A Corpus-Based Approach to Citation Use in English for Academic Purposes

Academic writers are expected to make explicit references to the previous literature that is an essential part of academic writing. Apprentice writers may undergo a troublesome experience because of the lack of awareness in citation use. Following Swales’ (1990) distinction between integral and non-integral citation forms, this study examined citation patterns particularly focusing on reporting clauses. It investigated finite reporting clauses with that-clause complement. The texts are 15 research articles written by international writers in the field of applied linguistics. Using the WMatrix, the corpus was automatically tagged, by part-of-speech tags with CLAWS7. The corpus then was analyzed using AntConc tools that can offer a powerful concordancer. The results of analyses revealed that the academic research papers frequently used reporting clauses and that they generally occurred as a type of integral citations with a human subject. The findings of the study suggested how working with citation patterns can be of great use in raising students’ language awareness. This study underlines the importance of effective use of citation that may contribute to students’ academic success, suggesting the application of corpus tools in classroom activities from a pedagogical point of view.