WRDS 150: Discourse Analysis Essay on Scholarly Writing Features

This essay provides a discourse analysis of an excerpt from a scholarly article, focusing on how sports, particularly soccer, bridge informal barriers in international trade. The analysis identifies key features of academic writing present in the excerpt, including grammatical complexity, relevance, and vocabulary choice. Grammatical complexity is demonstrated through information-dense sentences, while relevance is maintained by sticking to the topic and citing sources appropriately. The careful selection of vocabulary ensures clear communication of the research findings. The essay concludes by highlighting the importance of these features in effectively conveying research and persuading readers within the disciplinary discourse community. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and past papers for students.

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Discourse Analysis
In the excerpt, the writer majorly looks at how sports have helped in bridging the
informal barriers of international trade especially as it pertains importation and exportation.
These barriers include lack of information, absence of trust between venders and purchasers and
the varied cultural difference between buyers and sellers from different countries. From the
excerpt, one realizes that soccer, one of the sporting activity, has proven more than once to
bridge these barriers. Citing the 2010 FIFA World cup, the writer states that the said event
increased the GDP of the host country. This can be explained by the high number of tourists that
visited the country during the event and hence accommodated at a cost. At the same time, sports
have a positive impact on tourism activities to the host country.
Since academic writing is formal writing, there are various features that are of use when
writing these scholarly articles, (Celce-Murcia & Marianne, 143-158). The major features that
can be easily be identified in the excerpt are relevance, grammatical complexity and vocabulary
choice. In addition to the mentioned basic features, the writer should ensure that the excerpt has a
smooth flow of ideas that captivates the reader as demonstrated in the given excerpt. For one to
successfully write an academic work, he or she must follow the above mentioned basic features
of academic writing, (Celce-Murcia 143-158).

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The first feature of academic writing used in the excerpt is grammatical complexity. In
this case, grammatical complexity refers to the grammatical structure of sentences in an excerpt
(Hyland, Ken, and Polly. 156-177). According to Hyland et al. (156-177) academic writing uses
sentences that are highly loaded with information as opposed to simple sentences. By doing this,
the writer can express several ideas in one sentence. In one of the instances, the writer states that
Sterken (2006) investigated the effect of organizing major sporting proceedings on development
and established that organizing Summer Olympic Games rouse per capita GDP, which FIFA
World Cup did not. In this sentence, the writer was able to state the person who conducted the
study, the topic of study, and the findings in one statement.
Secondly, the other feature that is outstanding in this excerpt is relevance. Throughout the
text, one can notice that the writer has only provided information that is relevant to the topic in
question. As opposed to informal writing, academic writing demands that one must stick to the
topic, avoid void allegations and be straight to the point (Lea, Mary R., and Brian V. Street. 157-
172). In doing this, one should cite as much as possible, the source of information in the article
(Lea et al. 157-172).
Lastly, the other outstanding feature in this excerpt is the choice of vocabulary. In
academic writing, one must ensure that the vocabularies used to denote just what the writer
wants to communicate (Street&Brian 24.1). This has greatly helped the writer to successfully
attain the objectives of the article in communicating the outcome of the research.

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Works Cited
Celce-Murcia, Marianne. "On the use of selected grammatical features in academic writing."
Developing advanced literacy in first and second languages: Meaning with power (2002):
143-158.
Hyland, Ken, and Polly Tse. "Metadiscourse in academic writing: A reappraisal." Applied
linguistics 25.2 (2004): 156-177.
Lea, Mary R., and Brian V. Street. "Student writing in higher education: An academic literacies
approach." Studies in higher education 23.2 (1998): 157-172.
Street, Brian. "" Hidden" Features of Academic Paper Writing." Working Papers in Educational
Linguistics (WPEL) 24.1 (2009): 1.