"Text Analysis in Academic English" has been written to help students of economic sciences familiarize themselves with the conventions of the typical genres (e.g. newspaper articles, extracts from economics textbooks, internet economics texts, academic papers, advertisements of services) they encounter in their specialist field of studies.
The coursebook contains 8 units. Texts from different genres are analysed and their textual structure, i.e. a text's organisation as a text, is elucidated through the identification of lexical, grammatical and textual cohesive ties that keep a text tightly knit. Since such texts are usually of extensive length, students are encouraged to use the appropriate reading strategies that can increase their understanding of a text in a more effective way. Units 1 and 2 present several different techniques students can resort to every time they approach lengthy reading passages. These reading strategies are further practised in the rest of the course.
In addition, as particular types of texts do not remain monomodal but they are often accompanied by some sort of visual presentation (e.g. layout techniques, graphics, images, etc.) there is an analysis of the way the verbal and the visual combine to contribute to the overall text meaning.
Thus, understanding the functional organisation of resources used in a text and the close link between text and context can lead to a less superficial interpretation of the text because it can help students in an EAP course reflect on the structure of the text rather than simply focus on the content of the text.