Some quantitative genre indices of academic writing

Abstract

It is presumed that the quantitative study of the distribution of subunits in any linguistic system of a representative body of acceptable texts in a genre will produce certain indices which can be used to characterise the genre and differentiate it from other genres. A study of the system of determiners with Tuldava's modification of the Brandt‐Snedecor Chi‐square test shows that the distribution of determiners is capable of discriminating texts with respect to their genres.

Notes

Address correspondence to: Malle Laar, 18a Ulikooli, Department of English, University of Tartu, Tartu EE 2400, Estonia. Fax: [phone]. Phone: [phone]. E‐mail: [email protected]