wife who has been an impor-
moral support tant source of emotional support.
3 Announcing Move However, despite all this help, I am the only person
responsible for errors in the thesis.
An Overview of Writing 11
The analysis showed this structure was common in almost all the
acknowledgements, and that where steps occurred, they did so in this
sequence. It also showed that, of the many ways of expressing thanks (I
am grateful to, I appreciate, I want to thank, etc.), the noun thanks was
used in over half of all cases, and this was modified by only three adjec-
tives: special, sincere and deep, with special comprising over two-thirds of
all cases. Writers also always stated the reason for thanking the person, as
in these examples:
(2) First of all, special thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Franco Lin, for
his consistent and never-failing encouragement, support and help.
My special gratitude goes to my family who made it possible for me
to embark on writing a PhD thesis at all.
I should also thank my wife, Su Meng, who spent days and nights
alone with our daughter taking care of all the tasks that should have
been shared with me.
This suggests that writers address not only the people they acknowledge,
who obviously know the help they give, but a wider audience which
sometimes includes examiners. In this way they are able to represent
themselves as good researchers and real human beings deserving of the
degree. Examining specific genres by studying patterns and recurring fea-
tures, therefore, tells us a lot about what writers are trying to achieve and
the language they are using to do it.
We cannot, however, assume that a particular text will always rigidly
observe a given genre structure. Often analyses show that moves overlap or
occur out of sequence, and there is frequently less uniformity than might
be expected. This is partly because writers make different choices about
what to include and partly because local communities may have specific
uses that override common structures. Moreover, the same genre can look
very different in different communities or when written in different lan-
guages, while a report in chemistry will look very different from one in
economics or engineering.
There is also the danger that our genre descriptions might oversimplify
a more complex reality, particularly if we ignore that writers may have
indirect purposes, or what Bhatia (2004) calls ‘private intentions’, in
addition to ‘socially recognised’ ones. Analysts also need to be cautious
about imposing their intuitions on the structure of the text. To avoid this,
our studies need to say how moves are linguistically signalled or ask text
users for their ideas. Analysts have therefore attempted to show how par-
ticular language features cluster together in texts, or parts of texts. Thus
research shows how lexical bundles like as a result of, it should be noted
that and as can be seen help identify a text as belonging to an academic
genre, while with regard to, in pursuance of and in accordance with are
likely to mark out a legal text (Hyland, 2008a).
12 Understanding Writing
Other genre variations are the result of interdiscursivity, or importing
conventions from other genres into a text. We can see this in the increasing
intrusion of promotional or advertising elements into genres often con-
sidered ‘neutral’, such as job announcements which advertise the hiring
company and the ‘synthetic personalisation’ of formal public genres, such
as business letters which address us as close friends (Fairclough, 1995).
Mixing genres in this way blurs clear distinctions between genres, thus
creating blends such as infotainment, advertorial and docudrama. Ulti-
mately, however, genres are the ways that we engage in, and make sense of,
our social worlds, and our competence to use them does not lie in our
ability to identify monolithic uses of language, but to modify our choices
according to the contexts in which we write.
One serious problem is that these results often rely on concurrent think-
aloud protocols, a method where researchers ask writers to report their
thoughts and actions while writing. Thus, Li (2006) and Leighton and Gierl
(2007), for example, argue that protocols provide a detailed record of what
a writer attends to when he or she is writing. But the method has been cri-
ticised as offering an incomplete picture of the complex cognitive activities
involved in writing, many of which are unconscious and not available to
verbal description. In addition, asking subjects to simultaneously write and
verbalise what they are doing slows down task performance by overloading
short-term memory or what Afflerbach and Johnson (1984: 311) call
‘crowding the cognitive workbench’. Things may even be worse than this as
the act of reporting itself may be just a story that participants construct to
explain, rather than reflect, what they do, potentially distorting the thought
processes they are reporting on.
Reservations have also been expressed about the writing models them-
selves. Scardamalia and Bereiter (1986), for example, argue that such
models do not represent fully worked-out theories and fail to either explain
or generate writing behaviour. The models do not tell us why writers make
certain choices and therefore cannot help us to advise students on how to
write better. In fact, Flower and Hayes’ original model was too imprecise to
predict the behaviour of real writers or to carry the weight of the research
claims based on it. In subsequent work they have emphasised the impor-
tance of appropriate goal-setting and rhetorical strategies far more (Flower
et al., 1990). But such refinements cannot obscure the weaknesses of a
model which seeks to describe cognitive processes common to all writers,
both novice and expert, and all learners in between these poles.
Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) suggest that because skilled and novice
practices differ so radically, we need two models to account for the
research findings (see Concept 1.10).
resources. Their main goal is simply to tell what they can remember
based on the assignment, the topic, or the genre.
Acknowledge transforming model, in contrast, suggests how skilled
writers use the writing task to analyse problems and set goals. These
writers are able to reflect on the complexities of the task and resolve
problems of content, form, audience, style, organisation, and so on
within a content space and a rhetorical space, so that there is con-
tinuous interaction between developing knowledge and text. Knowl-
edge transforming thus involves actively reworking thoughts so that
in the process not only text, but also ideas, may be changed.
(Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987)
Pros
Major impact on the theory and methodology of teaching writ-
ing to L1 and L2 students.
A useful corrective to preoccupations with ‘product’ and student
accuracy.
Important in raising teachers’ awareness of what writing
involves—contributing to a professionalisation of writing teaching.
Gives greater respect for individual differences among student
writers.
Stimulates considerable research into the ways students write in
different contexts.
Raises many new research questions which remain to be answered.
An Overview of Writing 19
Cons
Overemphasises psychological factors in writing.
Focuses on the writer as a solitary individual and fails to recog-
nise social aspects of writing.
Based on individualistic ideologies which may hamper the
development of English as a Second Language (ESL) students.
Ignores important influences of context, especially differences of
class, gender and ethnicity.
Downplays the varied conventions of professional and academic
communities.
Uncertain whether this approach greatly improves student writing.
There are doubtless numerous reasons why this model has not generated
similar enthusiasm among teachers elsewhere, but having taught in EFL
situations in both schools and universities for 40 years, I cannot remember
ever having met a student who did not want to write with as much control
over a standard English as they could achieve. Students in these contexts
are often learning English for instrumental reasons, to pass the exams that
will admit them to universities or professions and to further their careers.
They are not generally seeking to reach a broad audience or communicate
an identity, which they can perfectly well express in their L1. So, for them,
what Canagarajah (2011) calls ‘code-meshing’, or combining local, verna-
cular and colloquial languages with standard English, is less important in
formal assignments than trying to reach and convince a scholarly audi-
ence. The inclusion of multiple literacies in the classroom can certainly
help create a positive learning environment, but writing in this way does
not promote ‘agency’ or change the dominant social structure. It serves to
restrict access to opportunity and perpetuate inequalities, marking such
writers as failing to master the means of communication most valued in
academia and society (e.g. Miller, 2005).
There also seems to be a serious misapprehension about the nature of
L2 writing by many translingual theorists. A number of leading L2 writing
specialists in the United States, for example, are alarmed at a growing
‘tendency to conflate L2 writing and translingual writing and view the
latter as a replacement for or improved version of L2 writing’ (Atkinson et
al., 2015). One serious problem is that translingual theorists position
second language writing instruction as discriminatory and its classrooms
as sites of forced linguistic homogenisation where grammar and genre are
taught with little tolerance of linguistic variation. While many second
language writing classrooms expose students to valued genres and the
ways these are typically realised, this is often done recognising that these
are plans not moulds and the sensitivity to acknowledge that form and
An Overview of Writing 25
genre varies across contexts (e.g. Tardy, 2009; Halliday & Matthiessen,
2014). Williams and Condon (2016), however, see possibilities for a fruitful
alliance between translingualism and second language writing if these
negative views could be ironed out.
The agenda of translingualism proponents is clearly a noble one. their
desire to pluralise writing assignments clearly values students’ own lan-
guages, and code meshing the students’ preferred local dialect with Stan-
dard Written English may eventually reform society’s expectations of how
formal assignments can be written. However, this is an experiment which
risks students’ life chances as the ability to express personal identity and
merge multiple literacies is not likely to be the most direct way to achieve
upward mobility. So while translingualism is an apparently ‘writer-centred’
orientation to instruction, teachers might ask themselves if this is the best
way they can serve their students’ interests.
Overall, then, all these perspectives which focus on writers lack a
developed theory of the ways experience is created and interpreted in
social communities, underplaying the workings of wider factors by
ignoring audience response. As a result, they fail to move beyond the
local context to take full account of how an evolving text might be a
writer’s response to a reader’s expectations. This neglect of the social
dimension of writing encourages serious consideration of more socially
situated approaches.
The next morning, the 22nd of February, the Federal party, many
thousands strong, marched through a flag-decked city to the Luneta
where a speakers’ stand had been erected for the celebration of the
day. There were scores of bands, each, as usual, playing its own tune
in its own way regardless of what the others were doing; the
populace, in its gayest attire, crowded in the wake of the procession;
the spirit of festivity was rampant; and altogether it was a most
interesting scene.
As close as ten thousand people could get to a speakers’ stand ten
thousand people massed themselves, and they listened in respectful
silence to the words of both the American and Filipino speakers, each
one of whom made a spirited appeal for peaceful co-operation in the
solution of the problem which America had acquired through no
fault or desire of her own and which she could not, in honour,
abandon. General Wright was the American speaker of the day and
the frank friendliness of his speech was translated, paragraph by
paragraph as he delivered it, by Mr. Arthur Fergusson, the Secretary-
interpreter for the Commission, whose extraordinary command of
Spanish made it possible for him not only to translate the words
themselves, but to infuse into them the poetic fervour of the Spanish
tongue. Never was Washington’s birthday so celebrated, and it
marked a new era of mutual toleration which was to grow into
sympathetic understanding disturbed only by the agitation of the few
whose aspirations were in no way in those days shared or condoned
by the many.
The method adopted by the Commission for organising provincial
governments was extremely simple. The people were instructed to
send delegates from all the towns in a province to meet the
Commission on a given date at the provincial capital. Having
gathered this popular assembly in the largest available hall Mr. Taft,
or some other member of the Commission, would proceed to read
and explain the new Provincial Code which covered every
governmental function and which provided for the appointment by
the Commission of a provincial governor, a treasurer and a secretary.
It was the intention of the Commission to name a Filipino for
governor in each province, thereby giving them an immediate
opportunity for the exercise of self-government, but in several
instances they were almost unanimously petitioned by the people to
appoint to this office the American Army officer who had been in
command in the district. Considering the attitude of the Filipinos
toward military rule and their eagerness to substitute a purely civil
form of government, it was really astonishing that they should have
wished to retain any representative of the hated régime, but
personality counts for a great deal with the Filipinos, and the Army
officer who displayed tact and kindly justice in his dealings with
them was sure to win for himself a peculiar popularity.
For treasurer an American was almost invariably chosen. During
Spanish times the Filipinos had not learned much about the proper
use of public funds and they have had to be very painstakingly taught
that government money is for government purposes only. To our
poignant and everlasting shame object lessons had to be given them
by the drastic punishment meted out to certain American treasurers
who were unable to resist temptation. The penalty prescribed in
Philippine law for the misuse of public funds or the falsification of a
public document is terribly severe, and there is a little band of white
men in Bilibid prison in Manila to-day because of their venality and
breach of trust. Our mission in the Philippines is based upon the
highest principles and we have always striven to maintain a high
moral tone in the government personnel, so it is particularly painful
to the small American community when, as happened too often at
first, an American went wrong.
Though the Commission proceeded with the establishment of civil
government in a conspicuously simple manner as much cannot be
said of the Filipinos. They were bent upon making the most of a rare
opportunity for the enjoyment of great and ceremonious festivity.
On the 23d of February, following the extraordinary celebration of
Washington’s birthday, the Commission, accompanied by a
considerable number of prominent Filipinos and by several of the
ladies, took a government launch and steamed across the Bay to the
town of Balanga, the capital of the province of Bataan which lies
directly opposite Manila where the sun goes down in tropic
splendour behind the Meriveles Mountains. This trip was a new
experience for me and was the beginning of my long acquaintance
with Filipino hospitality.
As we approached the Bataan shore there were splashes of brilliant
colour all over the surface of the Bay, which, on nearer view, turned
out to be the decorations of a great fleet of bancas coming out to
meet us. There must have been a hundred or more and, while they
were of all sizes, some of them were large enough to hold twenty and
thirty rowers. The banca is a long, narrow dugout which usually
looks as if it were just about to sink. Some of these had outriggers,
some had not, but each and every one of them was loaded to
capacity, and each was covered with the most gorgeous decorations.
Bunting and paper flowers of every hue were mixed with long palm
leaves and branches of bamboo and everything in the nature of an
ornament that could possibly be used, while from every angle and at
every point fluttered small American flags, some of them homemade
and only approximately correct. Then there were two huge flat affairs
with decorated awnings over them which we found were nothing less
than rafts prepared for our own use, the water in the little harbour
being too shallow for our big steam launch. These rafts were made of
split bamboo flooring lashed to the tops of large bancas and, though
they looked exceedingly unsafe, we found they would hold as many
as could stand upon them without being pushed over the edge.
In ten minutes this gay and unusual fleet had surrounded us; the
rafts came alongside and over our rails clambered the reception
committee, a half dozen Filipinos in more or less nondescript, heavy
black clothes with silk hats! Where these garments came from I have
no idea. Most of the hats looked like heirlooms, just as the silk hats
of our own husbands looked, but the chief concern of their owners
seemed to be their protection. Never have I seen silk hats so
cautiously handled.
Having got safely aboard the launch each man went through a
deliberate process of straightening himself out and carefully
adjusting his attire before he advanced to the stern of the launch
where we waited to receive him. Then there were some set speeches
of welcome in which the chief sentiment seemed to be that never had
the province of Bataan been so highly honoured and that, therefore,
it and all it contained was, with feelings inexpressible, laid at the feet
of the honourable Commission. Mr. Fergusson translated the flowers
and figures of oratory and all the soaring flights of sentimental
generosity into literal English, then, with equal solemnity and
impressiveness, he rendered Mr. Taft’s matter of fact, though cordial,
replies into a marvellous flow of Spanish eloquence.
TRIUMPHAL ARCH AT BATAAN