Page 205 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

LEXICAL CLASSES OF VERBS 191
In addition to working with common academic verbs, it is also im- portant to alert NNS writers to the fact that the mental/emotive verbs are hardly ever encountered in formal academic text and that their uses may make the text appear conversational and informal.
attempt believe desire
expect like feel listen
hear love
plan try remember want suppose wonder
Conversational and Emotive Verbs Not Found in Academic Prose
The uses of these verbs may seem somewhat subjective in formal aca- demic writing when discourse is expected to project objectivity, distance, and detachment (Swales, 1990a). For example,
Many American scholars have studied the history of American education. They have tried tofind out what made education change. I feel that there are different causes for that. (From a student text on early American history and education.)
Nonetheless, despite their apparent subjectivity and personal tone, cer- tain mental verbs can be used effectively in the references to sources similar to reporting verbs:
assess calculate conclude confirm observe note
However,itisadvisablethatL2writersemploytheseverbswith caution. In the following example, the author's description appears to be some- what personalized and even slightlyobsequious (mental/emotiveverbs are underlined):
Biologists like to work with each other because they feel that they need knowledge from other fields, such as chemistry and physics. They think that one person cannot work alone. Wecan notice the same in otherfields, such as geology, when they share information, andeveryonelikestotakepartthatisrelatedtohismajor. Whenbiolog- ical research starts a new project, we want to listen to one another and plan what we will do because we expect to get results together. Knowledge grows rapidly in this world, and biologists try to keep up with the current knowledge by working together to design research.After researchdesign is evaluated, we can recognize what went well and what didn't. (Extracted from a students' paper about research de-
sign in biology.)
Due to the preponderance of mental verbs in this text, it may need to be thoroughly and laboriously edited to make the text appear more detached and objective. (Also repeated uses of first-person pronouns, characteristic
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