engleski

Explicit author reference in research articles in linguistics in English and Croatian

The paper investigates linguistic patterns of direct author reference in research papers in linguistics in English and Croatian. All research papers communicate empirically proven, verifiable findings of conducted scientific research, but the rhetorical practices of various disciplinary communities vary greatly in terms of what they consider to be appropriate ways of “academic persuasion“, that is ways of communicating their research activities and findings in a persuasive way. The presented research is based on the assumption that, apart from differences in the rhetorical conventions of various disciplinary communities, there are also differences between the conventions of particular scientific communities within the same discipline. This assumption is tested by means of text analysis of two corpora of linguistics research articles written in English and Croatian. The use of the first person singular and plural is analyzed as a direct signal of writer presence in research articles, with a view to tracing down conventionalized rhetorical practices within a single discipline in two discrete scientific communities. In addition to the analysis of the preferred patterns of direct author reference, the text analysis is aimed at uncovering and comparing discourse functions of direct author reference in the two corpora. Interviews with members of the Croatian linguistics scientific community are conducted in order to find out in what ways have those authors acquired the conventions of academic writing in linguistics, how much they emphasize their own authorial role in their research papers and what communicative effects they wish to achieve with the chosen rhetorical strategies. The contribution of this research is to shed light on the differences between the rhetorical practices of academic writing in linguistics in the two studied communities.

explicit author reference, first person singular and plural, explicit author reference, discourse functions

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