Communicative Purposes of Gender-Adjusted Written Comments in Different University Disciplines
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4151/S0718-09342026012201465Keywords:
written feedback, written comments, communicative purposes, discourse genres, disciplinary writingAbstract
When university professors provide written feedback on students' drafts, they not only focus on spelling errors, font usage, or phrasing, but also pay attention to their texts, in terms that these meet rhetorical and discursive goals valued within the specialized communities to which they belong. The objective of this research is to analyze 5,945 Gender-Adjusted Comments (GACs), from a total corpus of 8,481 writings, delivered over a three-year period by 28 university professors from three disciplines (Humanities, Sciences, and Engineering) from two universities in southern Chile. To determine the communicative purposes of the GACs, we adopted the classification by Nesi and Gardner (2012), who identified five purposes in a large corpus of academic writing: demonstration of knowledge, research skills, professional development, personal communication, and development of independent thinking. After iterative data analysis, and applying reliability procedures, the comments were analyzed according to Genre Fit and categorized according to communicative purpose. The results indicate that most comments (71%) given by instructors focused on generic discourse aspects, and that the most common purposes were preparation for professional practice, demonstration of knowledge and understanding, and development of research skills. These findings allow for recommendations to guide writing instruction practices in higher education.
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