► The language and context of publication affect the use of metadiscourse in business management RAs. ► Local RAs in Spanish and international RAs in English feature a different use of metadiscourse. ...► The divergent use of metadiscourse creates a different writer–reader relationship in each context. ► Differences in the encoding of interpersonality should be taken into account by prospective RA authors. ► Disciplinary fields can present language/cultural sub-sets which show different writing conventions.
In the last few decades the interpersonal nature of academic communication has been stressed in English for Academic Purposes literature. Taking metadiscourse as the analytical framework, this paper focuses on the cross-cultural analysis of interpersonally driven features in research article writing in a single discipline, Business Management. It aims at analysing to what extent the different contexts (i.e. the US international and the Spanish national) influence the strategic use of metadiscourse features in this discipline. The analysis is based on a corpus of 24 research articles from this discipline: 12 of them written in English by scholars based at North-American institutions and published in international journals, and another 12 written in Spanish by Spanish scholars and published in national journals. Significant differences are reported on the overall frequency of metadiscourse features as well as on the particular incidence of some categories in the two sub-corpora. The particular linguistic/cultural contexts of publication seem to influence scholars’ rhetorical choices when writing their research articles. New knowledge appears to be interpersonally negotiated in different terms in research articles in the two cultural contexts within this disciplinary domain.
This paper studies engagement in English-medium research articles across two disciplines, linguistics and economics, and two linguacultural backgrounds, Anglophone and Czech, in order to explore how ...disciplinary and linguacultural considerations affect the choice, frequency and distribution of engagement markers in the construal of persuasive academic discourse. The contrastive analysis applying Hyland & Jiang's (2016) modified model of engagement is carried on a corpus of 60 refereed research articles published in international and local academic journals within these disciplines and linguacultural backgrounds. The findings indicate the existence of cross-disciplinary variation, as authors of linguistics research articles employ significantly more engagement features than those of economics research articles. Moreover, linguistics research articles show a preference for proximity engagement markers aiming at enhancing disciplinary solidarity, while economics research articles tend to prioritize positioning engagement features directing readers towards intended understandings and anticipating alternative interpretations. Intercultural variation, which is less significant and affects the frequency of use and choice of specific engagement markers, reflects divergences in linguacultural conventions, target audiences and contexts of publication. These results indicate the potential of this doubly contrastive approach to contribute towards an understanding of rhetorical choices in academic discourse. The study can have important pedagogic applications in efforts to support academic writers.
•Engagement in research articles is analysed across two disciplines and two cultures.•Engagement is more prominent in linguistics than in economics research articles.•Proximity is more salient in linguistics and positioning in economics articles.•Intercultural variation concerns the choice of specific engagement markers.•Variation in engagement is more significant across disciplines than across cultures.
Academic writing is a dynamic process that in some senses reveals a writer’s scholarly identity. To illuminate how this identity-forming process occurs, in the present study, three ...Anglosphere-educated writing scholars in China were interviewed to uncover their English-Chinese bilingual scholarly identities focusing on their perspectives of academic writing in two languages. The findings reveal they were conscious of their bilingual scholarly identities as English and Chinese academic writers, and attributed their academic writing skill development to their education at universities overseas, despite holding different views about the rhetorical styles of English and Chinese academic writing. Although the three returnee scholars faced challenges with writing and publishing papers in Chinese journals, they consciously applied different approaches in practicing and promoting both an English writing style and evidence-based argumentation when writing and teaching academic writing to Chinese students. The present study unpacks the complex nature of the Chinese returnee scholars’ bilingual scholarly identity construction in academic writing while highlighting their contribution to the Anglo-centric globalization of academic writing and rhetorical development. Implications for graduate research training programs and research on academic writing identity are discussed.
Discussion (and/or other closing) (DC) sections of research articles in English-medium journals are difficult to write, especially when English is not a first language. This intercultural rhetoric ...research explores whether greater effort is made to promote research in English than in Spanish. I drew ten pairs of comparable DC sections from the EXEMPRAES (exemplary empirical research articles in English and Spanish) Corpus. I systematically annotated these sections for their communicative functions, and, for the first time, my annotations were validated by the article authors, themselves. Additionally, I used an online survey to understand the authors' promotional behaviour. This innovative mixed methodology confirmed that the social scientists in the study were more promotional in English than in Spanish. Authors in English highlighted more positive aspects of their studies and applications of their results. In contrast, Spanish authors were more neutral, focussing largely on statements of contribution and relevance to the zeitgeist. Revealing how different levels of culture (unstated communication principles, knowledge areas, socialisation processes and research assessment policies) affect the inclusion of specific communicative functions demonstrates how social scientists’ promotional approaches in DC sections are complex and merit further attention. Implications for the teaching of academic writing in English are drawn.
Social scientists were more promotional in English than in Spanish. Display omitted
•A mixed-methods study of research promotion in RA DC sections in English and Spanish.•Innovatively, most of the authors themselves validated text annotations and coding.•Overall, English DC sections are more promotional than comparable Spanish texts.•Authors in English highlight more positive aspects and applications of their research.•Differences are explained by complex interactions at a variety of levels of culture.
Research articles in English have witnessed a growing emphasis on self-promotion, posing challenges for Spanish social scientists when writing for English-medium journals. One difficulty lies in ...effectively promoting their own research without compromising necessary content and exceeding word limits. To address this issue, this study explores strategies for making room for research promotion in the discussion/closing sections of social science research articles. A comparative analysis of these sections in English and Spanish was conducted, focusing on the communicative functions fulfilled by different segment types. The findings confirm that authors in English prioritise promoting the quality and applicability of their research over its contribution and relevance. They also reveal that these authors tend to include fewer non-promotional segments restating results, providing background information, and elaborating ideas compared to their Spanish counterparts. However, both groups of authors consistently include segments commenting on the results, as well as making recommendations for future research/practice. These segments are considered essential in this part-genre. This study provides insights for Spanish social scientists balancing self-promotion and other communicative goals in English research writing. The practical implications extend to English for research publication instruction, as well as the work of reviewers and editors of English-medium journals.
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•Prioritising content over self-promotion may impact Spanish authors' publication.•Spanish-English comparison unveils rhetorical differences in discussions.•Implication for publishing in English: Balancing self-promotion without compromising.•Emphasising positive features, limitations, applications, and research gaps.•Reducing contributions, relevance, results statements, background, and elaboration.
Self-mention in academic writing has been studied extensively, especially from the point of view of rhetorical functions. In this paper I argue that rhetorical functions represent only one dimension ...of self-mention. Adding the dimensions of grammatical forms and of hedging and boosting, I propose a three-dimensional model of self-mention. I then employ the model in the analysis of three types of writing in the field of linguistics – L1 English, L1 Slovak (a typologically different language), and L2 English writing by Slovak authors. The study shows that authors employ various degrees of the three dimensions of self-mention to meet expectations of their readers while maintaining a balanced power of self-mention. The results suggest that some, but not all, discourse practices related to self-mention might be transferred to L2 English from one's L1.
•Argues for a three-dimensional view of self-mention in academic writing.•Explores how writers exploit the three dimensions to meet readers' expectations.•Contrasts self-mention in L1 and L2 research articles.
•A brief overview of the evolution of intercultural rhetoric is provided.•Recent relevant developments in theory, technology, and research are discussed.•Future directions for intercultural rhetoric ...as a field of study are suggested.
This article surveys the evolution of what is now known as intercultural rhetoric (IR) and considers how developments in IR research may be seen as both productive and problematic in varying ways for goals that may not always happily co-exist, namely theory construction (or deconstruction) and language/literacy classroom practice. The affordances, challenges, and possible constraints of continuing to empirically and conceptually develop an area labeled “intercultural rhetoric” in view of recent research are discussed.
In the last decades, publishing research in the international arena has become an imperative among scholars in Spain. However, many researchers experience difficulties in publishing their work in ...English-medium international journals. The present paper is part of a wider research project which aims at identifying, analysing and catering for the needs of Spanish researchers in English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP). The first stage of our project involved a large-scale online survey administered to researchers at five universities and research institutions in Spain. This paper reports on the responses provided by informants from the social fields of Education, Psychology and Sociology. Taking a Spanish–English intercultural perspective, our objective is twofold: firstly, to explore the difficulties experienced by Spanish scholars in these disciplines, along with the strategies they use when publishing in English; and secondly, to identify their ERPP needs, with the prospect of developing materials and courses which will help them produce effective academic writing and publish their research internationally. The results point at a generalised need for training in specific areas of academic writing, such as the rhetorical sections of the RA and the most common problems and difficulties encountered by Spanish authors when writing their papers in English.
•Spanish researchers in the social sciences display a poor command of written academic English.•Linguistic difficulties and unawareness of conventions hinder their publishing internationally.•The most widely used strategy is to write in Spanish with subsequent translation by a professional.•Training in academic writing needs a special focus on the sections of the research article.•Stylistic and rhetorical features are a major concern to be addressed in the training sessions.
•We examine rhetorical promotion in English and Spanish research article introductions.•Within related subdisciplines the English texts are rhetorically the most promotional.•Cultural factors thus ...tend to override the influence of subdisciplinary context.•The Health Sciences texts in both languages are more promotional than those of Humanities/Social Sciences.•When comparing broad fields, disciplinary conventions seem to prevail over national cultural factors.
Intercultural studies have shown the existence of rhetorical variation in the prevalent discourse practices of multilingual scholars and those of English-speaking scholars. In this paper, we examine comparatively the typical rhetorical practices used in the Introduction section of 80 research articles written in English and 80 in Spanish in four disciplines in the fields of Health Sciences and Humanities/Social Sciences. We particularly examine how writers present their research studies in Move 3 (Swales, 2004), with a special focus on those steps that add promotional value to one’s research. The results revealed that, within the same field, the English texts present a higher degree of rhetorical promotion than the Spanish texts in each of the disciplines analysed. However, when comparing the two broad fields, the Spanish texts in Health Sciences present a higher degree of promotion than the English (and Spanish) texts in Humanities/Social Sciences. This indicates that, in shaping the promotional features of the (sub)genre in question, when professional and national cultural variables interact simultaneously, cultural factors tend to override the influence of disciplinary context. However, when broad fields of knowledge are compared, it is the disciplinary conventions in specific professional subcultures that seem to prevail over national cultural factors.
This pilot study applies the three tenets of intercultural rhetoric (i.e., texts must be studied in context; culture is complex and dynamic; written discourse encounters necessitate negotiation and ...accommodation) to an investigation of the translingual practices of four post-graduate-level second language (L2) writers of English. By using stimulated recall to probe the participants’ awareness and use of L1 and L2 academic conventions in the writing process, we were able to identify the negotiation strategies they employed and to understand the linguistic or cultural factors that influenced those choices. Our findings revealed that participants’ translingual negotiations varied, depending on their level of proficiency in English, field of study, and experience writing academically in both their L1 and L2. Participants also tended to frame discussions of their academic writing in terms of both large, national cultures and small, disciplinary or classroom-based ones. Finally, this study illustrates how inquiries that highlight the social contexts and complexities of cross-cultural comparisons can be useful in operationalizing translingual concepts and developing evidence-based pedagogy for L2 writing.
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