Evaluative Meanings and Disciplinary Values - eTheses Repository ...

linguistics and business studies on several counts. The cultural values of applied linguistics
were found to be broadly humanistic, being characterized by an emphasis on the organic,
on affect and emotion, on the commentative and so on. This reflects the fact that this
discipline is fundamentally concerned with humanity in general and education in particular.
In contrast, my analysis of business studies discourse uncovered a very different set of
cultural values. The world-view of business studies is mechanistic, and the values that it
promotes prioritize the inorganic, the absence of affect and emotional judgments,
clarification and so on. Again, this resonates with the popular view of this discipline
(Smeltzer, 1996; Reinsch, 1991, 1996) as concerned primarily with finding ways to gain
maximum profits, to advocate the creation of an ideal business society, and to facilitate
daily business tasks, in turn carefully evaluating current matters in particular situations.
While applied linguistics and business studies are both epistemologically categorized as
soft-applied disciplines, my analysis shows that these two disciplines are often profoundly
different in their cultural backgrounds, purposes, stances, activities, attributes, content,
habits and approaches to knowledge.
11.3. Limitations for the current study and future works
Several limitations that I have faced in the current study have opened up a number of new
research topics for future studies to pursue. This small section details these limitations for the
current study and future works in detail.
The first limitation is that of corpus design. In corpus-based studies such as the
current study, the procedure of corpus design would be the most significant aspect for the later
in-depth analysis being conducted. In this regard, I believe that my future study should be
directed toward further expanding the size of corpora. Although the major findings of the
current study may well remain intact, further increase in the size of disciplinary corpora
would bring about a more accurate pattern profile, especially in terms of the patterns with
relatively low frequency. The larger corpora can generate more accurate quantitative
pattern-lists that are particularly desirable for the in-depth studies and the material design. At
the same time, this will make it possible to compute several statistic scores for the
collocations of the pattern as well (e.g. T-score, MI-score, Log-likelihood score). That is, the
larger corpora will increase the authenticity and reliability of the data handled and
investigated in the corpus-based study.
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