Systemic genre-and-style relations in the english-language student academic essay: paradigmatics, sintagmatics, epidigmatics

Southern Federal University, Bolshaya Sadovaya, 105/42, Rostov-on-Don, 344006, Russia

^* Corresponding author: sukhomlinovam@mail.ru

Abstract

This work is focused on the problem of genre specificity within the English language academic discourse of today. The goal of the research is to reveal and analyze system relations regularly and steadily showing themselves within one definite genre of the student essay, their significance and role in the official university communicative space. The abovesaid relations can be found at both the structural level, i.e. in the special text arrangement of essays, and at the conceptual level of the genre. The basic investigation methods are: interpretation and classification of the material; linguistic observation and description; componential analysis of dictionary definitions; comparison and contrasting; linguistic, functional and stylistic, genre analysis of the text; context and discourse analysis; argumentative illustration tool. The practical value can be viewed as a possibility to apply the investigation results in teaching; e.g. during the courses of English, language culture studies, linguadidactics, cross-cultural pragmatics. The authors conclude that student essay text demonstrate closely interweaving paradigmatic, syntagmatic and epidigmatic links. Paradigmatics is represented by semantic and conceptual categories of systemity, integrity, cohesion and closeness. Discourse syntagmatic categories are characterized by linguosemantic consistency, linearity, remoteness, parallelism. Epidigmatic systemity can be traced as the availability of derivative words.