Jack A. Hardy

Corpus-based sociolinguistics : a guide for students

Section A: Introduction to Corpus-Based Sociolinguistics Section B: Survey of Corpus-Based Sociolinguistic Studies Section C: Conducting Corpus-Based Sociolinguistic Studies

Multi-Dimensional Analysis of Academic Discourse

This chapter provides an overview of multi-dimensional (MD) analysis and important findings in this area of research. This approach to the study of language variation and discourse communities is then exemplified through a case study of an MD analysis of student writing from the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP), which includes four different levels of discourse community members: final-year undergraduate students, and first-, second-, and third-year graduate students. Although variation of MICUSP has been investigated according to discipline (Hardy and Romer, 2013) and paper type (Hardy and Friginal, 2014), it has not been investigated according to writer level.