Academic Voices: Across languages and disciplines (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Academic Voices Pragmatics & Beyond Editor Andreas H. Jucker University of Zurich, English Department Plattenstrass...

Author: Kjersti Flttum | Trine Gedde-dahl | Torodd Kinn

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Academic Voices

Pragmatics & Beyond Editor Andreas H. Jucker University of Zurich, English Department Plattenstrasse 47, CH-8032 Zurich, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected]

Associate Editors Jacob L. Mey University of Southern Denmark

Herman Parret Belgian National Science Foundation, Universities of Louvain and Antwerp

Jef Verschueren Belgian National Science Foundation, University of Antwerp

Editorial Board Shoshana Blum-Kulka

Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

University of Lyon 2

Jean Caron

Claudia de Lemos

Université de Poitiers

University of Campinas, Brazil

Robyn Carston

Marina Sbisà

University College London

University of Trieste

Bruce Fraser

Emanuel Schegloﬀ

Boston University

University of California at Los Angeles

Thorstein Fretheim

Deborah Schiﬀrin

University of Trondheim

Georgetown University

John Heritage

Paul O. Takahara

University of California at Los Angeles

Kobe City University of Foreign Studies

Susan Herring

Sandra Thompson

University of Texas at Arlington

University of California at Santa Barbara

Masako K. Hiraga

Teun A. Van Dijk

St. Paul’s (Rikkyo) University

Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona

David Holdcroft

Richard J. Watts

University of Leeds

University of Berne

Sachiko Ide Japan Women’s University

Volume 148 Academic Voices: Across languages and disciplines by Kjersti Fløttum, Trine Dahl and Torodd Kinn

Academic Voices Across languages and disciplines

Kjersti Fløttum University of Bergen

Trine Dahl Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration

Torodd Kinn University of Bergen

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia

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TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fløttum, Kjersti. Academic voices : across languages and disciplines / Kjersti Fløttum, Trine Dahl and Torodd Kinn. p. cm. (Pragmatics & Beyond, New Series, issn 0922-842X ; v. 148) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Academic writing. I. Dahl, Trine. II. Kinn, Torodd. III. Title. IV. Series: Pragmatics & beyond ; new ser., 148. P301.5.A27F58 2006 808.042--dc22 isbn 90 272 5391 9 (Hb; alk. paper)

2006047709

© 2006 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microﬁlm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

Table of contents

Preface and acknowledgements

ix

chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 The KIAP project 1 1.2 The KIAP Corpus 7 1.2.1 Corpus statistics 7 1.2.2 Text selection 8 1.2.3 Representativity 9 1.2.4 Text formatting 11 1.2.5 Text encoding 12 1.2.6 Search options 14 1.3 Cultural identity 16 1.3.1 Introduction 16 1.3.2 National identity 18 1.3.3 Academic identity 19 1.3.4 Disciplinary identity 20 1.3.5 Genre and discourse community 22 1.3.6 Cultural identity in KIAP 23 1.4 Previous research 25 chapter 2 Theoretical and methodological frameworks 2.1 Theoretical framework 29 2.1.1 Main theoretical approaches 29 2.1.2 A polyphonic framework: ScaPoLine 35 2.2 Quantitative methods 40 2.2.1 Our independent variables 40 2.2.2 Article length and absolute frequency 40 2.2.3 Relative frequency and measures based on it 41 2.2.4 Cross-linguistic comparisons and relative frequency 2.2.5 Statistical tests 43

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42

vi Academic Voices

2.2.6 2.3 2.3.1 2.3.2

Why non-parametric statistics? 45 Qualitative methods 46 An illustration of method 47 Our use of case studies 49

chapter 3 Quantitative results 3.0 Introduction 51 3.1 Cultural identities as tendencies in linguistic practices 51 3.2 Is discipline or language the most important factor? 53 3.3 Differences and similarities between disciplines 55 3.3.1 Which differences between disciplines are significant? 59 3.3.2 Similarities between disciplines 60 3.4 Differences and similarities between languages 61 3.4.1 Which differences between languages are significant? 63 3.4.2 Similarities between languages 64 chapter 4 Presence of the author 4.0 Introduction 67 4.1 Quantitative and comparative results 73 4.1.1 First person subjects 73 4.1.2 Indefinite pronoun subjects 79 4.2 Author roles 81 4.2.1 Verb groups 83 4.2.2 Author roles and context 87 4.3 First person plural subjects 95 4.3.1 The reference and functions of first person plurals 95 4.3.2 ‘We’ in combination with two verbs 101 4.3.3 Differences between languages and disciplines 104 4.3.4 ‘We’ and polyphony 108 4.4 “Indefinite” authors 110 4.4.1 Indefinite pronouns in English, French and Norwegian 110 4.4.2 Previous studies on the French indefinite pronoun on 113 4.4.3 Six values of on in French research articles 115 4.4.4 Distribution of on-values 124 4.4.5 Final remarks 125 4.5 Author roles and evaluation in abstracts 126 4.5.1 Introduction 126 4.5.2 Author roles 127

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67

Contents vii

4.5.3 4.5.4 4.6 4.6.1 4.6.2

Evaluative elements 134 Summing up 137 Case studies 138 Pronoun use in individual articles 138 Implicit and explicit references to ‘we’ in a Norwegian medical article 147 4.6.3 A study of two English abstracts 153 4.7 Concluding remarks 156 chapter 5 Reader/writer interaction 159 5.0 Introduction 159 5.1 Quantitative and comparative results 161 5.2 Metatext 163 5.3 ‘Let us’-imperatives 169 5.3.1 Types of ‘let’-imperatives 170 5.3.2 A classificatory overview of different uses 173 5.3.3 Functions of text composition 177 5.3.4 Rhetorical functions 178 5.3.5 Variation between disciplines, languages and individual authors 179 5.4 Presentation of “results” 180 5.4.1 Introduction 180 5.4.2 Quantitative analysis of RESULT 183 5.4.3 Discussion 191 5.4.4 Analysis of three linguistics articles 192 5.5 Case studies 202 5.5.1 Metatext in three economics articles 202 5.5.2 ‘Let’-imperatives in a Norwegian economics article 205 5.5.3 Metatext and author manifestation in a French medical article 210 5.6 Concluding remarks 212 chapter 6 Presence of the others 6.0 Introduction 215 6.1 Quantitative and comparative results 218 6.1.1 Bibliographical references 219 6.1.2 Negation 222 6.1.3 Adversatives 223 6.2 Explicit presence: bibliographical references and citations 226 6.2.1 Four subtypes 226

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6.2.2 6.2.3 6.2.4 6.3 6.4 6.4.1 6.4.2 6.4.3 6.4.4 6.4.5 6.5 6.6

Quantitative distribution of the four subtypes 230 Bibliographical references as grammatical subjects 231 Discoursal and rhetorical functions of bibliographical references Who can do what? Self, other and verb use 238 Implicit presence: negation and concessive constructions 242 Introduction 242 Quantitative comments 243 The case of negation 243 The case of concession 247 Summing up 250 Case study: Negation in individual articles 251 Concluding remarks 255

chapter 7 Conclusions 7.0 Introduction 259 7.1 Quantitative results: summing up and discussion 260 7.1.1 Overview 260 7.1.2 The disciplines 261 7.1.3 The languages 263 7.1.4 Gender 265 7.2 Community identity versus individual heterogeneity 266 7.3 Academic voices in harmony and contrast 269

236

259

References

273

KIAP publications

285

Appendix A The KIAP Corpus

289

Appendix B Statistical tests

291

Index

307

Preface and acknowledgements

Academic voices are of course present in all research articles, but to a different extent in different languages, in different disciplines and in different articles. The aim of this book is to present some observations and interpretations related to this issue through studies undertaken by the Norwegian research project KIAP, Kulturell Identitet i Akademisk Prosa: nasjonal versus disiplinavhengig (in English: Cultural Identity in Academic Prose: national versus discipline-specific; see www.uib. no/kiap/), financially supported by the Research Council of Norway 2002–2006. The project has been located at the Department of Romance studies, University of Bergen, and led by Kjersti Fløttum, professor of French linguistics. Project members have been Kjersti Rongen Breivega, postdoctoral research fellow (with a background in Scandinavian studies and linguistics), Trine Dahl, associate professor of English linguistics at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH), Torodd Kinn, associate professor of Scandinavian linguistics, Jorid Skiple, research assistant (cand.philol. of French linguistics), Anje Müller Gjesdal, research assistant (cand.philol. of French linguistics and currently PhD-candidate) and Anders Alvsåker Didriksen (cand.philol. of French linguistics). The part of the project related to the establishing of the electronic KIAP corpus has been based at Aksis, Avdeling for språk, kultur og informasjonsteknologi (in English: Department of Culture, Language and Information Technology; part of Unifob AS). We would like to thank Jarle Bareksten, Anne Lindebjerg, Johan Poppe and Øystein Reigem at Aksis for valuable help and advice. Students who have related their master’s thesis to the KIAP project are Pia Andersen, Anders Alvsåker Didriksen, Anje Müller Gjesdal, Lisbeth Grinde, Ingrid Kilskar Næss, Elena Mihaela Rusu and Jorid Skiple. Doctoral candidates Eva Thue Vold and Anje Müller Gjesdal have also based their research on the KIAP corpus and have shown great commitment to the project activities. Further, the KIAP project has benefited from cooperation with the following research groups: L’Equipe Sémantique des Textes (Paris), headed by professor François Rastier; Prosjektmiljøet Norsk Sakprosa (‘Norwegian Factual Prose’, Oslo), headed by professor Kjell Lars Berge; Representing Specialized Knowledge (Vaasa), headed by professor Merja Koskela; Constitution automatique de ressources lexicales et élaboration d’outils didactiques multimédia pour l’enseignement du lexique

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académique en langue seconde (Grenoble), headed by professor Francis Grossmann; Språk i contrast or SPRIK (‘Languages in contrast’, Oslo), headed by professor Cathrine Fabricius-Hansen. The KIAP members are especially grateful to Céline Poudat (Orléans), member of the Equipe Sémantique des Textes, for valuable help and advice in the establishing of the electronic corpus, and to Prosjektmiljøet Norsk Sakprosa for continuously reminding us of the importance of contextual factors in a linguistic study of the present kind. We are also grateful to Kolbjørn Slethei for valuable advice related to statistical methods, and to Sandra Halverson for improving our English. Any remaining flaws are naturally our responsibility. The authors of this book would like to thank two anonymous referees for a number of valuable comments and suggestions. Their contributions have undoubtedly made this a better book. Furthermore, we are grateful to the editors for believing in the book project and for assisting us towards its completion. Finally, I would like to thank all the participants for valuable input to the KIAP project, for fruitful discussions through several seminars and for showing a continuous enthusiasm for the questions raised by the project. Kjersti Fløttum Head of the KIAP project

chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 The KIAP project Ever since Charles Bazerman’s work on the genre and activity of the experimental article in science (Bazerman 1988), considerable attention has been paid to the special character of the language of science, and with John M. Swales’ classic genre analysis (Swales 1990), extensive focus has been placed on the structure of the research article and its components. By attaching importance to the rhetorical nature of academic discourse, both of these authors, as well as many other researchers, have contested the traditional conception of academic discourse as neutral and objective. This fundamental “state of the art” inspired us to start the KIAP project, or, by its full title, Cultural Identity in Academic Prose: national versus discipline-specific (www.uib.no/kiap/). We wished to explore to what extent and in which ways research articles display traces of authors and their interaction with the reader and the whole discourse community, in different disciplines, in different languages, and in individual texts, with a particular focus on the manifestation of different voices. Our aim has been to describe and explain similarities and differences between different language and disciplinary communities. Our main motivation has been the need to obtain a more nuanced picture of the research article, going beyond the language perspective isolated from the discipline perspective, and vice versa. We formulated our key research issue as follows: Can cultural identities be identified in academic discourse, and, if so, what are the major factors constituting these identities? To what extent are they language-specific or discipline-specific in nature? We have attempted to answer these questions through a comparative study of English, French and Norwegian research articles within the fields of economics, linguistics and medicine, looking for similarities as well as differences. As regards the language issue, we have attempted to include articles written by authors having the respective language as their mother tongue. However, we are well aware that this is a problematic criterion. In the first place, it is possible that some authors, especially those writing in English, are not English native speakers. Second, English has developed in different ways in different parts of the world (British, American, Australian, Indian, South-African, etc.). The same holds for

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French to a certain extent. In fact, the internationalisation of the research world complicates the language issue in many respects. Nevertheless, we think that it is meaningful to investigate cultural differences related to the use of different languages. We will return to the selection of both languages and disciplines in sections 1.2 and 1.3. Throughout the project, our main hypothesis has been that discipline is more important than language as regards cultural identity (in the sense that there will be more similarities, for example, between a French and a Norwegian medical research article than between a French linguistics and a French medical article). Our investigations have confirmed this hypothesis in most respects. However, important differences between languages have also been revealed. In addition, the differences between individual articles turned out to be greater than we had expected. This seems to us a clear indication that the research article is in many respects a flexible genre. In a very general manner, we can sum up our results as follows: There are a number of similarities within disciplines across different languages (for example a relatively low frequency of first person pronouns in medical articles); there are, however, notable differences between languages (as regards for example the use of pronouns, negation and metatext). It is furthermore difficult to postulate a “typical” research article, even within one and the same discipline and language, because of great individual differences. Being well aware of the fact that cultural identity is an extremely complex notion, we emphasise that our purpose is not to give a general and comprehensive description of the nine potential identities one might imagine within the framework of KIAP: English economics, English linguistics, English medicine, French economics, French linguistics, French medicine, Norwegian economics, Norwegian linguistics and Norwegian medicine. However, considering culture as a community having a number of common interests (as a scientific community) and as a community of people viewed as forming a distinct segment of society (as a language community), we look for linguistic features which might indicate common identity traits in the nine communities studied. Section 1.3 elaborates on the notion of cultural identity. The development of a culture is considered as a two-way process with individuals interacting in forming and being formed. Four settings which may have an impact on the identity of the academic author are mentioned: the national/native language culture the author belongs to, leading to a national/language identity, the world of academia, providing the author with a general academic identity, the author’s chosen discipline and a disciplinary identity, and finally the genre and the discourse community settings. In order to attain our aim, i.e. to describe and explain similarities and differences between the nine potential communities, we have chosen to base our work

Chapter 1. Introduction

on an electronic corpus, the KIAP Corpus, consisting of 450 articles with 50 in each of the nine subcorpora (see section 1.2). KIAP is a linguistically based project, and it relates identity to a selection of linguistic features which may be linked to argumentative and rhetorical strategies. More specifically, focus will be on the following three questions: • • •

How do article authors manifest themselves in the texts? How are the voices of other researchers reflected? How do the authors present and promote their own research?

With these questions we signal a clear interest in the persons behind the discourse presented, more than in the research reported itself. These questions are also the reason why we have chosen Academic Voices as the title of the present book. Our main object of study can be summarised in the notion of person manifestation. Our purpose is to search for person manifestation as realised through voices and roles, both those assumed by the author and those assigned by the author to others. This approach may be justified by a rhetorical view of scientific discourse as something which is created in a particular multivoiced communicative situation. Research articles are rhetorical in the sense that they represent a text created to induce cooperative actions and attitudes. The rhetorical aim of the research article is to create convincing effects. In this book, however, our purpose is not to study the effects of this type of rhetorical discourse; we want to focus on texts as the product of the author’s creation (the inventive dimension of rhetorical discourse). We study how the rhetorical discourse of research articles is realised in text, how a selection of linguistic features are used, how different academic voices act interpersonally and become more or less explicit in a discourse traditionally considered as neutral and objective. These academic voices represent what we may call the self- and the other-dimensions. By self we refer to first person and by other to both second and third persons. There is not always a clear-cut distinction between the self- and the otherdimensions when taking into consideration relevant features which may realise them (see the list of studied features below). However, first person pronouns belong primarily to the self-dimension and bibliographical references to the otherdimension. Metatextual elements unite the two dimensions in a self- & other-dimension in that they constitute links between the author (or the author’s text) and the reader. The indefinite pronouns are treated in the same chapter as first person pronouns, and negations and adversatives are treated in the same chapter as bibliographical references, even if these features may also unite the two dimensions of self and other. Our theoretical framework has been chosen in order to serve our main purpose, i.e. the search for person manifestation as realised through voices and roles,

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and is therefore based on a broad interpersonal and polyphonic perspective. This framework will be presented in Chapter 2. To illustrate the relation between rhetorical cooperation, multivoiced interaction and linguistic features, we have selected a set of linguistic features for investigation. The selection is primarily based on a pilot study undertaken in the beginning of the project (see Breivega, Dahl & Fløttum 2002) and on various explorative studies undertaken throughout the project. We are not claiming that the study of these features will provide anything close to a complete picture of the research article. However, the features are, in our view, essential indicators of our main object of study, i.e. person manifestation within the self- and other-dimensions as defined above. The main features which have been subjected to statistical analysis are the following six: 1) First person pronouns used as grammatical subject: English I and we; French je/j’ and nous; Norwegian Bokmål jeg / Nynorsk eg and Bokmål vi / Nynorsk me.1 2) Indefinite pronouns: English one; French on; Norwegian man, en/ein. 3) Metatext such as section and above (see section 5.2 for the full list) 4) Negation: English not; French ne … pas; Norwegian ikke/ikkje. 5) Adversatives: English but; French mais; Norwegian men. 6) Bibliographical references: References including the years 19xx and 20xx. The statistical analyses made us aware of many other interesting and important aspects which we have pursued in more qualitative studies. We have broadened our perspective and looked at, for instance, some lexical items and verbs combined with different pronouns. In order to transgress the simple description of linguistic observations, we have to take the context in which the research article is created into consideration. 1. Norwegian has two standard variants, Bokmål and Nynorsk. When listing Norwegian expressions, we typically mention the Bokmål variant(s) before the Nynorsk variant(s). In the study, we have treated the Norwegian communities as monolingual. We have no reason to believe that the Bokmål–Nynorsk issue affects metatext, negation, adversatives, or references. As for pronouns, it should be mentioned that Nynorsk usage is more restrictive as regards passives and other deagentivising features. There are few Nynorsk texts in economics and medicine, but many in linguistics. This allows us to expect a higher frequency of first person pronouns and a lower one of the indefinite pronouns in linguistics. (See also Blom & Gumperz 1972.)

Chapter 1. Introduction

In this matter we consider the genre itself as an important context. The research article has been developed within socio-professional frames with their own norms and rules. We consider genre as a repetitive social practice manifesting itself verbally in texts often characterised by specific compositional and linguistic features (see Chapter 2). This social and rhetorical practice will to a large extent explain the linguistic observations made by KIAP. We are, of course, indebted to many researchers and research groups that have studied research articles in different perspectives. Some of the features we have studied have been investigated by these researchers, and we will discuss their findings with ours to the extent that they are comparable. This applies primarily to studies of English, and in some cases to French. For Norwegian no similar and comparable studies have been undertaken. Even for English, where there are many cross-disciplinary studies, these are comparable only to a limited extent because they focus on aspects or features which are different from ours. We hope that our doubly comparative perspective, taking into consideration both language and discipline, combined with a focus placed on person manifestation as realised through voices and roles, will contribute to a richer understanding of the research article. As regards our hypotheses concerning the use of the main features studied, these have been formed both on the basis of previous researchers’ work and expectations coloured by our own culturally based conceptions. With a point of departure in the general conception of differences between academic traditions, especially between so-called soft and hard disciplines, we expected linguistics and medicine to be clearly opposed to each other and economics to occupy a middle position. Similarly, the language issue led us to expect English and French to be very different and Norwegian to be more similar to English than to French. Our assumption about Norwegian is based on the fact that English and Norwegian are related languages and that Norwegian culture has been more strongly oriented towards the Anglo-American cultural sphere than to the Romance sphere. In addition, Norwegian academic culture is strongly influenced by the Anglo-American world of research. More specific hypotheses concerning the features we study in this book will be formulated in the relevant chapters. The book is organised as follows: In this introductory chapter, we present the KIAP Corpus (section 1.2), discuss the notion of cultural identity (section 1.3) and outline relevant previous research (section 1.4). In Chapter 2 we describe our main theoretical and methodological frameworks. Chapter 3 provides an overview of our main quantitative results. The rest of the book is organised more or less according to our three main research questions listed above as well as to the self- and other-dimensions.

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In Chapter 4, we study the presence of the author (self-dimension, related to our first research question) as manifested through the use of first person and indefinite pronouns (which may include the author in their reference) and the verbs combined with these pronouns. The pronoun and verb combination constitutes the basis for our proposal of different author roles. Chapter 4 also includes a section on author roles in abstracts. Chapter 5 is dedicated to reader/writer interaction (self & other) and the way the author presents his or her own research through studies of metatext, ‘let us’-imperatives and a few lexical expressions (mainly related to our third research question). In Chapter 6, we look at the presence of others and their voices (other-dimension, related to our second research question) through the study of bibliographical references as well as some polyphonic constructions (such as polemic negation where the author’s voice refutes an external voice). We also compare the self- and other-dimensions by studying which verbs self and other are combined with. In addition to the main thematic sections, these three chapters each contain an introductory section setting forth our hypotheses, relating our study to previous research, a section presenting our main quantitative findings, one presenting qualitative case studies which primarily are meant to illustrate how the studied features are realised in individual articles, and finally a concluding section. In Chapter 7 we sum up and discuss our main results. In that chapter we also deal with an issue which is central to our main research question: If there exists something which can be called cultural identity in the world of research, as realised in research articles, a definition of it has to include reference to the significant heterogeneity we have observed in individual articles. Academic texts display a great diversity that cannot be explained solely by reference to discipline or to language. Even though the three authors have worked together as a team in the KIAP project and with this book, each author has special responsibility for certain chapters and sections: Kjersti Fløttum: 1.1, 2.1, 4.2, 4.4, 4.6.1, 5.4, Chapter 6, 7.3. Trine Dahl: 1.3, 1.4, 4.5, 4.6.3, 5.0, 5.2, 5.5.1, 5.6, 7.2. Torodd Kinn: 1.2, 2.2, 2.3, Chapter 3, 4.0, 4.1, 4.3, 4.6.2, 4.7, 5.1, 5.3, 5.5.2, 5.5.3, 6.1 (with Fløttum), 7.0, 7.1, Appendices. The references section of the book contains, in addition to the general references, also a list of KIAP publications. Some of these, but not all, appear on the general list as well, which explains why some entries may seem irregular; in the general list, we find, e.g., Fløttum (2003b, e, g, i), but not (2003a, c, d, f, h). The latter are then listed under KIAP publications.

Chapter 1. Introduction

1.2 The KIAP Corpus 1.2.1 Corpus statistics The KIAP Corpus is a finite-size, machine-readable corpus consisting of 450 research articles from three different disciplines, written in three different languages by presumed native speakers (see 1.2.2). The number of articles is distributed evenly over languages and disciplines: Each language – English, French and Norwegian – is represented by 150 articles, 50 from each of the disciplines of economics, linguistics and medicine. Thus, there is a total of nine subcorpora, each with 50 articles.2 In terms of the number of words, the subcorpora vary considerably. Table 1.21 shows the number of words in the subcorpora as well as the KIAP Corpus as a whole. It contains the figures for article bodies only. That is, the figures do not include front matter (titles, abstracts, author names, epigraphs etc.), back matter (acknowledgements, references, endnotes (and footnotes, see 1.2.5), appendices etc.) or more or less text-external body matter (tables and figures and their captions, mathematical formulae and linguistic examples in a separate paragraph, direct quotes and section headings). When all these non-body text parts are included, the number of words in the corpus rises to 3,152,022. The medical articles constitute less than half the length of the economics and linguistics articles. Also, the English articles are, on average, longer than the ones in the other languages. Table 1.2-1. Number of body words in the KIAP Corpus and its subcorpora Economics

Linguistics

Medicine

Total

English French Norwegian

298,319 295,859 312,850

437,798 231,296 269,913

163,663 138,510 102,660

899,780 665,665 685,423

Total

907,028

939,007

404,833

2,250,868

The subcorpora have been given labels based on combinations of abbreviations for language (English: eng, French: fr, Norwegian: no) and discipline (economics: econ, linguistics: ling, medicine: med); thus, for instance, frmed means French 2. Of the Norwegian articles, 1 economics article, 12 linguistics articles and 4 medical articles are in Nynorsk, the lesser used variety of written Norwegian. The skewed representation of Nynorsk reflects the fact that linguists, especially those writing about Norwegian, use this variety more than researchers in economics and medicine. Except in the case of pronoun use, we have no reason to expect the two varieties to differ for the features that we investigate quantitatively.

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medicine. We sometimes use the abbreviation engall for the union of English discipline subcorpora, i.e. engecon, engling and engmed together, and similarly frall for French and noall for Norwegian. In the same manner, we use the abbreviation econall for the union of economics subcorpora, i.e. engecon, frecon and noecon together, and similarly lingall for linguistics and medall for medicine. The individual articles have been given alphanumerical labels composed of language/discipline subcorpus abbreviations plus a two-digit number in the range 01–50; for example, frmed34 is French medicine article number 34. 1.2.2 Text selection As far as possible, we have chosen texts that match the category of ‘research article’, i.e. texts that primarily report and discuss empirical (including experimental) or theoretical research that has been done by the authors themselves (cf. Breivega 2003: 61–63). Texts that merely review the research of others have thus been avoided. However, in the case of Norwegian, the limited number of available texts in economics and linguistics has made it necessary to relax this criterion a little. Further, especially in linguistics, but also to some extent in economics, there is no clear division between review and other types of articles. Most medical articles deal with research with a rather large empirical basis, but some texts are case studies dealing with one or a few patients. In economics, articles have been chosen that contain reasonably large amounts of ordinary text in addition to the mathematical formulae that characterise most texts from this discipline. In general, the Norwegian economics articles are rather less mathematically oriented than their English and French counterparts. In linguistics, articles about the respective languages (e.g. English articles about English) have been preferred to texts about other or several languages, and to texts with a typically general-linguistic perspective. Especially in the case of the English subcorpus, however, there are a number of exceptions to this. As already indicated, there are great differences between the languages in terms of the availability of texts in the three disciplines, something which is due to the varying numbers of academic journals. To guarantee acceptable scientific standards, only journals with peer reviewing were used. There is a plethora of English journals, while the number of French journals is considerably lower. In the case of Norwegian, there exists only one economics and one medical journal, while in linguistics there is one linguistics journal and one mixed linguistic-philological journal. Electronic accessibility also varies, and journals that are published electronically (in addition to paper versions) have, in general, been preferred to journals that are only published on paper. The English and French journals are mostly publications recommended to us by experts from the respective disciplines. The

Chapter 1. Introduction

Norwegian economics and medical journals are less common channels of publication for researchers of their fields than international journals published in English. With regard to our two Norwegian linguistics journals, this may be true for researchers of general linguistics, while the journals are well-established outlets for researchers in the field of Norwegian linguistics. Table 1.2-2 shows the distribution of single- and multi-author articles in the various subcorpora. We have attempted to ascertain that both single-author and multi-author articles are represented, and, for the single-author ones, articles written by women as well as by men. However, in this respect the disciplines are vastly different. While in economics both multi- and single-author articles are common, medical articles normally have several authors, and linguistics articles typically have one author. The selections of linguistics and medical texts are therefore highly skewed in terms of authorship. As far as possible, texts have been chosen where the author (or at least one of the authors) appears to be a native speaker of the language in which the article is written (on the basis of his or her name and other information available). Appendix A is an overview of which journals the individual articles come from. A complete list of corpus articles can be found at www. uib.no/kiap/KIAPCorpus.htm. Table 1.2-2. Number of articles with one author and with several authors in the KIAP Corpus and its subcorpora Economics

Linguistics

Medicine

Total

one

several

one

several

one

several

one

several

English French Norwegian

23 31 33

27 19 17

35 48 48

15 02 02

01 04 10

49 46 40

59 83 91

91 67 59

Total

87

63

1310

19

15

1350

2330

2170

1.2.3 Representativity Empirical findings based on a sample can only be generalised to populations that the sample is representative of (cf. McEnery & Wilson 2001: 77–81). In the selection process for the KIAP Corpus, we have attempted to ensure that the samples, i.e. our nine language–discipline subcorpora, are representative of the population of research articles published in refereed journals in the respective languages and disciplines. Several considerations have been discussed above, such as selection based on our definition of the research article as well as some additional discipline-specific criteria, distribution over several journals (if available) and over types of authorship.

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However, we wish to point out some limitations that may affect representativity (some of these have already been mentioned). The limited number of journals in Norwegian in particular has restricted our possibility to draw the samples from more than one. Further, most of the French economics articles come from one electronically published journal (which is also published on paper). We would have preferred a more varied article selection for this latter subcorpus, but within the given limits of finances and time for the KIAP project, this was simply not possible, since photocopying and scanning articles from paper and especially correcting the scanned files would have required an inordinate amount of time. The low number of journals in Norwegian does not in itself reduce representativity – on the contrary, the articles in the samples are probably highly representative of what is published in Norwegian in the three disciplines. But this situation might reduce the degree of comparability with the English and French samples. As mentioned above, the texts in the Norwegian economics corpus are typically less mathematically oriented than those in the corpora for the other languages. It is hard to assess to what extent the fact that the French economics corpus mainly contains articles from one journal has reduced its representativity. Quite the opposite problem may exist for some of the other subcorpora, where articles have been culled from several journals: It is possible that the journals represent too divergent research orientations, so that it could be claimed that the samples are drawn from more than one population. There are three potential problems in connection with the language and nationality of authors that we wish to point out. We have attempted to ascertain for each article that the author, or at least one of the authors if there are several, is a native speaker of the article language. But an author’s nationality and mother tongue cannot be decided on with certainty on the basis of his or her name. Thus, it is possible that there are a couple of corpus articles written (only) by non-native authors. We do not believe, however, that the number of these can be large enough to jeopardise representativity. Second, articles with several authors of which one (or more) is a non-native speaker of the article language may well have that very person as its main author. The number of non-native authors is greatest in medicine and smallest in linguistics, primarily because of the different relative shares of multi-author articles in the three disciplines, and it is greatest in the English subcorpora and smallest in the Norwegian ones. This possibly makes some of our subcorpora slightly more culturally diverse than others, but we consider this a minor problem. Third, while Norwegian is the language of one country only, French is used as a mother tongue in several countries and English in even more. This means that the French and especially the English subcorpora are geographically, and quite possibly culturally, more diverse than the Norwegian ones. The problem of lan-

Chapter 1. Introduction

guage versus national identity is a complex one, and we discuss the issue further in 1.3. Here we wish to point out the necessity of taking this difference into consideration in the interpretation of our quantitative results. Although we admit that this diversity is problematic, we do not think that the corpus would have become much better had we insisted on some kind of cultural purity. Another source of interference which should be pointed out is the guidelines for authors and editorial policies of the various journals. We do not regard the language of the texts in our corpus simply as the authors’ own preferred language use. Rather, we see it as the result of complex interactions between the authors, written guidelines, referees and journal editors. The degree to which guidelines for the writing of articles as well as the demands and changes made by referees and editors have affected the language of the authors no doubt varies considerably between the disciplines as well as between the individual journals. This holds for text structure and style as well as for grammar and lexical choices. In general, medical writers operate within narrower limits than do economists and linguists. It is important to realise that the claims we make about the linguistic usage of the language–discipline populations (that we study by means of our sample corpus) are claims about the language that authors use in the context of publishing in research journals – and that context includes the demands and censorship of referees and editors. This also, unfortunately, adds to the complexity of the question about representativity, for it is possible that our samples are skewed in different directions with respect to the degree and nature of such editorial interference. In all our investigations, we have been aware of the limitations that the abovementioned weaknesses impose on us with respect to generalisability. Of course, when we make statements about differences between subcorpora, we want to make those statements about the text populations that the corpora have been drawn from. However, our claims always imply a reservation: They hold only if our samples are representative. By pointing out these limitations, we hope to have warned the readers against drawing too rash and wide-ranging conclusions based on the quantitative investigations in this book. Despite all these caveats, we risk the claim that our doubly contrastive perspective and the large corpus base of our studies, combined with our extensive qualitative work, provide us and our field of research with valuable new insights about the differences and similarities between languages and disciplines, as well as those between individual authors. 1.2.4 Text formatting The text documents that have served as input for the corpus were in txt-format. This means that special features of formatting such as font (e.g. IPA or Greek alphabet), font size and font style (italics, bold type, underlining etc.) have not been

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preserved. Similarly, all non-text features such as the graphic lay-out of figures and tables have been excluded, although in some cases the textual content has been preserved (as non-body text). These omissions have been considered harmless for our research purposes, as most of the excluded matter is extraneous to the texts. Remaining parts of figures and tables have uniformly been encoded and excluded from the text bodies for search purposes. The loss of special fonts mainly pertains to linguistic examples and mathematical formulae in the economics articles. The details of such features are of little importance to our research. The loss of font styles is regrettable, as special styles are often used for emphasis. However, it does not directly affect the research questions of the present work. 1.2.5 Text encoding To encode the corpus texts, we have used XML (Extensible Markup Language, cf. http://www.xml.com/). The encoding has many characteristics in common with the system defined by the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative, cf. http://www.tei-c.org/), but is not fully TEI-conformant. Roughly speaking, the annotations encode three kinds of information, and the tags that we have used may conveniently be divided into three classes: extratextual tags, structural tags and textual tags. Tags are organised in pairs of the general form <start tag>text. Certain start tags contain additional information encoded in the form attribute=”value”. As an example, in the annotated text selection ” Optimal card payment systems ” from engecon29, the tag pair ” … ” says that Optimal card payment systems is the title of the article, and the attribute value pair ”type=”native””, that the title is in the same language as the article. The extratextual information is delimited by the tag pair <meta> … and placed in front of the actual article text. It contains elements with information about the name(s) of the author(s) and the bibliographical source, as well as a classification of the article with respect to four parameters, viz. authorship, language, discipline and article structure. The tags are: for the alphanumerical label given to the article, for the name(s) of the author(s), for the classification into articles written by one woman, by one man or by several persons, <source> for the journal that the article is taken from (name, volume, issue, pages), for the language that the article is written in, for the article discipline and <article> for IMRAD- vs. non-IMRAD articles. (IMRAD, or IMRD, is the relatively fixed article format found in some disciplines, with the sections of Introduction, Method/Materials, Results and Discussion; see Swales 1990.) The structural tags mark up the major sections of the articles, such as the body and its subparts (introduction, methods etc.), abstracts, notes, bibliography etc. The

Chapter 1. Introduction

information thus encoded has been relevant because certain linguistic features tend to be concentrated in certain article sections. The structural encoding also contributes to the division between body matter and body-external text. An outline of the structural encoding of a typical medical article is shown in Figure 1.2-1. Figure 1.2-1. The structural encoding of a medical article

Typical front-matter structural tags are and <abstract rel="nofollow">. Some French and Norwegian articles have an English title in addition to their native title. Hence, the tag <title> contains the attribute type, whose value is either ”native” or ”foreign”. Abstracts may be given in the native language or, if this is French or Norwegian, in English – or both or none of them. (A few French medical articles also have an abstract in Dutch.) Consequently, the tag <abstract rel="nofollow">, too, contains the attribute type with possible values ”native” and ”foreign”. Abstracts are sometimes placed after the body of the article. Body-matter structural tags are <body>, <intro>, <mmr>, <disc>, <mid> and <concl>. All articles have a <body> part. If an introductory text part is structurally identifiable on the basis of headings or other layout features, it is enclosed by the <intro> tag pair. Otherwise, the beginning of the text is treated as part of the mid section of the article. Medical articles are typically structured according to the IMRAD format, which means that there are sections dealing with material (and methods) and results followed by a discussion. The encoding recognises this by dividing the middle into a part containing materials, methods and results (enclosed by the <mmr> tag pair) and a discussion (<disc>). In some articles, no such division has been feasible, and the whole mid part has been included in either the <mmr> or the <disc> section depending on which label is the more appropriate. Economics and linguistics articles are more variably structured, and a <mid> tag pair replaces the two tag pairs for medical articles, i.e. <mmr> and <disc>. Thus, 13 14 Academic Voices article bodies from these disciplines are maximally divided into <intro>, <mid> and <concl>. Not all articles have any identifiable concluding section. This is more often the case for medicine, but articles from the other disciplines, too, may lack a conclusion. Therefore, the body may end with the middle part. Typical back-matter structural tags are <notes> and <references>. After the body, there are generally notes and a bibliography. If an article contains footnotes (i.e. the note texts are found at the bottom of the page), these have been placed together with the back matter. The values ”end” and ”page” for the attribute type distinguishes between endnotes and footnotes. All articles have some kind of bibliography or reference section, enclosed by the <references> tag pair. Front and back matter that cannot be classified as belonging to any of the above parts have been enclosed by the <misc> tag pair (for miscellaneous). This includes appendices, acknowledgements, contact addresses, epigraphs etc. Four textual tag pairs have been used, viz. <subtitle>, <quote>, <example> and <table>. The purpose of this part of the encoding has been to exclude text portions that are more or less outside the text proper, or, in the case of the <quote> tag pair, are not the author’s own words. The <subtitle> tag pair encloses section headings. The <quote> pair encloses direct quotes of at least three words; the reference to the quoted text is not included. In linguistics articles, linguistic examples that have been put in separate paragraphs or consist of more than one word have been encoded with the <example> tag pair. Tables, figures, mathematical formulae and similar matter have been enclosed indiscriminately by the <table> tag pair. Figure captions and similar texts belonging to such features have been included here (and thus excluded from the body text). In addition to XML-coding, a couple of types of annotations have been made in the texts, notably ”nRRR” in front of numbers for bibliographical references in medical articles (where n is the variable number of works referred to) and ”NNN” in front of note numbers. Such annotations have been used in order for these text features to be searchable. 1.2.6 Search options Collaborators of the KIAP project in the Research Group for Language Technology at the Department of Culture, Language and Information Technology (Aksis), University of Bergen, generated the corpus from the encoded texts and developed a custom-made search program and interface that can be accessed over the internet. The corpus search interface allows searches for single words or collocations of two or three words. Wild cards (non-specified letters) are allowed, and truncation is possible in both ends of words. Thus, the search string ”analy.e” applied to the English texts will return examples of both analyse and analyze, and ”.*regard.*” Chapter 1. Introduction will yield examples with regard, regarding, regardless, disregards etc. There are further options for case sensitivity and searches involving punctuation. In collocation searches, the spans between the first and the second and between the second and the third word can be specified in terms of the number of words. The context before and after the search items presented in the search result can be specified in terms of the number of characters. Different ways of alphabetising the search results can also be specified. Searches can be restricted either to one particular article or to sets of articles defined by language, discipline and type of authorship, and it is possible to search in specified parts of the articles (such as the body, the abstract or the discussion) or the whole articles. Figure 1.2-2 shows the interface to the KIAP Corpus search program, specifically a specification that the program should look for the sequence we will argue, with no intervening words, in the body of English linguistics articles written by several authors. The program will return hits (if there are any) with a left context of 20 characters and a right context of 60 characters. The result of this search is the concordance shown in Figure 1.2-3. There are eight hits, listed in the sequence in which they can be found in the specified corpus section. The result is here presented in a Java applet window. It is also possible to see it in an ordinary browser window. Figure 1.2-2. An example of the use of the KIAP Corpus search program interface 15 16 Academic Voices Figure 1.2-3. The result of the search specified in Figure 1.2-2. The encoded KIAP Corpus texts can be accessed via hyperlinks in the browser search result window, or alternatively from an internet page with links to each of the 450 articles. The texts can then for instance be read in a browser window or searched in by using the browser’s own search function. 1.3 Cultural identity 1.3.1 Introduction Culture and identity are both concepts that may be defined in a number of ways depending on the context in which they are used. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz gives his view of culture in the following way: Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning. (Geertz 1973, in Redding & Stening 2003: 5) Identity most often refers to human beings, often individuals, but also groups of individuals. When used in combination, culture and identity indicate some kind of interplay between their meanings. This implies that the identity of a person or group will be influenced or even shaped by culture while at the same time the person/ group will influence and shape that culture. The development of culture is hence a two-way process with individuals interacting in forming and being formed. In this book our aim is, of course, not to outline and discuss all the possible uses and contexts for either culture or identity; we shall restrict our discussion to angles relevant for the context that we have established, viz. academic authors and Chapter 1. Introduction their texts. Our object of study is person manifestation realised through voices and roles. Texts represent the site where we look for linguistic manifestations of voices. Having identified these manifestations in texts from different disciplines and in different languages, we would like to contribute to explanations of why the texts look the way they do. At that point we link up with culture and identity. The texts have not been produced in a void; they are very clearly the products of a contextual setting marked by a multitude of factors. The key role played by text in cultural studies is reflected in the following quote from Anna Mauranen: [T]exts are in themselves one of the main keys to understanding a culture. Texts as cultural products act out relevant social relationships within the culture, and in this way provide keys to understanding themselves as well as other aspects of the culture. (Mauranen 2001a: 53) The author is also in his or her turn a product of a contextual setting or, more precisely, many settings. We need to identify the factors which are likely to be relevant in a discussion of how the author’s academic voice comes to sound like it does. The use of the hedge likely in the previous sentence should be read as an acknowledgement of the fact that we are leaving the − more or less − precise world of linguistic analysis. How can we select factors in the author’s surroundings and justify that they have made an impact on the way he or she behaves in the role of academic author? The answer is that we can only offer our selection and hope that the reader finds them relevant and useful. Geertz, in his 1973 paper, discusses how to make sense of the data from anthropological fieldwork: ”Analysis […] is sorting out the structures of significance” (Geertz 1973, in Redding & Stening 2003: 5). This is what we attempt to do as well. We are not purporting to present a comprehensive list of aspects that may be relevant in the forming of an author’s academic voice. So many different variables come into play that this would be an impossible task. In the rest of this section we will introduce and briefly discuss what we consider to be the contextual factors that are important in shaping the academic author. Going back to our key words culture and identity, we see four settings, or cultures, that each in their own way will have an impact on the identity of the academic author. The first is the national/ native language culture the author belongs to, leading to a national/language identity. This setting is dealt with in section 1.3.2. The second is the world of academia, providing the author with a general academic identity (1.3.3). The third is the author’s chosen discipline and a disciplinary identity (1.3.4). Then, we suggest that aspects related to genre and discourse community should be considered a fourth setting (1.3.5). Finally, in section 1.3.6 we consider how the four settings may be relevant to our study. 17 18 Academic Voices 1.3.2 National identity The academic author obviously comes with a history as a member of a national culture. Belonging to a particular culture with particular values reflected in, inter alia, social hierarchies and educational systems, the individual is socialised into that culture. As already stated, the language issue is a difficult one to handle. It is of course not the case that all nations have their own unique language, and some nations have more than one. In the case of the present study, two of the languages represented, English and French, are the official language in several countries, while the third language, Norwegian, is used as a native language in Norway only. English is commonly accepted as the lingua franca in large parts of the world today, and in the academic world it occupies a privileged position (cf. Montgomery 2004). It is the first language of Britain, the USA, (parts of) Canada, Australia, New Zealand and various other countries around the globe. It thus becomes difficult to assume that native users of English represent one and the same national culture. However, in terms of writing culture, especially in an academic setting, English-language texts seem to display similarities across national boundaries, based primarily on Anglo-American norms. The same situation seems to hold for the francophone world, with French writing culture as the norm. It is also often the case that nations sharing a language share cultural values in general. Intercultural studies (Hall & Hall 1990; Triandis 1994; Hofstede 2001) provide evidence of this fact. Hinds (1987), in a typological study of various languages with regard to the communication situation, establishes the two categories of reader-responsible and writer-responsible languages. As regards his own culture, he maintains that ”[t]he desire to write or speak clearly in English permeates our culture” (Hinds 1987: 144), while for instance in Japan ”it is the responsibility of the listener (or reader) to understand what it is the speaker or author had intended to say” (ibid.). Hinds goes on to claim that ”[t]his difference in the way of looking at the act of communication permeates the thoughts of anyone who operates as a functioning Japanese-American bicultural” (ibid.). His ideas are reflected in Mauranen’s discussion of metatext in Finnish and English: The careful and explicit guidance practised by Anglo-American writers, together with frequent signalling of the personal presence of the author […] conveys the impression that the reader is invited to take a tour of the text, together with the author, who acts as a guide. (Mauranen 1993b: 16) Fredrickson & Swales (1994: 18) note that as concerns contrastive rhetoric studies, ”[o]ver the last decade this field has rightly moved beyond stylistics and textual rhetoric to include the investigation of such areas as educational and cultural traditions”. Chapter 1. Introduction In addition to such aspects, it is likely that each language ”behaves” in ways which are not always possible to explain by reference to cultural variables. Certain lexemes or linguistic constructions may be highly frequent, while other, semantically very similar items are less used. 1.3.3 Academic identity This identity is connected to scientific communication in general. It is an integral part of the present work, since the texts studied represent academic discourse. The author’s main task is to communicate new knowledge, but may also be to confirm and support already existing knowledge. For a novice student writer, the process of developing into a mature academic scholar is a long and challenging one, involving a number of stages. Learning to take part in the continuous dialogue which academic communication represents implies that the author must develop a persona willing to claim authority as a scholar. Only then can his or her research contribution be presented in a rhetorically convincing manner. The aspect of persuasion in scientific discourse is stressed by Prelli (1989), who claims that ”[l]ogic and experimentation are not the fundamental means of securing scientific change. They are efficacious only if applied persuasively” (Prelli 1989: 100; italics in original). Along the same lines Berge (2003: 155) describes the scientific writer as ”a rhetorician trying to establish the probability of his or her interpretation”. The process of developing the identity of the academic writer is thoroughly discussed in Ivanič (1998). From her social constructionist position, she posits four, clearly interrelated, aspects which are relevant as the student’s identity as an academic writer is being formed. The first, called the autobiographical self, is ”the identity which people bring with them to any act of writing, shaped […] by their prior social and discoursal history” (1998: 24); the second is termed the discoursal self, defined as the impression a writer conveys, consciously or unconsciously, in a particular written text, constructed through the discourse characteristics of the text, which are said to relate to values, beliefs and power relations in the social context in which they were written (1998: 25). The third aspect is called self as author, and is described as a relative concept, since ”writers see themselves to a greater or lesser extent as authors” (1998: 26). It is not easily distinguished from the discoursal self, but relates particularly to the writer’s ability to assert his or her authority in the text. Finally, she establishes an aspect termed possibilities for selfhood, denoting the abstract prototypical identities available to writers in the social context of writing (1998: 27). Hyland (2002a) deals with the issue of writer authority in a study of Hong Kong students’ use of personal pronouns, claiming that the connotations of authority conveyed by ‘I’ are problematic for many users in the student group. In ad- 19 20 Academic Voices dition, cultural factors come into play, as Asian cultures have different perceptions of the notion of the individual from those projected by cultures where English is the first language (cf. Hofstede 2001). 1.3.4 Disciplinary identity Becher & Trowler (2001), taking an ethnographic approach to the investigation of the interplay of academic cultures (called tribes) and disciplinary knowledge (their territories), maintain that ”[t]he changing nature of knowledge domains over time has its impact on the identities and cultural characteristics of disciplines” (2001: 43). As regards who or what is responsible for identity and cultural construction, they refer to two kinds of approaches, viz. constructivist approaches, stressing the role of the individual, and situated practice approaches (ibid.: 48), putting the main focus on the community. Becher & Trowler also discuss the globalisation process taking place in the academic world, and find that despite national traits and traditions, ”we may appropriately conceive of disciplines as having recognizable identities and particular cultural attributes” (ibid.: 44). These global identities linked to academic disciplines must then be acquired by the student through a socialisation process. As mentioned above, such a process involves not only mastering the knowledge base of the discipline; as knowledge claims have to be communicated, mastering of the rhetoric of a discipline (Prelli 1989) becomes a vital part of the identity building. The three disciplines that we study here, medicine, economics and linguistics, may be seen as representatives of the three branches of science, i.e. the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. The classification of disciplines into branches of science is of course always difficult. For example, linguistics is often described as situated at the crossroads of the humanities and the social sciences (or even as extending across all three branches of science). As regards medicine, Kjørup (1996: 18) suggests that it may be considered a separate branch of science. Medicine is today a field encompassing aspects from other natural science disciplines, such as biology and chemistry, but also from disciplines within the social sciences, such as psychology and anthropology. We have, as already stated, chosen to follow the more traditional view here, and classify medicine as part of natural science. The three branches represent knowledge bases with different characteristics. The natural sciences may be said to have a relatively homogeneous and objective knowledge base, and within disciplines belonging there ”[s]cientists act as if they see themselves as discovering the truth, not making it” (Hyland 2000: 33). The social sciences occupy a middle position between natural science and the humanities (see below), with some of the knowledge base rooted in more objective natural Chapter 1. Introduction science matters, e.g. mathematics, while other parts represent more subjective, interpretive aspects. Ekelund & Hébert (1997) point to an apparent struggle within economics, illustrating this situation: ”Many ‘mainstream’ economists argue […] that increased respect for economics as a separate, scientific discipline will only ensue from the steady application of rigorous mathematical and statistical tools” (1997: 576); however, ”[s]ome economists […] have voiced strong reservations concerning this view. They argue that the nature of social science makes exact formulation and verification impossible” (ibid., italics in original). A quote from Bloor & Bloor (1993: 157) may serve to illustrate how this struggle is visible at the textual level: ”Surprisingly, many of the economics articles do not include a straightforward ‘results’ section of the type that is common in scientific papers” (i.e. natural science papers). Bloor & Bloor refer to one of their corpus texts with a section headed ‘Interpretation of the Results’, which is preceded by ”a detailed explanation of why the interpretation of the results ‘is not as straightforward as may appear at first sight’” (1993: 157–158). The third branch, the humanities, is in many contexts considered to be hermeneutical, with subjective interpretation as a prominent feature. It is, of course, not the case that all knowledge claims made within the humanities are based solely on subjective considerations by the individual researcher. The discipline we study here, linguistics, is certainly also characterised by regularities and − up to a point − common methodological tools. However, the humanities researcher may, to a larger extent than in the other two branches, be said to create new knowledge through his or her arguing for relations between facts and notions. Hence, the ”results” of research in the humanities may take the shape of the actual argumentation presented in text (Breivega 2003: 36). As indicated in the classification of the three branches of science above, it might be argued that linguistics is not a prototypical humanities discipline, and that, say, history or literary theory and analysis might have been better choices. Clearly, in addition to overlapping traits with the social sciences, some fields within linguistics even share features with the natural sciences. In our text selection process we have, however, primarily looked for articles with subject matter that tended more towards the humanities than the natural sciences. This brief and somewhat simplistic attempt at describing the three branches of science has only scratched the surface of the debate on which disciplines belong to which branch of science. As e.g. Becher & Trowler (2001) clearly demonstrate, the shape of the academic landscape is not given once and for all, but is very much the product of changing traditions, caused by social and political trends as well as financial factors. 21 22 Academic Voices 1.3.5 Genre and discourse community A fourth setting influencing the academic author is created by the discourse format and writing traditions used to present knowledge claims in concert with the discourse community representing the audience for the text. Mastering the relevant discourse forms of a discipline may be said to be part of the socialisation process into the academic world in general and the discipline in question in particular. However, as there are several issues linked specifically to genre and discourse community, we feel that they warrant separate consideration here. The choice of appropriate genre for presenting knowledge claims is to some extent linked to the epistemology of the discipline. Within medicine, the experimental research design is well handled by the IMRAD format, while for instance philosophy is a discipline marked by personal reflection, something which the essay format is well suited to render. However, text linguistic research has also shown that there is no straightforward interdependence between a discipline’s epistemology and the text traditions used to present knowledge claims (Breivega 2003: 248). As regards the issue of audience, several recent genre studies have pointed to factors relating to differences in discourse community. Fredrickson & Swales (1994) present the hypothesis of discourse community pressure, and maintain that this is a variable in text analysis. The greater the competition in a territory, the greater the rhetorical effort authors have to spend in order to create a research space for themselves (ibid: 11). Hence, the way knowledge claims are argued in a crowded field may take a different textual shape than those argued in a more sparsely populated one. A related issue is raised in Melander (1998). In a comparison of scientific article introductions in English and Swedish within the two disciplines of medicine and biology, Melander finds that the medical articles in Swedish are aimed at a different audience (practitioners) than those in English (researchers). Another cultural factor related to discourse community is also mentioned in Fredrickson & Swales (1994). They refer to a study by Taylor & Tingguan (1991), comparing article introductions by Anglo-American and Chinese researchers. Taylor & Tingguan found that, in contrast to the Anglo-American writers, the Chinese researchers (both when writing in English and in Chinese) tended to omit the step of discussing previous literature in the field. Taylor & Tingguan suggest that a possible explanation may be that the Chinese writers, in accordance with their cultural values, try to avoid the potentially face-threatening act of pointing to shortcomings of fellow researchers in the field. The issue of discourse community may be said to have a bearing on the present study as well. As Norwegian is a language used by less than five million people, it Chapter 1. Introduction is rarely the sole language used by Norwegian researchers when mediating their findings (Kyvik & Larsen 1997). Not surprisingly, English is the preferred foreign language choice. Without going into language policy and domain loss issues here, let us just note that Norwegian scholars frequently publish in English and that for medicine and economics at least, this is the preferred language. A consequence of this fact is that for the disciplines of medicine and economics there is only one Norwegian journal, while for linguistics there are two. An informal survey carried out among economists at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration indicated that the economics journal is considered to be a less prestigious outlet for research than international journals (cf. section 1.2.2). The contributors to this journal are also likely to be more junior researchers than those represented in the English-language journals of our corpus. The subject matter of the texts is also somewhat more general than that found in the international journals. However, as the Norwegian journal is also read by more mature scholars, we feel justified in claiming that the Norwegian articles belong to the same genre as the English ones. 1.3.6 Cultural identity in KIAP So, how can we make use of these reflections on cultural identity in our study? As regards national identity, we believe that there exists a writing culture which each of the three languages investigated here belongs to. This writing culture is strongly related to cultural values as specified in intercultural studies, represented, for instance, by the concepts of high and low context (Hall & Hall 1990), and is reflected in the communicative ideals and aims promoted in educational settings. In addition, it is likely that lexical preferences in each language may have an effect on our study. Pilot investigations into our material, e.g. Dahl (2003), have shown this to be a relevant issue.3 When it comes to academic identity, we see Prelli’s (1989) ideas as highly relevant. His view of academic rhetoric as primarily persuasive in nature fits nicely in with our discussion of author presence in text. The notion of writer authority, discussed by Ivanič (1998) and Hyland (2002a), also represents an interesting variable. However, the nature of our corpus (expert rather than student writers, and native rather than non-native writers), calls for a somewhat different focus. We will, however, briefly consider the gender factor, and in that context the notion of writer authority is of interest. Studies focusing on gender issues have indicated that women and men may differ in their discourse strategies with regard to, e.g., 3. In that study it was shown that while English economists typically ‘report’, Norwegian economists ‘discuss’. 23 24 Academic Voices assertiveness and politeness (Lakoff 1975; O’Barr & Atkins 1980). In the present study, however, we have found little evidence that there are gender differences with respect to visibility in the texts.4 As concerns disciplinary identity, previous text linguistic research (e.g. Breivega 2003) has indicated that a discussion of linguistic behaviour in academic texts should take into account the knowledge base of the field in question. In addition, descriptions of how scientists within a specific discipline perceive its epistemological status (cf. Ekelund & Hébert’s reflections on economics, above) may add useful insight into author behaviour. In our lexical investigations into, e.g., how research findings are given a linguistic realisation in the three disciplines we will attempt to draw on such epistemological aspects. We also take into account Becher & Trowler’s reflections on the globalisation process observable in academia (1.3.4), but at the same time we wish to focus on the writer as an individual. Finally, there is the interpretative context represented by genre and discourse community. Our corpus texts are all defined as belonging to the genre of the research article. However, the structural realisation of the genre differs between the three disciplines, with the IMRAD pattern for the prototypical medical text, and some IMRAD-like texts and some less standardised texts for economics and linguistics. Text structure will be relevant in discussions of some of the selected linguistic features. The notion of discourse community will be considered when we deal with issues relating to the differences in status enjoyed by the three languages in an academic setting. We would like to end this section with a quote from Bhatia (2001), illustrating what is, as indicated above, an important point in our study, namely the fact that the academic author, like any author, is also an individual, sometimes displaying discoursal behaviour that goes against cultural norms and traditions: […] it is necessary to emphasise that discourse and genre analysis is an area of enquiry that is and will always be fuzzy to some extent, even though we often find it based on highly conventionalised and standardised social actions (Miller 1984; Swales 1990). In analysing language use, we are invariably investigating human behaviour, which is not entirely predictable, for the simple reason that most of us, even in highly predictable settings, like to exploit conventions to express ‘private intentions’ within the framework of socially constructed discourse forms (Bhatia 1995). (Bhatia 2001: 79–80) The fact that we are describing human behaviour will serve as a natural backdrop for our discussion of the academic voice throughout this book. 4. In a KIAP context, the issue of gender and scientific writing is discussed in Gjesdal (2005). Chapter 1. Introduction 1.4 Previous research The present study rests on and builds from what is by now a fairly large collection of studies within the field known as academic discourse. The term refers to at least two strands of research. The first involves studies which are pedagogically oriented, focusing on student needs and competences. The proliferation of courses on academic writing in general and English for academic purposes in particular has entailed increased research activity into what language and communication tools the students must acquire to become fully socialised into their research community. In such contexts, the process of gaining entry into these communities is seen as being dependent on awareness of and competence in the writing practices of the relevant discourse community (Hyland & Hamp-Lyons 2002). The second strand of research forms the basis for the first; it concerns studies on how expert writers within a discourse community communicate with their peers. In many works the two aspects, i.e. investigation of professional communication practices among experts and pedagogical issues relevant for novice communicators, go hand in hand. Typical contributions may be found in Ventola & Mauranen (1996) and Candlin & Hyland (1999). As our study belongs primarily within the second strand of research, describing the practices of disciplinary professionals, this account of previous research will primarily, but not exclusively, adopt the same angle. Academic discourse studies comprise several key concepts which, it might well be argued, merit separate discussion. Cases in point are for instance ‘genre’ and ‘discourse community’. These two concepts represent vital aspects of our work and have already been introduced as representing a contextual setting for discussing our data (see 1.3). Genre is also discussed in some detail in the presentation of our theoretical framework (Chapter 2). The work undertaken by Swales (primarily 1990, but also 2004) on the genre of the research article today serves as a natural backdrop for the lion’s share of studies on academic discourse. As regards ‘discourse community’, this is a concept we bring in at several points, but notably in our discussions of findings related to differences between the languages involved (since the three languages operate in communities which are very different both in terms of size and geographical spread). Studies which are relevant to mention in the present context have mainly been limited to those involving the three languages we deal with, viz. English, French and Norwegian, and further, primarily those dealing with the research article. Even though the section is intended as an account of previous research in the field, we have chosen to focus on very recent studies; some are even reports from currently ongoing projects. The reason for this is the sheer size of the field. The privileged position of English in the world of science today has made that language the natural reference point for contrastive studies within academic discourse. Ref- 25 26 Academic Voices erences to specific studies will be provided in connection with our discussions of the various issues dealt with throughout this book. In the present context we have chosen to focus on a few authors who have published extensively on academic discourse in studies similar to ours. For English, Ken Hyland is such an author. During the past decade he has written books and papers on many features of the research article, such as hedging (e.g. 1998a), metadiscourse (e.g. 1998b, 2005) and authorial stance (e.g. 2002a). He has studied these features in research articles across various disciplines. In contrast to the KIAP Corpus, Hyland’s corpora have comprised texts produced by learners as well as professionals in the various fields. Another researcher who deals with issues that border on our own is Marina Bondi. She studies English research articles within the disciplines of economics and history (e.g. Bondi & Silver 2004; Bondi 2005), and compares, among other things, how so-called textual voices are used in the establishing of knowledge claims in the article introductions. When it comes to studies involving English and one or several other languages, we have particularly been inspired by works by, in alphabetical order, Anna Mauranen, Françoise Salager-Meyer, Philip Shaw, Irena Vassileva and Eija Ventola. Mauranen’s and Ventola’s studies of written academic discourse (e.g. Mauranen 1993b; Ventola 1994) have included comparisons of English and a lesser used language, Finnish, with particular focus on issues relating to rhetorical differences between English and Finnish academic discourse within economics. In contrast to our work, they have often looked at problems arising from writing in English as a second language, i.e. how the Finns fare when communicating their research findings to an international audience. Salager-Meyer is particularly interested in practices within medical discourse (e.g. 1998, 1999). She often deals with several languages, typically contrasting English, French and Spanish (e.g. Salager-Meyer, Alcaraz Ariza & Zambrano 2003). Unlike the present synchronic study of academic discourse, Salager-Meyer often adopts a diachronic approach (e.g. SalagerMeyer & Defives 1998; Salager-Meyer 1999). Shaw has undertaken several studies involving rhetorical aspects of English and Danish academic discourse within the realm of economics (e.g. 2003; Shaw & Vassileva forthcoming). Finally in this part of the section, we would like to mention the work undertaken by Vassileva (e.g. 1997, 2000, 2001). Her comprehensive study of authorial presence in academic writing (2000) includes data on as many as four languages in addition to English, viz. German, French, Russian and Bulgarian. To some extent we may say that the Bulgarian perspective is at the heart of the study, as the other four languages included have ”to varying degrees and at different times in history, influenced and shaped the Bulgarian canon of academic writing” (2000: 12). In addition to studying author presence through the use of first person pronouns in single-author research articles in linguistics in the five languages, Vassileva also Chapter 1. Introduction addresses the non-native aspect by including a corpus of linguistics articles written by Bulgarians in the other four languages. As regards relevant studies taking French academic discourse as a point of departure, it becomes particularly interesting to look to the research environments of L’Equipe Sémantique des Textes in Paris, Univérsité d’Orléans and Université Stendhal in Grenoble. Only a few names will be mentioned here − François Rastier (Paris), Céline Poudat (Orléans), Françis Grossmann, Cristelle Cavalla and Fanny Rinck (all Grenoble) − as they link up with KIAP through studies which are very similar to ours; some even make use of our corpus. Rastier (e.g. Malrieu & Rastier 2001) has undertaken a multifactor analysis of genres, including the research article. As for Poudat, she deals in her doctoral thesis, among other things, with author presence as manifested through first person pronouns in linguistics articles in French and English (2003, 2004, forthcoming). Grossmann has undertaken citation studies (e.g. Grossmann 2002), while Cavalla and Grossmann have studied academic vocabulary (lexemes such as hypothèse, thèse and théorie) in French research articles within various disciplines including the ones of the present study (e.g. Cavalla & Grossmann 2005). Rinck in her doctoral thesis (2005, forthcoming) deals with the research article as genre, investigating linguistic and socio-discoursal aspects of the writing process. She has also compared what she calls ”images of scientific activity” in linguistics and literary articles (2005). When it comes to the third, and least used, language represented in our study, we find that studies of Norwegian academic discourse are thin on the ground. However, a few important studies and projects dealing with how Norwegian professionals communicate do exist, in addition to a more comprehensive literature on academic writing for pedagogical purposes (e.g. Hertzberg 1995; Dysthe 2002). A very important study for the KIAP project has been Kjersti Breivega’s (2003) account of argumentation strategies in Norwegian scientific prose. Her study is a comparative analysis of research articles from the disciplines of medicine, history and linguistics. Another important source of inspiration has been the research unit Norsk sakprosa (”Norwegian factual prose”), located at the University of Oslo, with Kjell Lars Berge (e.g. 2003) and Johan L. Tønnesson (e.g. 2001, 2004) as key professors. Due to the closeness and even mutual intelligibility of the three Scandinavian languages, it might be argued that Swedish (including Finns with Swedish as their native language), Danish and Norwegian researchers within the various disciplines together constitute a common linguistic discourse community. This can be illustrated by the fact that scholars from the three countries to some extent publish in each other’s national journals in their own language (e.g. one of our corpus sources, Norsk Lingvistisk Tidsskrift). Each of the other three Nordic countries has one or two research environments in particular that have been very active within the field of academic discourse. In Denmark, Lita Lundquist 27 28 Academic Voices at the Copenhagen Business School (cf. e.g. Lundquist 2003) and Jan Engberg at the Aarhus School of Business (e.g. Engberg 1997) have undertaken important research into, inter alia, legal language. In Sweden, the FUMS research group at Uppsala University headed by Britt-Louise Gunnarsson (e.g. 1994), has for several decades published on Swedish academic discourse, in a diachronic as well as a synchronic perspective. In Finland, at the University of Vaasa, Christer Laurén and Marianne Nordman (e.g. Laurén & Nordman 1998), as well as Merja Koskela (e.g. 1999, 2000) have for many years been describing various aspects of Swedish for use in academic contexts. This very incomplete survey of academic discourse research which has a clear bearing on our own study will end with a few reflections on the direction the field currently seems to be moving in. Studies of the kind mentioned above have often been placed under the umbrella of contrastive rhetoric. This concept, dating back to Robert Kaplan’s 1966 article ”Cultural thought patterns in intercultural education”, has primarily been applied to work with a pedagogical aim, but has also been used for studies of communication between experts. Contrastive rhetoric has, for various reasons, lost ground in recent years, even though the idea that culture may and should be used to explain differences in written texts and writing practices (Atkinson 2004) is very much alive. One of the main problems of contrastive rhetoric has been the multidisciplinary nature of the field, something which represents a daunting methodological challenge. This is a problem which has been voiced by several researchers in the past couple of years (e.g. Melander 1998; Mauranen 2001a). In a special issue of Journal of English for Academic Purposes (Contrastive rhetoric in EAP, vol. 4 (3)), the editor Ulla Connor in the introduction to the volume advocates the need for broadening the scope of contrastive rhetoric and the need for a new name (2004a: 272). She proposes the term intercultural rhetoric, intended to refer to a concept which is more dynamic than contrastive rhetoric and intended to comprise oral as well as written texts (cf. also Connor 2004b). The increased focus on oral texts witnessed in the past couple of years (e.g Carter-Thomas & Rowley-Jolivet 2001; Mauranen 2001b, forthcoming; Swales 2001; RowleyJolivet 2002) represents a clear trend within the field. The widening of the scope of studies involving academic discourse will, however, not solve the methodological problems currently experienced. On the contrary, we must expect the debate on how to accommodate all the possible variables in such studies into a unified framework to become even more intense in the years ahead. chapter 2 Theoretical and methodological frameworks 2.1 Theoretical framework 2.1.1 Main theoretical approaches As outlined in Chapter 1, our main object of study is person manifestation as realised through voices and roles in the genre of the research article. We study linguistic features constituting traces of the author(s) (the self-dimension) and the roles they take on, the reader(s) and various third person constellations of other researchers or discipline communities (the other-dimension), as well as the interrelation between these dimensions (self & other). This choice of study object has influenced our choice of theoretical framework. Our main approach may be situated within the French enunciative approach, a tradition which takes as its point of departure the utterance situation. The enunciative approach is based on the view that an utterance necessarily contains traces of the act producing it, traces relating to the context in which the utterance is situated (time and space) and, particularly important for our study, traces left by the subject producing it. These traces can be studied within the research article considered as a polyphonic “drama”, in the sense that different voices and roles are dramatised by the author, interacting with readers and other researchers (see Ducrot 1984; Nølke 1994; Nølke, Fløttum & Norén 2004; Fløttum 2005b). In Bakhtinian terms, this drama corresponds to a dialogical conception of discourse. Even if the text is formally monological (like the research article), it may be dialogical in that the author gives the floor, explicitly or implicitly, to other voices. Before going further into the theory of linguistic polyphony, we will present aspects of the broader theoretical framework within which our studies are undertaken. We profit from a number of theoretical perspectives, bringing together insights from both Anglo-American, Anglo-Nordic (if we may use such a label) and French traditions. The theoretical perspectives provide us with an understanding of the linguistic means which indicate the presence of and the interrelation between persons or groups of persons involved in the research process reported. We take a special interest in these persons or individuals and the argumentation they are engaged in. In Halliday’s terms (Halliday 1994: 179), we are particularly interested in the interpersonal metafunction, realised by structures expressing in- 30 Academic Voices teractional meaning. We study what the utterance is doing as a verbal exchange between author and audience. This means that we are more interested in the individuals behind the reported research than the research itself. However, even if we do not focus on the representational utterance meaning, what the utterance is about, we are not leaving out the ideational metafunction. For example, we take it into account when studying the combination of first person pronoun and verb, since this typically reflects a process associated with a particular participant. Finally, we also include Halliday’s textual metafunction in different contexts, for example when studying metatextual expressions referring to the textual organisation of the message. Our focus on academic voices, how the author and other participants are manifested in the text, has determined the orientation of our investigations, in the sense that we undertake analyses in a mainly ascending way, going from the micro-level of linguistic phenomena to a macro-level including a larger context. Since one of our purposes is to contribute to a linguistic description of a particular text genre, viz. the research article, the socio-professional context in which the texts are produced is also taken into consideration. In our view, one of the main features of the research article is that it is rhetorical. It is rhetorical in the sense that it represents a discourse created in order to induce cooperative attitudes and actions (see Prelli 1989), on the one hand, and to give the possibility for the authors to position themselves in or in relation to a particular discourse community, on the other. This implies the evident fact that the research article is addressed, i.e. it is directed at someone.1 Even if the manifestation of addressivity may be different in different traditions, this observation points to the simple but important fact that the research article constitutes a piece of communication. The final rhetorical aim of a research article is to create effects which convince the audience to such a degree that the article becomes an integrated part of a particular field’s literature. In his study, Prelli (1989) aims at describing the rhetorical dimension in the way scientific discourse is both created and evaluated. Creation (or production) and evaluation (or effect) are, of course, closely linked. However, in this book we focus on the creation side. This is what we can say something about through the study of the texts. Even if, in a few cases, we have asked the authors why they have chosen a specific linguistic expression, we do not investigate the reception of the texts. The reception of the texts is, of course, a sociologically interesting question, but one which goes beyond the aims of our linguistic and genre-related study. 1. For a more comprehensive discussion of rhetorical discourse and of the notion of addressivity in academic discourse, see Kjeldsen (2004) and Tønnesson (2003a, b) respectively. Chapter 2. Theoretical and methodological frameworks If it is accepted that rhetoric and science or research are not notions in conflict, and that scientific discourse is rhetorical, one should look further into what this rhetoric consists of. In this book, we will study a selection of linguistic features contributing to the rhetorical reasoning in research articles. We will now take a closer look at the particular text genre of the research article. The genre context in which the text is produced is, in fact, crucial to our explanations of the linguistic observations. As stated in 1.3, the text genre is considered a context in itself. The research article has evolved in different socio-professional communities with their own norms and rules (e.g. Bazerman 1988; Swales 1990; Berkenkotter & Huckin 1995; Berge 2003; Breivega 2003; for more general perspectives on the notion of genre, see Berge 1990; Freedman & Medway 1994; Adam 1999, 2005; Ledin 1999; Berge & Ledin 2001; Rastier 2001). Our study is clearly more linguistically and less sociologically oriented than the North-American tradition of the New Rhetoric. However, we have also been inspired by Miller’s observations (1994) in that we tend to consider the genre as a verbal practice realised by texts. According to Miller, this practice has for historical or cultural reasons acquired a name, which gradually has become conventional in the sense that language users have a sufficiently clear conception of it to be able to interpret it and possibly to produce it. In this book, we opt for a simple definition of genre: We consider genre to represent a recurrent social practice linguistically realised through texts, according to more or less fixed patterns. This means that the texts under study normally contain particular linguistic and textual traits; however, these traits do not constitute absolute patterns. Thus, our notion of genre corresponds to the well-known Bakthinian conception of genre as a discourse object, being at the same time dynamic (a genre can change over time and even disappear) and relatively stable (a genre is characterised by a set of “rules” of variable nature, from linguistic to cultural) (Bakhtin 1986). This might imply that differences between research articles written within different scientific disciplines motivate a distinction between, for example, IMRAD-structured articles (within medicine) and non-IMRAD-structured articles (within economics and linguistics) as different sub-genres of the research article. As already stated, the genre perspective is an important explanatory factor in our study. We place ourselves in a tradition analysing linguistic phenomena in a discoursal context (considering linguistics and text linguistics as integrated parts of discourse analysis). The main contextual frame of our studies is the genre, and the genre represents many interesting linguistic and text-linguistic dimensions.2 In 2. Dimensions such as coherence, composition, thematics, enunciation and illocution are all relevant. For a modular model taking these into consideration, see Adam (1999). 31 32 Academic Voices accordance with our research questions (see section 1.1), we limit ourselves mainly to the enunciative, polyphonic and semantic-pragmatic perspectives. Among the large number of studies undertaken within academic discourse during the last two decades, many different theoretical and methodological approaches are represented. One of these is John Swales’ genre theory presented in his 1990 book, which has gained enormous success, documented through numerous studies of academic genres, especially in English. We have chosen a different approach as our main perspective, because of our focus on linguistic traces of academic voices rather than article components and structure. In our view, the enunciative and polyphonic approach accounts for most of the phenomena we are studying. Thus it has the advantage of offering a comprehensive theoretical and methodological approach. Further, taking as our point of departure the fact that a research article is created in a particular multivoiced situation, we consider the enunciative approach, with its focus on the utterance and the utterance situation, as particularly pertinent. Language in use and language studied in relation to users and context are essential dimensions in this approach.3 There is no one uniform and homogeneous enunciative theory. It is more appropriate to speak about different variants of a common perspective. French enunciative linguistics has developed over many years. It is quite common to point to Charles Bally’s work as the origin and to Emile Benveniste as the one to elaborate the enunciative perspective into a theory (see Benveniste 1966). Different orientations have later been developed by for example André Culioli and Oswald Ducrot.4 Benveniste (1966) defines enunciation as ”la mise en fonctionnement de la langue par un acte individuel d’utilisation”5 and thus attaches importance to enunciation as an individual act (and a historical event) where the language as system (langue) is put into function. The result of this act is the utterance (énoncé).6 3. A similar view is found in cognitive-functional linguistics, also emphasising the elaboration of usage-based models for linguistic analysis. 4. For a more comprehensive presentation, see Marnette (2001). Most researchers working within the enunciative tradition focus on language in use (an exception is Ducrot who has always made it clear that his object of study is la langue). In this context we should point to Roman Jakobson and Mikhaïl Bakhtin as important sources of inspiration. The fact that the perspective is extended from the langue- to the parole- or discourse-level is probably one of the reasons why many literary researchers have taken an interest in enunciative theory. There are French traditions where the distinction between linguistics and literary studies is not considered as important; representatives are Dominique Maingueneau, Jean-Michel Adam, François Rastier and Alain Rabatel. 5. English translation: ‘putting langue into function by an individual act of use’. 6. The utterance (l’énoncé) is considered as a realisation of the abstract sentence or clause (phrase or proposition); the utterance can also be a realisation of a syntactically incomplete sentence. Chapter 2. Theoretical and methodological frameworks This definition is not unproblematic since enunciation might include all factors integrated in the production of an individual utterance – from physical, articulatory to context-related and situational, as well as psychological motivation factors (see Maingueneau 1993). On this basis it might be argued that enunciation is not of interest to the linguist – enunciation has to do with individual acts, and not the abstract language system. However, we do not accept such a delimitation of linguistic studies. Enunciation can be studied through the observable traces left in the utterance. These specific traces are usually instances of general patterns and can thus be related to the language system (for example personal pronouns, verb tenses and adverbs). As Marnette says: There is a crucial distinction to be made between each individual enunciation (seen as a single historical event) and the general phenomenon of enunciation, namely a stable system which emerges from the multiplicity of all the individual acts of enunciation. To study enunciation is, thus, to study a set of specific mechanisms through which the locutor converts the abstract system of langue into discours. These mechanisms can be studied via the traces they leave in their products, the utterances. (Marnette 2001: 244) Enunciation has three main dimensions: personal, temporal and spatial. In the personal dimension, the two protagonists of the enunciation have been given different names according to different orientations, for example locuteur, énonciateur vs. allocutaire, co-énonciateur. In the following, we will use both the anglified terms locutor and allocutor as well as the more traditional sender/speaker and receiver/hearer. For a simple illustration of how the three dimensions can be manifested, we can look at the following constructed sentence: I am here now. This sentence is full of traces of the utterance situation, viz. deictic expressions. The pronoun I refers to the utterance locutor (personal dimension), the adverb here to the place where the utterance is produced (spatial dimension), and the adverb now to the moment in which the utterance is produced (temporal dimension, also expressed by the simple present tense). Deictic expressions are, of course, not the only relevant expressions in this context; a series of other linguistic expressions constitute enunciative traces. As regards the personal dimension, it is important to note that the allocutor is also a part of the enunciation. An utterance is usually part of a discourse or interaction, and the locutor tends to position him- or herself in relation to the allocutor, in one way or another. The locutor can position him- or herself or manifest an attitude regarding different dimensions: the utterance content, the enunciation itself, the allocutor, the world outside the particular situation, previous or successive utterances. In this way, traces of the author can be manifested through numerous linguistic phenom- 33 34 Academic Voices ena, like speech acts (especially performatives), different kinds of modality, connectives, verb tense and aspect, evaluative expressions, etc. An important reason for choosing the enunciative approch is the “personal” orientation we have given to our research questions (see 1.1). In order to answer our first research question, about the manifestation of authors (self-perspective), we study first person (singular and plural) and indefinite pronouns, pertaining to the personal dimension, and the use of metatextual expressions, which may be related to the spatial dimension. In our study of pronominal use, we take into account the tense of the finite verb combined with the pronoun, i.e. the temporal dimension. As regards the determination of the role that the author may take on in the text, we also study the semantic-pragmatic meaning of verb constructions combined with first person pronouns. This part of our analysis necessitates a semantic-pragmatic approach in addition to the enunciative one. As regards the second question, about the manifestation of others’ voices (the other-perspective), we study bibliographical references, different forms of reported speech and other polyphonic constructions. In this context we add the third person, which we also consider part of the personal dimension.7 The third person can be referred to explicitly, as in Johnsen (1998) claims that …, or implicitly through polyphonic expressions, as in a construction with the connective however: The water in Bergen tastes good; however, it is polluted. The connective however indicates that the locutor considers the point of view reported in the proposition introduced by however as his own and as the most important one. The source of the point of view reported in the proposition preceding however (only conceded by the locutor) may be a third person, identifiable by the context. For the third question, how the authors present and promote their own research, the personal dimension is also relevant. Some of the most relevant features in this context are epistemic qualifications (expressing the author’s attitude towards the propositional content) such as may in The colour of the water may indicate pollution.8 This third question is the one that most clearly requires a step out of the enunciative perspective and into a lexical-semantic one. In this context, word choice and evaluative qualifications constitute an important dimension. As indicated above, the research article may be considered as a polyphonic drama where the author interacts with different parts; however, the author always 7. The personal dimension of the enunciation is commonly related to first and second persons; these are the protagonists of the utterance situation. 8. Epistemic qualifications will not be discussed in this book, but are thoroughly studied in the doctoral work of KIAP member Eva Thue Vold (see the KIAP publication list at the end of the book.) Chapter 2. Theoretical and methodological frameworks has a double function. He or she presents own points of view at the same time as setting up and controlling the whole drama. This hierarchical conception of the author (or the sender) corresponds to the main conception of the ScaPoLine theory of linguistic polyphony, which constitutes an important elaboration of the enunciative perspective which we will apply in this book. ScaPoLine is short for ”théorie SCAndinave de la POlyphonie LINguistiquE” (Scandinavian theory of linguistic polyphony), see Nølke et al. (2004). The ScaPoLine theory refutes the traditional postulate of the unique and indivisible speaking subject and claims the possibility of the superposition of several voices or points of view in one and the same utterance. In the next section, we will give a more detailed presentation of this theory. 2.1.2 A polyphonic framework: ScaPoLine The ScaPoLine theory is inspired by Bakhtin’s view of dialogism as fundamentally constitutive of language use, i.e. there is a multitude of interacting voices influencing the speaker’s language use. The meaning of an isolated utterance, as well as of a text, is not only the expression of a speaking subject’s idea, but rather a scene or drama of interrelated voices or points of view attributed to more or less abstract instances in addition to the speaker or writer (see Perrin 2004a: 7–12 for a more detailed introduction). According to Bakhtin, the utterance meaning undergoes a double influence, which might be called interdiscoursal and interlocutive, respectively (see Bres 1999). On the one hand, the utterances enter into interdiscoursal (or intertextual) resonance with what has already been said (by echoing and/or reacting to other previous utterances). On the other hand, the utterances also anticipate the reactions of a real or potential interlocutor: Se constituant dans l’atmosphère du « déjà dit », le discours est déterminé en même temps par la réplique non encore dite, mais sollicitée et déjà prévue. (Bakthine 1978: 103) ‘By constituting itself in the atmosphere of the “already said”, the discourse is simultaneously influenced by the reply, not yet said but solicited and already anticipated.’ While we are clearly inspired by this dialogical view of language use, we do not use the concept of polyphony in the same way as Bakthin in his studies of Dostoyevsky (see Bakthine 1970). One of the main differences between the linguistic ScaPoLine theory and the Bakthinian concept is that the former considers the relation between the speaker’s voice and the others’ voices as hierarchical (see above): the speaker has the dominant voice. In the Bakthinian polyphonic conception, on the other hand, the different voices are independent: there is a relation of equality 35 36 Academic Voices between the speaker (or narrator) and the other voices. However, the contestation of the well-established idea of the uniqueness of the speaking subject is common. In what follows, we provide a very simplified introduction to the basic ideas of the ScaPoLine theory (see Nølke et al. 2004). With a polyphonic conception of meaning, it is essential to demonstrate how the presence of several voices is signalled in discourse. In this linguistic version of the theory, the object of study is what is expressed by the utterance out of context, and the polyphonic structure is to be found at langue (or sentence) level. It is a structure which is uncovered by an investigation of signals given in the utterance. At the same time, the polyphonic structure gives us instructions as regards possible interpretations of the utterance in relation to its discoursal context. The aim of the ScaPoLine theory is to explain linguistic polyphony and thereby anticipate the influence of such phenomena on text interpretation (see Nølke et al. 2004: 15). Thus, this theory distinguishes itself, for example, from Oswald Ducrot’s strictly linguistic objective (Ducrot 1984) in its expressed aim to explain utterance meaning, taking as its point of departure hypotheses concerning the semantic instructions embedded in linguistic expressions. The relevance of the polyphonic perspective in the present context is that the author may set up a polyphonic play or drama signalling the presence of both his or her own voice and the voices of others. Different voices are given the floor, explicitly (for example by citation) or implicitly, by some distinctive mark signalling polyphony. This is a play which the author creates in his or her own way and which represents a subtle means of interaction, where the source of the different voices or points of view is not necessarily explicit. Let us consider the classic example (translated from French “Ce mur n’est pas blanc”; see Ducrot 1984): (1) This wall is not white. Two points of view are presented in this utterance, one saying that ‘this wall is white’ (point of view 1) and another qualifying this as ‘not valid’ – or as ‘false’ (point of view 2). The isolated utterance does not indicate who is the source of the first point of view; the source may or may not be identified by the context. For the interpretation of the utterance it is important to try to determine the different points of view which are manifested and to identify the (group of) individual(s) corresponding to the source of these points of view (the author, another researcher, the scientific community, the doxa, etc.), in short, to identify who is responsible for them. We will now look at an authentic example, a complex multivoiced sequence taken from an English linguistics article (emphasis added): (2) It is generally recognized that what Banfield (1982) calls represented speech and thought may include expressions and constructions which, although they Chapter 2. Theoretical and methodological frameworks can be attributed to the person whose thought is being represented, cannot be easily analysed as contributing to something propositional. […] It is true that the expressions and constructions which according to Banfield, characterize free indirect speech cannot be indirectly quoted in embedded clauses as but can. However, the phenomenon of free indirect speech or thought does raise the question of what it means to say that a writer or speaker is representing a thought. If we say […], then it seems we cannot construe thoughts simply in terms of their (truth conditional) propositional content. (engling05) This sequence is not only an open verbal interaction where the author explicitly brings the voice of Banfield and a general (?) opinion (cf. It is generally recognized …) into the discussion. There are other voices present, implicitly, signalled by different polyphonic markers. There are several examples of refutation indicated by the negation not (in cannot). The interesting questions in this context are: To what extent is there refutation and if refutation it is, then who is responsible for the underlying positive point of view? Is it another researcher, a specific discourse community, or a more or less vaguely defined doxa? In this example there is also a concessive connective, however, which signals that, for the author in this context, the preceding proposition is not the most important one: The one that follows is. Who, then, is responsible for the content transmitted by the first proposition, the author at another time, or an external voice? And how should the expression according to Banfield be interpreted? It does not necessarily mean that the author takes the same view as Banfield, even if she refers to her in this way. Finally, there are two occurrences of the plural pronoun we (engling05 is a single-author article). Who does this pronoun refer to? It seems reasonable to suggest that at least the author and the reader are included; however, is the reader ready to accept this inclusion, or does the author include the reader in a point of view the reader might disagree with? There are many questions to ask when faced with polyphonic constructions, be they explicit or implicit. The ScaPoLine theory puts forward at least three types of questions: How many points of view are present? What is the relation between these and the locutor? Who is responsible for the different points of view? These are just some of the questions that should be asked if one wants to reach a better understanding of the polyphonic play typically taking place in research articles. In order to analyse polyphonic markers in a more rigorous linguistic way, we will now present in a simplified way some of the basic aspects and terminology of the ScaPoLine theory (see Nølke et al. 2004). As stated above, the polyphonic structure is identified at the langue level. This abstract structure is given a concrete expression at the level of the polyphonic configuration, the parole level, which is observable (the level at which the discussion of 37 38 Academic Voices example (2) above takes place) and which is of particular interest here. Through its instructions the polyphonic structure imposes constraints on the interpretation of the configuration. The configuration consists of four entities: 1. the locutor-constructor – LOC – responsible for the enunciation and its result (i.e. the utterance), and three other elements, all constructed by LOC: 2. the point of view(pov), which is a semantic entity, related to a source 3. the discoursal beings, which are semantic entities that constitute the sources 4. the enunciative relations which relate the pov to the discoursal beings. There are two main enunciative relations – one of responsibility and one of non-responsibility. The responsibility relation is by far the most important. In the negation example (1) above, the locutor is responsible for the negative point of view (pov2). There are several subtypes of relations: for example, semantic-pragmatic relations (argumentative, counter-argumentative, reformulative) and logical-semantic (epistemic, refutative) (see Fløttum 2001b). If we go back to the negation example (1) again, the locutor’s relation to the positive pov1 is one of non-responsibility, more precisely a refutative relation. The formal representation of the polyphonic structure of the negation goes as follows, where X represents the unknown source of pov1: (1’) This wall is not white. pov1: [X] TRUE (‘this wall is white’) pov2: [l0] UNJUSTIFIED (pov1) A further explanation of the LOC-entity is required. LOC is an abstract entity that can create two images of itself: the utterance locutor, l0, i.e. the image corresponding to the moment of enunciating or uttering; and the textual locutor, L, corresponding to a general image of LOC, with all the properties of a complete being except for the one responsible for the utterance. L can also correspond to an image of LOC at another moment in its history. In the example (3) I ask myself if ... both l0 and L are explicitly present, in the pronouns I and myself respectively. The main idea is that a LOC can construct different polyphonic plays which are signalled by different linguistic expressions and in which other abstract individuals than LOC’s own images enter the scene. The individuals are the allocutor (in French: allocutaire, or the receiver) and the third (in French: les tiers). The abstract third, corresponding to a person or to a more or less defined group of persons, is manifested by third person pronouns, indefinite pronouns, proper names or other nominal phrases. There is a main distinction which has to be made between dif- Chapter 2. Theoretical and methodological frameworks ferent thirds: the individual third and the collective third. The first is represented by Tom in the following: (4) Tom said that the weather had been fine. In constructions with reported or represented speech, as in (4), we call the locutor that is mentioned the represented locutor. We are not going further into the problem of distinguishing different collective types here (see Nølke et al. 2004), but limit the presentation to an example of what we may call the heterogeneous third, or the polyphonic one, which is a collective whose members may be distinguished as individuals with the possibility to take the floor, like many in the following: (5) Many thought the game was over. It should be noted that the different discoursal beings are not necessarily represented explicitly. This is especially true for the utterance locutor, who is typically represented only in performative constructions. Even though in this book we have chosen a rather non-technical application of ScaPoLine, this perspective contributes to our understanding of how academic discourse works. It helps us detect the implicit interaction interwoven in the explicit one, both of which contribute to the negotiation of socio-professional relations, represented by different voices, that is displayed in this kind of discourse. As regards the study of the main features investigated in this book, the polyphonic perspective constitutes a theoretical refinement of the more general enunciative perspective. Some phenomena are more relevant than others in this perspective. We return to the relevance of the polyphonic dimension in Chapters 4–6, treating author presence, reader/writer interaction and other-presence respectively. Before going on to the empirical part of this book, we will consider some methodological questions related to our own study as well as to corpus-based linguistic studies in general. 2.2 Quantitative methods 2.2.1 Our independent variables The KIAP Corpus is a stratified collection of texts. The texts have been classified in several ways, most importantly according to language, discipline and authorship. Language and discipline are our two basic independent variables, with three possible values each. We compare samples (collections of texts) that have different values for either the language or the discipline variable. For instance, we ask whether 39 40 Academic Voices there is a difference between articles from different disciplines in how often a certain kind of metatext is used, and whether there is a difference between articles from different languages in how frequently first person grammatical subjects are used. As regards authorship, there are three possible values: several authors, one female author and one male author; the last two can be joined into one, so that a binary variable is achieved. Questions about differences between disciplines or languages are more central in our investigations than questions about differences relating to authorship, i.e. between multi- and single-author articles or between articles written by one man or by one woman. However, authorship is sometimes criterial for the inclusion of a text in a sample. For example, multi-author articles are of course not included in our study of the use of first person singular subjects, since ‘I’ subjects do not occur in such texts. We have also performed secondary studies where the gender of a single author is an independent variable (in order to check whether female and male authors write differently, cf. 4.1, 5.1 and 6.1), and one study where the number of authors is an independent variable (in order to see if there is any difference in the use of first person plural subjects (‘we’), cf. 4.1). 2.2.2 Article length and absolute frequency Underlying our quantitative analyses are data about dependent variables of two types: information about the length of the individual texts and information about the absolute frequency of selected linguistic features in those texts (i.e. number of occurrences). Article length is measured by the number of text words. In order to attain the highest possible level of comparability between texts, we have used only the bodies of the articles as described in 1.2.1, and measurements regarding article length employed in our analyses relate to the article bodies. Frequencies have been calculated on the basis of automated corpus searches and manual classification of the search hits. The amount of noise (i.e. the share of search hits that are not examples of the features searched for and therefore not included in the statistics) varies greatly among the features. For example, as part of our investigation of pronoun use in Chapter 4, the French articles have been searched for tokens of nous (‘we/us’). In this investigation, we are only interested in nous used as a grammatical subject. However, since the corpus has not been analysed syntactically, the search returns instances of nous as a subject, object, complement of a preposition etc. Hence, to calculate the frequency of nous subjects, we first had to categorise all the tokens of nous as subjects or non-subjects. Similar procedures have been undertaken for all the linguistic features that we analyse. When we use frequencies as the basis of our analyses, a simple assumption is made: The prevalence of a feature is appropriately measured by counting how many times it appears in the text. For example, a first person singular subject has Chapter 2. Theoretical and methodological frameworks the same value regardless of its context, such as where in the text it is used and what kind of verb it is used with. On the word level, this might be unproblematic. On the text level, however, it is not. Factors such as text location and verb type are obviously important aspects of self-representation. It is important to realise that frequency-based studies need to be complemented by qualitative analyses. Not all the features that we study are formally expressed as single words. For instance, even though we search for single words, e.g. article, the actual metatextual expression may be of the type in this article. Regardless of their length, such expressions are counted as one instance of metatext. Problems related to the comparison of linguistic features from different languages are discussed in 2.2.4. 2.2.3 Relative frequency and measures based on it If all the articles in our corpus had been the same length, absolute frequency would have been an appropriate measure for our studies. However, the number of words varies between 796 for nomed26 (our shortest text) and 19,882 for engling30 (our longest text), that is, a range of 19,086 words. The mean length is 5001.9 words, while the median length is 4643.5 words. The frequencies therefore need to be normalised (cf. Biber, Conrad & Reppen 1998: 263–264) for the statistical tests that we employ. Relative frequencies are calculated by dividing the absolute frequencies by the total number of body words. Since the relative frequencies are in general very small numbers, they can be more conveniently presented as percentages or per thousand words. We have opted for the former; the choice between them has no theoretical significance. The measure of relative frequency makes it possible to find the median and mean relative frequencies for collections of articles, i.e. for our various subcorpora. Further, it is possible to rank the articles for their prevalence of a certain linguistic feature. Article rankings are the basis for the various statistical tests that we perform in order to test hypotheses about the populations of texts from which our subcorpora are sampled. The statistical tests are the subject of 2.2.5. 2.2.4 Cross-linguistic comparisons and relative frequency In our studies, we compare research articles written in three different languages. The things we are interested in include such features as first person pronouns, metatext, bibliographical references etc. As discussed in 2.2.3, we use relative frequency to measure the prevalence of these features, and the calculation of this measurement involves the use of the total number of words in the texts as well as absolute frequencies of features. Neither of these arithmetical elements is unprob- 41 42 Academic Voices lematic when comparing texts in different languages. Consequently, a fair amount of caution needs to be exercised in any study that is based on them, and we would like to mention a few points that pertain to our studies. First, the number of words that are used to express a certain meaning varies between languages. As an example, English we are going to assume might correspond to French nous supposerons – with five words in English and two in French. And the English phrase the theory corresponds to the Norwegian noun teorien. Systematic differences of these and other kinds affect the length of texts measured in words and, consequently, any comparison based on relative frequency. Second, the frequency of some of the linguistic features that we study is affected by grammatical differences between the languages. One example of such a difference is the existence of constructions like French gerundive en supposant (‘in assuming’) and similar participial constructions in English, where the verb has no expressed grammatical subject that would show up in the frequency count; Norwegian does not have such constructions, and one might instead write når vi antar (‘when we assume’), with an expressed subject. In our case, this affects the relative frequencies of first person (‘I’, ‘we’) and indefinite pronoun (‘one’) subjects in Chapter 4. Third, differences relating more to language use than to the grammatical systems cause similar problems of comparability. One example is differences in sentence length, which may affect various linguistic features both directly and indirectly. Another is stylistic or register differences, e.g. although the English indefinite pronoun one means approximately the same as its Norwegian closest equivalents man and en/ein, its use is much more restricted due to its stylistic markedness. As shown in Chapter 4, there is a very clear difference between English and Norwegian in the relative frequency of indefinite pronoun subjects. Fourth, many lexical items of one language may have no clear equivalents in the other languages, or there is a complex relation between lexical items in one language and the other. Such issues are important for example in our study of metatext (see 5.2), where we have attempted to select equivalent sets of metatextual expressions in the three languages. 2.2.5 Statistical tests We now turn to a brief presentation and discussion of the statistical tests that we have opted for. We have chosen to employ only non-parametric statistical methods; our motivations for this decision are discussed in section 2.2.6. Our main investigations concern the effect of the factors of discipline and language on the relative frequency of a set of linguistic features, viz. first person subjects (‘I’, ‘we’), indefinite pronoun subjects (‘one’), metatext (e.g. ‘section’), negation (‘not’), adver- Chapter 2. Theoretical and methodological frameworks satives (‘but’) and bibliographical references (whether of the type James (1990) (or similar) or (in medical articles) a reference to an item in the bibliography, e.g. [7]). For each of these features, we have carried out a battery of tests. The investigations can be divided into two levels. The first is a higher level which comprises, at the same time, articles from more than one discipline and in more than one language. We will refer to this as the superlevel. The second is a lower level, where articles from different disciplines in one language are compared, or, conversely, articles in different languages from one discipline. We will refer to this as the sublevel. The statistical tests are also described, along with their results, in Appendix B. For further details about the methods, the reader is referred to the statistics literature (see references below). At the superlevel, we first perform a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), using the Scheirer–Ray–Hare extension of the Kruskal–Wallis test (cf. Sokal & Rohlf 1995: 445–447). The input of the test is observations of relative frequencies for the whole corpus, i.e. for 3 × 3 × 50 = 450 articles. With this analysis, we achieve three kinds of results. First, we find out whether there is any significant effect of the factors of discipline and language – whether there is significant variance that can be attributed to interdisciplinary differences or differences between languages. For instance, does it matter for the relative frequency of negation if an article comes from economics, linguistics or medicine? If the answer is yes, we know that at least one pair of disciplines exhibits a significant difference between them, but not which pair(s) this is. We also find out whether there is a significant effect of the interaction between discipline and language, i.e. whether the effect of the discipline factor depends on the language factor, and vice versa. Second, the test tells us which of the two factors has the strongest effect with respect to the feature in question. For instance, which factor (discipline or language) has the greatest effect on the relative frequency of negation? Third, we can tell how much of the variance can be accounted for with reference to each of the factors and their interaction – and, hence, also how much of the variance is due to factors which we cannot account for. If significant effects of a factor are found in the two-way analysis of variance, we can proceed (still at the superlevel) to pairwise comparisons of disciplines and of languages, using the Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test (cf. Butler 1985: 98–102; Siegel & Castellan 1988: 128–137). The input of each test is observations for 2 × (3 × 50) = 300 articles. Since there are three discipline pairs and three language pairs, the number of such comparisons will be six for each feature. The outcome of these comparisons is a decision, for each feature with respect to each discipline pair or language pair, as to whether there is a significant difference in the relative frequency of the feature between that pair. For instance, are the relative frequencies of negation in economics articles and in medical articles significantly different? 43 44 Academic Voices At the sublevel, we first perform a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), using the Kruskal–Wallis test (cf. Siegel & Castellan 1988: 206–216; Sokal & Rohlf 1995: 423–427). The input of each test is observations for 3 × 50 = 150 articles. There will be two analyses for each feature: one for variance among disciplines and one for variance among languages. With this analysis, we find out whether there is significant variance among the disciplines (in each language) or among the languages (in each discipline). For instance, does it matter for the relative frequency of negation in English if an article belongs to economics, linguistics or medicine? If the answer is yes, we know that at least one pair of disciplines exhibits a significant difference between them, but not which pair(s) this is. If significant variance is found in the one-way analysis of variance, we can proceed (also at the sublevel) to pairwise comparisons of disciplines (in each language) and of languages (in each discipline), using the Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test. The input of each test is observations for 2 × 50 = 100 articles. Since there are three discipline pairs in each language and three language pairs in each discipline, the number of such comparisons will be up to 2 × (3 × 3) = 18 for each feature. The result of these comparisons is a decision, for each feature with respect to each discipline pair or language pair, as to whether there is a significant difference in the relative frequency of the feature between that pair. For instance, are the relative frequencies of negation in English economics articles and in English medical articles significantly different? In addition to tests where language and discipline are the independent variables and where whole language/discipline subcorpora are involved, we perform a number of other supplementary tests. In Chapter 4, we break down the dependent variable of first person subjects into singulars and plurals and divide the subcorpora into smaller subcorpora of single- and multi-author articles, and this distinction in authorship is in one case also used as an independent variable. Throughout the study, we also test differences between articles written by one man and articles written by one woman, i.e. use gender as an independent variable. 2.2.6 Why non-parametric statistics? Our reliance on non-parametrics may need some justification. In general, parametric methods should be preferred to non-parametric ones whenever this is appropriate, because they are typically more powerful and provide us with better possibilities of correctly rejecting our null hypotheses of no difference between populations. Unfortunately, the more powerful the test, the more assumptions need to be made about the compared populations. Non-parametric tests are more robust than parametric ones against non-normal distributions and differences in variance. Chapter 2. Theoretical and methodological frameworks Specifically, two assumptions on which parametric tests are generally based are potentially problematic for studies based on our data: The populations that the samples are drawn from are normally distributed, and they have the same variances with respect to the variables under investigation (cf. Siegel & Castellan 1988: 20). Neither the distribution nor the variance of our populations of research articles is known. To the extent that our samples are representative of the populations, however, we have a certain idea what the populations are like, and we are led to believe that with respect to most of our variables, the assumptions do not do justice to the actual properties of the populations. This is the case, for instance, with the use of first person singular subjects (see 4.1). In the Norwegian economics articles with one author (N = 33), the mean relative frequency is 0.11 %, the median is 0.04 %, and the variance is 0.026 %. The corresponding numbers for French (N = 31) are 0.01 %, exactly 0 and 0.003 %. A comparison of the mean and median relative frequencies for Norwegian indicates a great difference: The mean is almost three times the size of the median. Thus, the distribution is highly positively skewed (towards 0). This difference is smaller for French, but only because almost all values in the sample are 0 – the distribution here is even more extreme. And if we look at the variance, we see that it is more than eight times as large for Norwegian as for French, which can hardly be said to support an assumption that the populations have the same variance. Admittedly, this example is extreme, but the point remains: In our view, the assumptions of normal distribution and equal variances are not generally valid for our studies. This speaks against using parametric methods. It is often observed (e.g. Butler 1985: 84) that parametric tests such as the t-test are rather robust, tolerating even quite large deviations from normality of distribution and equality of variances. And when samples number at least 30, it is sometimes assumed that parametric tests are generally applicable. For instance, Butler (1985: 93) has a decision schema where the z-test is chosen for large samples regardless of distribution and variances. On the other hand, Oakes (1998: 14) states categorically about the t-test that ”[i]f the distribution is skewed, […] a non-parametric test should be employed […]”. Given this apparent lack of agreement among experts on statistics for linguistics and our reasons not to make the assumptions about normal distribution and equal variances that parametric tests presuppose, we opt for a conservative decision to restrict our quantitative methods to non-parametric ones. This choice may have reduced our possibilities of rejecting null hypotheses of no differences and, conversely, of corroborating alternative hypotheses that there are indeed differences between our populations. However, the non-parametric tests that we employ do approach the parametric alternatives in power when the samples are large, so we do not believe that our studies have suffered much from this decision, even in the cases where parametric tests might have been more defendable. 45 46 Academic Voices 2.3 Qualitative methods In the previous section, we presented the statistical methods that we have employed to analyse the large amount of data that we have produced using the KIAP Corpus. These large-scale quantitative methods have been combined with qualitative analyses and discussions, sometimes supplemented with more limited quantitative studies, and case studies. Several of our investigations include aspects which might be called exploratory, corpus-based contrastive linguistics (primarily in the linguistic subfield of pragmatics (cf. Nølke 1991)). Contrastive linguistics is a large field where many theoretical and methodological approaches co-exist (see e.g. Krzeszowski 1990), and corpus-based contrastive studies (often with a translational perspective) are becoming progressively more common (see e.g. Fabricius-Hansen 1998, 2004; Johansson 1998; other contributions in Johansson & Oksefjell 1998). Contrastive-linguistic and corpus-linguistic theoretisation has not been among the aims of our investigations. Rather, our efforts have been concentrated around specific analyses, trying to structure some of the material that we have extracted from our corpus and to generate new empirical findings. Needless to say, we have not performed these analyses in a theoretical void, but employed the theoretical framework described in 2.1, supplemented eclectically with ideas from related approaches as needed. In some of our investigations, we have been able to draw on previous research. In other cases, we have developed new categories and conceptual systems in order to deal with the phenomena in question. What kinds of categories and concepts we have established has depended to a high degree on the specific aims of our inquiries. These aims include some that relate specifically to questions about crosslinguistic differences and similarities, i.e. contrastive-linguistic ones. Equally central, however, are aims relating to cross-disciplinary comparison. Our aims also encompass questions about the research article genre in general as well as matters relating to individual variation. Throughout this book, the study of individual examples in their paradigmatic, textual and rhetorical contexts is our hermeneutic method for creating descriptions (as well as some partial explanations) of the huge amounts of data made available through our corpus. The nature of the analyses differs from section to section, and we do not everywhere present detailed methodological descriptions. In several cases, the work leading up to our final analyses has been processes of trial and error, and the published analyses are merely instances of the famous ”tip of the iceberg”. What we proffer in 2.3.1 is an illustration, viz. our methodological approach that led to our analysis of ‘let us’-imperatives in section 5.3. This description gives a fairly good picture of how we have typically carried out our studies. Chapter 2. Theoretical and methodological frameworks In addition, 2.3.2 contains a brief discussion of the purpose of including case studies and our reasons for subjecting particular articles to closer scrutiny. 2.3.1 An illustration of method In 5.3 we describe eight functional types of ‘let us’-imperatives. These have been posited with a view to shedding light on the text-compositional and rhetorical functions of such imperatives in research articles, including language-contrastive issues as well as comparisons of disciplines. How did we proceed to arrive at these eight types, how are they related to text composition and the rhetorical aims of academic authors, and what has been gained by our positing them? We started by searching for occurrences of the imperatives in the corpus using the search program (see section 1.2.6). The contents of the resulting concordances then had to be sorted manually in order to exclude irrelevant hits (notably, the automated search in the French part of the corpus had to include all words ending in -ons, but only a small fraction of these are ‘let us’-imperatives). Having completed the sorting, we were in possession of our material. (We could now state the number of occurrences in each article and in each subcorpus and combinations of them. We also performed statistical analyses on these data, but we will leave the quantitative methods aside here.) The next step was a verb-based classification of the occurrences. We began by marking each occurrence with a label for the verb (or verbal construction) employed (in English and Norwegian: the infinitive following the pronoun meaning ‘us’). The occurrences in each language could then be sorted alphabetically based on the verb, and we were able to ascertain which verbs occurred more frequently and which ones more seldom, or even only once (as was the case for the majority of verbs). So far, the procedure had been straightforward (albeit time-consuming). We were now in a position to try to discern patterns of use in the material as a whole. In this task, we could profit from the conceptual apparatus used elsewhere in the book (notably, the system of author roles in 4.2) and in previous KIAP work (e.g. Fløttum 2003g, 2004d; Kinn 2005c), which in turn was inspired by the works of others (e.g. Swales et al. 1998; Hyland 2002b; see 5.3 for further references). We tried to sort the employed verbs according to their meaning, separately but in the same fashion for each language. The result was a kind of semantic map, networks of verbs clustering and clusters overlapping and interconnecting in intricate ways. There turned out to be obvious similarities across the languages, but also some interesting differences; e.g. some clusters found in French were largely absent in English and Norwegian. On the basis of these maps, we attempted to establish usage types, with classes of verbs (and, indirectly, the imperative occurrences containing them) constitut- 47 48 Academic Voices ing what we perceived to be natural clusters, keeping the amount of overlap to a minimum. The exact number of types and the labels that we chose to attach to them were determined gradually, as we attempted to provide coherent and distinctive descriptions of the types. The system of types became more complex than the system of author roles employed in 4.2 and the system for Norwegian ‘let us/me’-imperatives in Kinn (2005c), but this complexity was considered to be motivated in the usage patterns that we discovered. (Some occurrences were left out because they did not obviously pattern with others, i.e. the classification was not exhaustive.) The analysis of the corpus-based material had so far taken a paradigmatic perspective, focusing on the range of verbs employed and their meanings. But we also considered the data from a syntagmatic perspective, trying to generalise about the text-compositional role of the imperatives, to find a common function in the cotexts. In addition, we moved our attention to the contextual level and related these analyses to the rhetorical aims of research articles, making explicit how the imperatives are used in order to convince the reader. The interpretation of the observed (cross-linguistic, cross-disciplinary and individual) variation in the corpus is without doubt the most difficult part of the analysis. Explanations can be sought in terms of the language systems, national or linguistic writing cultures, disciplinary writing traditions, text types, objects of study etc. In the case of ‘let us’-imperatives, we have been able to point to a few factors that we think have contributed to the (near-) absence of them in medical articles, and a factor related to the language systems is pointed out in a later case study (5.5.2). But here, and elsewhere, we do not contend to be in possession of full explanations of the data (or anything close to such a thing). We do, however, consider the large number of new empirical findings to contribute in valuable ways to the larger picture of academic discourse and varieties thereof. Already on the basis of the raw figures for the material, it could be observed that there were no occurrences of ‘let us’-imperatives in English and Norwegian medicine. Thus, there were differences between, first, medicine and the other disciplines and second, between French and the other languages. During the subsequent analysis, we discovered several other differences and similarities between languages and disciplines. Thus, the types that we established allowed us to generalise about relations between language- and discipline-specific tendencies, and this strengthened our belief that our approach was on a promising track. In this way, we feel that we have provided the research field with a deeper insight into the use of ‘let us’-imperatives in research articles, in general and in many specifics. This relates both to the presence of the author in text (the self-dimension), which is the focus of Chapter 4, and to the relation between author and reader (including metatext; the self- & other-dimension), which is the focus of Chapter 5. In- Chapter 2. Theoretical and methodological frameworks corporated in this is a broadened knowledge of similarities and differences between disciplines and between languages – and between individual texts. 2.3.2 Our use of case studies In the main theoretical sections of the book, we concentrate on the textual phenomena as found in the KIAP Corpus and its various subcorpora. With such an approach, there is a danger that the individual texts are forgotten – or, at least, that they appear to be forgotten. In order to make sure that neither is the case, and to provide further illustrations of the various phenomena at work, we complement the more theoretical sections with a number of case studies. In the case-study sections, we look in detail at one or a few articles. For instance, 4.6.2 is a study of the explicit and implicit presence of ‘we’ in a Norwegian medical article. The case studies also serve to draw lines between the phenomenon investigated and other textual features that it works in tandem with. An example is the co-occurrence of ‘let us’-imperatives with various types of metatext. The choice of themes and texts for the case studies is variously motivated. The primary reason for including them is as just described, and we have tried to let the different disciplines and languages have their reasonable share. The individual articles have been chosen for various reasons, which we provide in the individual studies. We should mention in this connection that the case studies on medical texts have been included specifically to remedy the admittedly scarce presence of medical examples in several of the theoretical sections. One reason for this scarcity is that the majority of the linguistic features that we focus on are less frequent in the medical texts than in texts from the other two disciplines. We hope that the medical case studies not only compensate for this, but help to throw light on the reasons for the relatively low frequency in medical articles of the features in question. 49 chapter 3 Quantitative results 3.0 Introduction This chapter is primarily a presentation of the outcome of our main quantitative studies, i.e. statistical analyses of differences in the relative frequencies of a selection of six linguistic features. Documentation of the results of these statistical tests is provided in Appendix B. Detailed data for the prevalence of the individual features for the various subcorpora as well as some derived statistics are presented in the three following chapters: 4.1 contains the data for first person subjects (with the meanings ‘I’ and ‘we’) and for indefinite pronoun subjects (‘one’); 5.1 presents data for metatext (e.g. ‘article’, ‘section’, ‘below’); and 6.1 deals with the details for bibliographical references, adversative conjunctions (‘but’) and negation (‘not’). Since the present chapter is a presentation of quantitative results, the discussions are not found here, but in Chapters 4–7. The remainder of this chapter is organised as follows. Section 3.1 serves as a bridge between the discussion of cultural identities in section 1.3 and a quantitative understanding of such a concept made available by statistical analyses. Section 3.2 answers the question of whether it is discipline or language differences that have the greatest effect on the relative frequency of the linguistic features that we study. Sections 3.3 and 3.4 present comparisons of the disciplines and the languages, respectively, for each of the six features investigated. 3.1 Cultural identities as tendencies in linguistic practices The main question of the KIAP project has been whether there are cultural identities in academic discourse, and, if that is the case, whether these are more strongly tied to the discipline or to the language of the authors. Since our project is a linguistic one, what we investigate is linguistic practices. A cultural identity as reflected in linguistic practices amounts to linguistic usage that members of a culture tend to adhere to and that members of certain other cultures (but not necessarily all other cultures) adhere to only to a lower degree; i.e. we are looking for similarities within 52 Academic Voices the group and differences between it and (some) other groups. All groups exhibit internal variation, and groups overlap considerably in most cases. As an example, take the relative frequency of negation with ‘not’ in French and Norwegian medical articles. Norwegian articles have more negation than French ones. This does not mean, of course, that every Norwegian article has more negation than every French article. What it means is that the median relative frequency is higher in Norwegian than in French medicine – 0.57 % and 0.35 %, respectively. The Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test shows the difference between the corpora to be significant (at a significance level of 0.05). The two samples are far from homogeneous. In the French medical articles, the relative frequency of negation ranges from 0.06 % to 0.85 %, while for Norwegian, it ranges from 0.12 % to 1.22 %. That is, the range in French is about 0.79 %, and in Norwegian, about 1.10 %. The range of the overlap between the two samples is about 0.73 %, i.e. most of the range for both samples. In spite of the great variation in both samples and the overlapping ranges, the samples are different in that the observations tend to cluster around different medians. The tendency to gather around a certain median is what we may call a similarity within the group. This ”similarity-in-variation” is easier to see when the group is compared with other groups, some of which differ from the former. We have investigated a limited number of linguistic features. They have been selected as presumed indicators of differences that may be related to the discipline- or language-based textual practices of the authors. They all have to do with the authors themselves and their relation to their readers or other researchers. Needless to say, a broader selection of features would have provided a more detailed picture of the textual practices. Such investigations will hopefully be undertaken in future studies. We discuss our findings for the individual features in later chapters, and those chapters also contain a number of qualitative discussions. In the remainder of this chapter, we present our main results in such a way that the various features can be considered together. We choose not to present large amounts of statistical detail here. Instead, we describe our findings informally and represent similarities and differences among disciplines and among languages graphically. This will hopefully help the reader to get an overall impression that will make the rest of the book easier to read and to use. Some descriptive statistical information is provided in the following three chapters, while the results of statistical tests are presented in Appendix B. Recall that we use non-parametric tests that are based on ranking (see 2.2). In these rankings, the article with the lowest relative frequency for a certain linguistic feature is assigned the rank 1, and the higher the relative frequency, the higher the rank of the article. The highest rank is 450 when the whole corpus is included, while Chapter 3. Quantitative results in less comprehensive investigations it is 300, 150 or 100. As a measure that indicates the general tendency of a subcorpus, we provide mean ranks for each of the subcorpora involved. These can be compared to the expected mean ranks, which are the numbers that are expected if there is no difference between the text populations that the subcorpora have been sampled from. If the total number of articles involved is N, the expected mean rank is always N/2 + 0.5. That is, it is 225.5 when all of the articles are included, and otherwise 150.5, 75.5 or 50.5. When the actual mean rank is smaller, it means that articles in the subcorpus in question tend to have lower relative frequencies of the relevant feature than what is the case for the compared subcorpora considered together. Before we present the results, we would like to emphasise one thing that is obvious to those who are well-versed in statistics, but may not be equally obvious to those who are not: The fact that there is a significant difference between two subcorpora does not necessarily mean that the difference is great, nor that it is important. What it means is that there is a risk smaller than 5 % that the observed difference is incidental (since our α = 0.05), i.e. that the text samples misrepresent the text populations that they are culled from (and are assumed to be representative of). The larger the samples, the smaller differences suffice in order for the differences to be found statistically significant. We have found more frequent use of adversative conjunctions in Norwegian economics than in French economics, and the difference is significant. The mean relative frequency of Norwegian men (‘but’) is 0.65 %, while in French it is 0.37 % for mais (‘but’) (see 6.1.3). From these figures we see that the relative frequency is, on average, almost twice as high in Norwegian as in French, and this can surely be said to be a great difference. How important it is depends, of course, on our interpretation, which also needs to take into account reservations of the kind that we pointed to in 2.2.4. Above all, we need to ask whether adversativity in French and adversativity in Norwegian are appropriately measured by the relative frequencies of mais and men, respectively – there are other words, phrases and constructions in both languages that serve similar functions as these two adversative conjunctions. We will not discuss this further here, but merely indicate that what kind of importance we attribute to findings of significant differences is very much a matter of interpretation. 3.2 Is discipline or language the most important factor? The question posed in the title of this section should be understood as follows: Is it differences among disciplines or among languages that have the greatest effect on the relative frequency of the linguistic features that we study? (The final restrictive relative clause of the question is crucial: We do not pretend to have the 53 54 Academic Voices answer to the much more general question of whether discipline or language is the most important factor determining features of language use.) In order to answer the question, we have performed a two-way analysis of variance (see 2.2.5). The statistical results are presented in full in Appendix B, but a summary is provided in Table 3.2-1. The residue is the amount of variance that is not accounted for by the two factors or their interaction. Table 3.2-1. Effects of the discipline and language factors and their interaction on variance in the KIAP Corpus Feature Metatext Bibliographical references Adversative conjuctions Negation First person subjects Indefinite pronoun subjects Discipline Language Interaction Residual 52 % 44 % 25 % 18 % 15 % 9% 12 % 5% 9% 18 % 11 % 49 % 2% 2% 1% 0% 1% 3% 34 % 49 % 65 % 64 % 73 % 39 % Both the discipline factor and the language factor have a significant effect for all the features. But for the majority of features, discipline turns out to be more important than language. That is, authors of research articles tend to write more like their disciplinary colleagues writing in other languages than like their languagecommunity co-members writing in other disciplines – with respect to most of the features that we have chosen to study here. The answer is different for each of the features. The feature where discipline has the strongest influence is metatext, where 52 % of the variance in the population of texts can be attributed to differences between disciplines. As much as 12 % is due to the language factor, and another 2 % to discipline–language interaction. The strong contribution of the discipline factor has above all got to do with a lower relative frequency of metatext in medicine. For bibliographical references, 44 % of the variance can be accounted for by reference to disciplinary differences, whereas only 5 % is due to differences among the languages, and 2 % to discipline–language interaction. The main contribution to the importance of disciplinary differences comes from the fact that medical articles have many more references than do articles from the other disciplines. For adversatives, too, the discipline factor accounts for a larger amount of variance than does the language factor; their respective contributions are 25 % and 9 %, whereas their interaction is not significant. In this case, the main contribution comes from linguists’ using adversatives more than authors from the other disciplines. For first person subjects, disciplinary differences contribute to 15 % of the variance and language differences to 11 %, with no Chapter 3. Quantitative results significant interaction. Medical articles have fewer such subjects than there are in economics and linguistics. For negation, the factors are equally important, both accounting for 18 % of the variance, with no significant interaction. Negation is used considerably more in linguistics and in Norwegian articles than in the other disciplines and languages. Finally, for indefinite pronoun subjects, the language factor contributes to a vastly greater share of the variance than discipline; their respective effects are 49 % and 9 %, whereas the interaction between them accounts for 3 %. Not unexpectedly, this result is due to the fact that English uses the indefinite pronoun one much more seldom than is the case for French on and Norwegian man, en/ein. Many of these issues will be discussed in greater detail in later chapters. It is important to realise that for all the features we have studied, much of the variation cannot be accounted for by reference to the factors of discipline or language or their interaction. For metatext, the share of variance that is unaccounted for is about 34 %, whereas it is as much as about 73 % for first person subjects. The numbers for the remaining features lie between these two. This implies that much of the variance is due to other factors, such as age, gender and number of authors, subdisciplines, editorial practices, etc. No doubt, individual variation that cannot be subsumed under any of the more easily accessible factors also plays an important role in most of these cases. 3.3 Differences and similarities between disciplines In this section, we sketch our main results of discipline comparisons. Investigations at the superlevel are here those that compare disciplines for all three languages taken together, while investigations at the sublevel are those that compare disciplines separately for each language. (See 2.2.5 for explanations of the terms superlevel and sublevel, and that section and Appendix B for the statistical tests). We first present the results in terms of the mean ranks of the articles in the disciplinary subcorpora under comparison. The individual differences and similarities between disciplines are commented on in sections 3.3.1–2. Measures such as absolute frequencies and median and mean relative frequencies are provided in tables in later sections, viz. 4.1, 5.1 and 6.1. Figures 3.3-1–4 employ the concept of ‘mean rank’, and an understanding of this concept is necessary in order to understand the figures. We explain the concept below. Figure 3.3-1 shows the mean ranks of the disciplinary subcorpora at the superlevel (expected mean rank: 225.5). All the 450 corpus articles are included, and we compare three subcorpora of 150 articles each. Figures 3.3-2–4 show the mean ranks at the sublevel, for English, French and Norwegian, respectively 55 56 Academic Voices (expected mean rank: 75.5). In each case, 150 corpus articles are included, and we compare three subcorpora of 50 articles each. (In these figures, the mean ranks have been rounded to integers.) Figure 3.3-1. Differences between disciplines for the whole KIAP Corpus Figure 3.3-2. Differences between disciplines in English Chapter 3. Quantitative results Figure 3.3-3. Differences between disciplines in French Figure 3.3-4. Differences between disciplines in Norwegian The concept of ‘ mean rank’ As stated above, an understanding of the concept of ‘mean rank’ is needed to understand the figures. We therefore provide an explanation of this concept here. We will use the sublevel comparison of English economics (engecon), linguistics (engling) and medicine (engmed) with respect to indefinite pronoun subjects as an example (cf. Figure 3.3-2). There are 50 articles in each of these subcorpora, i.e. 150 altogether. The 150 articles are first combined into one group and ranked in order of increasing rela- 57 58 Academic Voices tive frequency of indefinite pronouns. We assign the rank 1 to the article with the lowest relative frequency, the rank 2 to the article with the second lowest relative frequency, and so on up to the article with the highest relative frequency, to which we assign the rank 150.1 Next, we calculate sums of ranks for each discipline subcorpus separately. These are 4,180 for engecon, 5,024 for engling and 2,121 for engmed. Finally, we divide the sums by the number of articles (50) in order to obtain the mean ranks. The mean ranks are approximately 84 for engecon, 100 for engling and 42 for engmed; they can be found in Figure 3.3-2. If the discipline subcorpora had been more or less the same with regard to the relative frequency of indefinites, they would have had approximately the same ranks, viz. the expected mean rank (expected under the null hypothesis of no difference between the populations that the subcorpora have been sampled from). The expected mean rank is between the middle ranks 75 and 76, i.e. 75.5. We see that engecon has a slightly higher mean rank, and the one for engling is even higher, while the one for engmed is much lower. The mean ranks tell us that engling articles tend to have a higher relative frequency than engecon articles (100 > 84), and engecon articles a higher one than engmed articles (84 > 42). Note that the size of a mean rank does not tell us how frequent the feature in question is. We use the mean ranks to compare subcorpora, and they tell us whether articles in one subcorpus tend to have higher or lower relative frequencies than articles in the other subcorpora that the former subcorpus is compared to. To make this point clearer, let us look at the comparison of engling with French and Norwegian linguistics (frling and noling), again with respect to indefinites. The mean ranks obtained in this comparison can be found in Figure 3.4-3 in section 3.4 on language differences and similarities. The three mean ranks are 31 for engling, 113 for frling and 83 for noling. Note that engling, which has a mean rank of 100 when compared to engecon and engmed, in this case has a mean rank of 31 (see Figure 3.3-2). Of course, the relative frequency of indefinites in engling is the same in both cases; the median is 0.036 % (cf. Table 4.1-4 in Chapter 4). When engling is compared to the other English disciplines, it is the subcorpus with the highest relative frequencies of indefinites, but when it is compared to linguistics in the other languages, it is by far the subcorpus with the lowest relative frequencies. Thus, the mean rank of one subcorpus for a specific feature is properly compared only to the mean ranks of the other subcorpora for that same feature in that very comparison. Comparisons across features and across different sets of compared corpora should only be made in relative terms. For instance, it can be seen 1. There is a simple formula to calculate ranks when two or more articles have exactly the same relative frequency of the feature in question. This almost exclusively occurs when the relative frequency is 0, i.e. when there are no occurrences of the feature in question. Chapter 3. Quantitative results from Figures 3.3-3 and 3.3-4 that with respect to indefinites, the differences between the disciplines are greater in French (with mean ranks of 80, 106 and 40) than in Norwegian (with mean ranks of 71, 84 and 72). However, the apparent similarity of frecon (mean rank when compared to frling and frmed: 80) and noling (mean rank when compared to noecon and nomed: 84) is only apparent; it makes no sense to compare these two mean ranks since they stem from different rankings. 3.3.1 Which differences between disciplines are significant? The focus of this section is on differences between disciplines rather than similarities. This is a natural consequence of the use of statistical methods that test whether the differences between subcorpora are significant. The similarities between disciplines can be extracted from the description in the present section, but are highlighted in 3.3.2. In general, the differences between the disciplines are a little bigger in English than in French, and a little bigger in French than in Norwegian. This observation is based on the sum of differences in mean ranks between disciplines (three pairs) for all six features – in each of the languages. First person subjects Medical articles have far fewer first person subjects than articles from economics and linguistics, and the differences between medicine and economics and between medicine and linguistics are significant at the superlevel as well as at the sublevel (in each language), whereas the difference between economics and linguistics is not. Indefinite pronoun subjects In general, linguistics articles have more indefinite pronoun subjects than articles from the other disciplines, and economics more than medicine. These differences are significant at the superlevel and at the sublevel in English and French. In Norwegian, however, there are no significant differences between the disciplines. Metatext There is more metatext in economics articles than in linguistics articles, and much more in linguistics than in medicine. These differences are significant at the superlevel, and at the sublevel in French and Norwegian. In English, the difference between economics and linguistics is not significant, but the differences between economics and medicine and between linguistics and medicine are. Negation and adversatives There is much more frequent use of negation and adversatives in linguistics than in economics and medicine, and the differences between linguistics and economics and between linguistics and medicine are significant at the superlevel as well as 59 60 Academic Voices at the sublevel (in each language), whereas the difference between economics and medicine is not. Bibliographical references There are many more bibliographical references in medical articles than in articles from the other disciplines, and more in linguistics than in economics. These differences are significant at the superlevel and at the sublevel (in each language), except that the difference between economics and linguistics is not significant in French. 3.3.2 Similarities between disciplines In this section we first specify for each feature which two disciplines are most similar and then summarise those of our findings that indicate that disciplines are similar, in the sense that the difference between them is not significant. With respect to similarities across disciplines, it is easy to generalise: Only with regard to one feature in one language, viz. bibliographical references in English, are linguistics and medicine more similar to one another than either of them is to economics. (The distances between the disciplines are calculated as differences between mean ranks.) In all other cases, it is either economics and linguistics that are most similar, or economics and medicine. The distribution of most similar pairs of disciplines over feature–language pairs is shown in Figure 3.3-5. Figure 3.3-5. Most similar disciplines (smallest differences between mean ranks) As became clear in 3.3.1, most discipline pairs are significantly different with respect to the relative frequencies of the various features, at the superlevel and at the individual language sublevels. We summarise below, for each discipline pair at the various levels, which features do not exhibit any significant difference, i.e. where the disciplines resemble one another closely. (Note that this is a different issue from the one illustrated in Figure 3.3-5, where the question is which discipline pair is the most similar, rather than whether the differences are significant or not.) We begin at the superlevel: • • Economics and linguistics are similar for first person. Economics and medicine are similar for negation and adversatives. Chapter 3. Quantitative results At the sublevels for the three languages, we find the following resemblances: • • • • • • • English economics and linguistics are similar for first person and metatext. English economics and medicine are similar for negation and adversatives. French economics and linguistics are similar for first person and bibliographical references. French economics and medicine are similar for negation and adversatives. Norwegian economics and linguistics are similar for first person and indefinites. Norwegian economics and medicine are similar for indefinites, negation and adversatives. Norwegian linguistics and medicine are similar for indefinites. 3.4 Differences and similarities between languages In this section, we sketch our main results of language comparisons. Investigations at the superlevel are here those that compare languages for all three disciplines taken together, while investigations at the sublevel are those that compare languages separately for each discipline. (See 2.2.5 for explanations of the terms superlevel and sublevel, and that section and Appendix B for the statistical tests.) We first present the results in terms of the mean ranks of the articles in the language subcorpora under comparison. The concept of ‘mean rank’ was explained in section 3.3. The individual differences and similarities between languages are commented on in sections 3.4.1–2. Measures such as absolute frequencies and median and mean relative frequencies are provided in tables in later sections, viz. 4.1, 5.1 and 6.1. Figure 3.4-1. Differences between languages for the whole KIAP Corpus 61 62 Academic Voices Figure 3.4-1 shows the mean ranks of the language subcorpora at the superlevel (expected mean rank: 225.5). All the 450 corpus articles are included, and we compare subcorpora of 150 articles each. Figures 3.4-2–4 show the mean ranks of the language subcorpora at the sublevel, for economics, linguistics and medicine, respectively (expected mean rank: 75.5). In each case, 150 corpus articles are included, and we compare three subcorpora of 50 articles each. Figure 3.4-2. Differences between languages in economics Figure 3.4-3. Differences between languages in linguistics Chapter 3. Quantitative results Figure 3.4-4. Differences between languages in medicine 3.4.1 Which differences between languages are significant? The focus of this section is on differences between languages. The similarities can be extracted from the description in the present section, but are highlighted in 3.4.2. The differences between the languages are clearly bigger in linguistics than in economics, and bigger in economics than in medicine. This observation is based on the sum of differences in mean ranks between languages (three pairs) for all six features – in each of the disciplines. First person subjects French has fewest first person subjects and Norwegian most. The differences between English and French and between French and Norwegian are significant at the superlevel and at the sublevel (in each discipline). The difference between English and Norwegian is significant at the superlevel and, at the sublevel, in linguistics, but not in economics and medicine. Indefinite pronoun subjects English has far fewer indefinite pronoun subjects than the other languages. French has more than Norwegian, except in medicine, where the situation is reversed. All the differences, on the superlevel as well as the sublevel (in each discipline), are significant. Metatext There is clearly more metatext in English articles than in Norwegian ones, and more in Norwegian than in French. The differences between the languages are significant at the superlevel and, at the sublevel, in economics and linguistics. In 63 64 Academic Voices medicine, the differences between English and the other languages are significant, but there is virtually no difference between French and Norwegian. Negation Norwegian has more negation than English and French, and the differences between English and Norwegian and between French and Norwegian are significant at the superlevel as well as the sublevel (in each discpline), whereas the difference between English and French is not. Adversatives Norwegian has more use of adversatives than English and French, and the differences between English and Norwegian and between French and Norwegian are significant at the superlevel and at the sublevel (in each discipline), except for economics, where there is no significant difference between English and Norwegian. There are no significant differences between English and French, except at the sublevel in linguistics, where there are more adversatives in French than in English. Bibliographical references On the whole, English and Norwegian have similar frequencies of bibliographical references, and these languages have more references than French. At the superlevel and at the medical sublevel, the differences between English and French and between French and Norwegian are significant, but not the difference between English and Norwegian. At the economics sublevel, there are no significant differences between the languages. At the linguistics sublevel, English has more bibliographical references than Norwegian, and Norwegian more than French. These differences are all significant. 3.4.2 Similarities between languages In this section we first specify for each feature which two languages are most similar and then summarise those of our findings that indicate that languages are similar, in the sense that the difference between them is not significant. It is more difficult to generalise here than for disciplines, because the pairs of most similar languages are fairly evenly distributed over the feature–discipline combinations. The distribution is shown in Figure 3.4-5. Figure 3.4-5. Most similar languages (smallest differences between mean ranks) Chapter 3. Quantitative results As became clear in 3.4.1, most language pairs are significantly different with respect to the relative frequencies of the various features, at the superlevel and at the individual discipline sublevels. We summarise below, for each language pair at the various levels, which features do not exhibit any significant difference, i.e. where the languages resemble one another closely. (Note that this is a different issue from the one illustrated in Figure 3.4-5, where the question is which language pair is the most similar, rather than whether the differences are significant or not.) We begin at the superlevel: • • English and French are similar for negation and adversatives. English and Norwegian are similar for bibliographical references. At the sublevels for the three disciplines, we find the following resemblances: • • • • • • • English and French economics are similar for negation, adversatives and bibliographical references. English and Norwegian economics are similar for first person, adversatives and bibliographical references. French and Norwegian economics are similar for bibliographical references. English and French linguistics are similar for negation. English and French medicine are similar for negation and adversatives. English and Norwegian medicine are similar for first person and bibliographical references. French and Norwegian medicine are similar for metatext. The quantitative results presented in this chapter will serve as a backdrop for our thematically oriented analyses and discussions in the next three chapters. 65 chapter 4 Presence of the author 4.0 Introduction Every text has a responsible author, or a responsible group of authors. This also holds for the research article, although this and related genres have often been considered as relatively objective and impersonal, exhibiting few traces of the researcher. In the last few decades, expressions pointing to a personal presence (especially personal pronouns) in the research article and other academic genres have been at the centre of attention in a number of studies. These studies have often focused on the rhetorical and strategic functions of personal and indefinite pronoun use. As Hyland (2001b: 223) observes, “first person pronouns […] are not just stylistic optional extras but significant ingredients for promoting a competent scholarly identity and gaining accreditation for research claims”. Previous research has documented that there are considerable differences between disciplines in this respect (cf. e.g. Kuo 1999; Hyland 2001a, b; Harwood 2005), as well as differences between languages (cf. Vassileva 2000). The present study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first doubly contrastive study (except for other, earlier KIAP studies like Fløttum (2003b)), taking both the discipline and the language factor into systematic consideration. This chapter is primarily an investigation of the use of first person singular and plural subjects and indefinite pronoun subjects like English one in the bodies of research articles. In addition, it addresses aspects of author manifestation in research article abstracts. Thus, we focus primarily on the self-dimension rather than the other-dimension. The use of first person pronouns is the most important way for authors to make themselves visible in their texts. Hence, such pronouns constitute our primary source when we address our first main question (see 1.1): How do article authors manifest themselves in the texts? Our study of first person singular subjects (for which we will often write ‘I’, abstracting away from the actual forms in the three languages) in 4.2 is largely an attempt to systematise the various roles that an author assigns to him- or herself in the text, viz. the author as writer, researcher, arguer and evaluator. These roles are employed to varying extents in the different disciplines and languages. Especially interesting in connection with ‘I’ is French, where there is a long tradition 68 Academic Voices of avoiding the use of this pronoun in scholarly writing (cf. Loffler-Laurian 1980: 135): To what extent is this avoidance still observed, and does it affect the use of the other pronouns (‘we’ and ‘one’)? When we turn to first person plural subjects (‘we’) in 4.3, our main focus is on the kinds of reference that this pronoun has in research articles: ordinary exclusive and inclusive use as well as different types of metonymic use; we discuss the rhetorical functions of these referential types of ‘we’ and the extent of their presence in the disciplines and languages under study. One interesting use is inclusive ‘we’, where the author creates a common ground for him- or herself and the reader, a central rhetorical means of creating agreement. Another point of interest is socalled authorial ‘we’, where one author refers to him- or herself alone by means of the plural. Such a usage may be an expected result of ‘I’-avoidance in French, but in English there is, at least in some disciplines, a tendency to avoid such usage, since it is considered stylistically bad – but as is evident from previous research (Hyland 2001b; Harwood 2005), the authorial ‘we’ is far from absent in English academic writing (see below). It might perhaps surprise some readers that indefinite pronouns like one (for which we will write ‘one’ when referring to more than one language) are included in a chapter on authorial presence. English one is rather infrequent. It is generally considered as formal, even pretentious and affected, and it appears that many people avoid using it altogether (Wales 1996: 82–83). The closest corresponding pronouns in French and Norwegian are more frequently used and are stylistically different from English one. Especially French on may function as a substitute for personal expressions, including first person pronouns. The functional affinity between ‘one’ and ‘we’ is evident, something that has also been observed for English (Mühlhäusler & Harré 1990: 178; Wales 1980: 37). This fact is one of our motivations for including ‘one’ in the present chapter. As in the case of ‘we’, questions of reference are central to our discussion of ‘one’. In the following paragraphs, we will review several relevant previous studies. Loffler-Laurian (1980) looks at French research articles from physics and chemistry and finds no use of the first person singular je (‘I’) at all in single-author articles. This absence is explained with reference to the general discouragement of je-use in French academic writing (see above). Loffler-Laurian finds, however, that nous (‘we’), as opposed to je, is used. Her examples seem to exhibit a mixture of exclusive and inclusive uses of nous. The use of nous, too, is rather modest, however, and she thinks the restrictions on je-use have led to a certain reluctance to use nous as well. Kuo (1999) is a study of 36 articles from three disciplines: computing science, electronic engineering and physics. Each of her corpora has one single-author and nine multi-author articles. The articles are written in English, apparently by both Chapter 4. Presence of the author native and non-native authors. None of the single-author articles employ I. Kuo finds relative frequencies of we ranging from 0.413 % for physics to 0.749 % for computing science. These figures can be compared to our results for multi-author articles, although the disciplines are different. Kuo mentions finding examples of exclusive we for the author alone in the three single-author articles. She classifies the examples of we according to various types of inclusive and exclusive reference (with or without the reader or third persons), including a residual group of ambiguous cases (cf. our discussion of problems of classification in 4.3.1). About 30 % of the examples represent inclusive we, and about 70 % are exclusive uses. Vassileva (2000) investigates single-author linguistics articles in five languages: English, French, Bulgarian, German and Russian. Her findings for English and French are especially interesting to us. She does find use of the first person singular in both languages, but does not provide relative frequencies, which makes comparisons difficult. She does, however, compare the frequencies of first person singular and first person plurals and finds the distribution of first person singular versus plural pronouns in single-author articles to be 69 % ‘I’ and 31 % ‘we’ in English, and 40 % ‘I’ and 60 % ‘we’ in French. Hyland (2001b) is an investigation of self-mention in research articles and is based on a corpus of 240 articles in English from eight disciplines. Among these, the closest to our three disciplines, economics, linguistics and medicine, are sociology, applied linguistics and microbiology, respectively. The same corpus is used in Hyland (2001a), which is a study of addressee features, including inclusive we. The articles in his corpus are all written in English, but may not be limited to native speakers. As far as we can see, no systematic information about the number of single-author versus multi-author articles is provided in Hyland (2001a, b) (although there are some remarks to the effect that the number of single-author articles is low in the hard disciplines and high in the soft ones (2001b: 217–218)). Neither is such information available from Hyland (2000: 179–181), where the article sources are listed, but without author information. The relative frequencies of the first person singular I are 0.127 % for sociology and 0.361 % for applied linguistics, while there are no examples in microbiology (Hyland 2001b: 212). We can find no information, however, about what these frequencies are relative to; hence, we do not know whether they are based on the total numbers of words in single-author articles or on those of all articles, including the multi-author ones. This makes a comparison with our results for I very difficult. As for the plural, the relative frequencies provided in Hyland (2001a) appear to include subject and non-subject forms as well as possessives, while in Hyland (2001b) the frequencies of we, us and our are specified separately. Of the three disciplines most relevant in our connection, applied linguistics has the most frequent use of first person plural pronouns and possessives and microbiology the least frequent. More interesting 69 70 Academic Voices than the relative frequencies is the fact that Hyland (2001b) finds quite large shares of exclusive we even in the soft disciplines, which have many single-author articles. For first person singular and plural pronouns and possessives as a whole, it can be seen from Hyland’s (2001a, b) figures that applied linguistics clearly has a higher frequency than sociology, and sociology has a much higher frequency than microbiology. Hyland (2001a) also includes an addressee feature called “Indefinite”. It appears from his examples that this category covers both you and one with indefinite reference. It is therefore hardly comparable to our study of English one, French on and Norwegian man, en/ein. An early KIAP study is that of Fløttum (2003b), which is based on 180 research articles, viz. the first 20 from each of the subcorpora employed in the present study. This is the only previous doubly contrastive study that we are aware of, and it will be central to our formulation of hypotheses below. It involves the use of ‘I’, ‘we’ and ‘one’. The relative frequencies reported are summarised in Table 4.0-1. The relative frequency for the singular is calculated on the basis of only single-author articles. The medical subcorpora are not included in that column because of their low number of single-author articles, but the few examples of ‘I’ in these subcorpora are included in the sum in the column for ‘I’ + ‘we’. The figures for ‘we’ include both single- and multi-author articles. Table 4.0-1. Pronoun use as found in Fløttum’s (2003b) KIAP study 1st p. sg. 1st p. pl. Sum 1st p. Indefinite 0.22 0.26 – 0.02 0.12 – 0.11 0.35 – 0.47 0.40 0.37 0.25 0.32 0.14 0.58 0.83 0.30 0.60 0.55 0.38 0.26 0.44 0.14 0.67 1.17 0.32 0.03 0.03 0.00 0.44 0.68 0.22 0.25 0.30 0.31 engecon engling engmed frecon frling frmed noecon noling nomed Relative frequencies in %. As can be seen from the table, Fløttum (2003b) finds that there is more first person singular use in linguistics than in economics, and more in English and Norwegian than in French. English has more use of ‘I’ than Norwegian in economics, while the situation in linguistics is the reverse. If we disregard a few exceptions, some general tendencies seem to be discernible in the use of ‘we’ and of ‘I’ and ‘we’ together, viz. that there is most frequent use in Norwegian and least frequent use in Chapter 4. Presence of the author French, and that the use is most frequent in linguistics and least frequent in medicine. As regards indefinite ‘one’, English has fewer such pronouns than French and Norwegian, while the relation between French and Norwegian differs among the disciplines. In English, medical writers, as opposed to economists and linguists, appear not to use one at all. In Norwegian, the disciplinary differences are rather small. French linguists use on more than economists, and economists use it more frequently than medical writers. Harwood (2005) is a study of 80 articles from the disciplines of economics, business and management, physics and computing science. The articles are all single-author articles in English. From the corpus contents list (ibid.: 370–372) it seems that some authors are native speakers of English and some are not. Most non-body parts of the articles have been excluded, but not the acknowledgements. For I, the relative frequencies range from 0.010 % in physics (all examples in the acknowledgements, however) to 0.424 % in business and management; the figure for economics is 0.324 %. For we, Harwood gives separate figures for exclusive and inclusive uses. Adding these together, we find that the relative frequencies range from 0.063 % in economics, 0.105 % in business and management, 0.597 % in physics to 0.717 % in computing science. We have also calculated Harwood’s (2005) distributions of inclusive and exclusive we, which are quite revealing. They are: economics: 98 % inclusive, 2 % exclusive; business and management: 100 % inclusive; physics: 9 % inclusive, 91 % exclusive; computing science: 33 % inclusive, 67 % exclusive. That is, while exclusive we used by single authors is absent or almost so in the first two disciplines, it is more common than inclusive we in the last two. Finally, adding together the frequencies for ‘I’ and ‘we’ provided by Harwood, we find that the frequency of first person ranges from 0.387 % in economics, 0.529 % in business and management, 0.607 % in physics to 0.740 % in computing science. It is noteworthy that Fløttum’s (2003b) and Harwood’s (2005) results for we (and therefore for first person in general) in (English) economics are vastly different, but it should be kept in mind that the former study includes both single- and multi-author articles, while the latter only has single-author articles. In the formulation of our hypotheses, we will refer to the KIAP study of Fløttum (2003b), since the corpus used there is included in the corpus of the present study and amounts to 40 % of it in terms of the number of articles. Of course, it is to be expected that the present study will mostly corroborate the findings of the 2003 investigation. The results would have been stronger if they confirmed studies on independent data, but as will be evident from the section on previous studies, the possibilities of comparison with results from those are limited. In addition, it is not easy to see any clear patterns in previous studies that would help us much in formulating hypotheses. 71 72 Academic Voices First, we posit the following hypothesis regarding disciplinary differences in the use of first person subject pronouns. Hypothesis 1: There is more frequent use of first person in linguistics than in economics, and more in economics than in medicine. This hypothesis is meant to hold for both ‘I’ and ‘we’, as well as for the two together. (Medicine will not, however, be included in the comparisons for ‘I’, because of the low number of single-author articles.) Second, we posit the following hypothesis regarding language differences in the use of first person subject pronouns. Hypothesis 2: There is more frequent use of first person in Norwegian than in English, and more in English than in French. This hypothesis is meant to hold for both ‘I’ and ‘we’, as well as for the two together. As regards the use of ‘one’, it is hardly worth mentioning that we expect it to be less frequent in English than in the other languages. Concerning the relation between French and Norwegian as well as between the disciplines, we expect the complex findings of Fløttum (2003b) to be corroborated as our corpus has been extended (see above). In the study of authorial presence as realised by first person and indefinite pronouns, the polyphonic perspective (see 2.1.2) has a clear relevance. The abstract locutors, corresponding to our authors, organise polyphonic dramas where their choice of role assignment may be signalled in different ways. They can choose to make their own presence explicit in more or less direct ways. In single-author articles, the presence of ‘I’ constitutes the most direct author manifestation. Depending on the verb combined with the pronoun, the author may present different “self-performances” or assign different roles to him- or herself. This author-voice perspective will be the subject matter of section 4.2. In multi-author articles, ‘we’ can be used in a parallel way. The polyphonic perspective is even more relevant in connection with ‘we’ than with ‘I’, since the variable reference of this pronoun complicates the polyphonic play considerably. This is especially clear in singleauthor articles. Major parts of section 4.3 are devoted to the issue of reference. Similar issues as for ‘we’ are central to the study of how ‘one’ is used. In section 4.4, we investigate such pronouns, with a special focus on the French pronoun on, by which a spectrum of different voices or points of view may be included or excluded: the author (alone or including others), the reader or third persons. Section 4.1 presents the main quantitative data and discusses the results of statistical analyses, which are also compared to previous research, while section 4.2 is primarily a discussion of the roles of the author in connection with self-mention in the form of ‘I’ grammatical subjects in single-author articles. Section 4.3 looks at the use of ‘we’ in multi- as well as single-author articles, with a focus on the reference and functions of such grammatical subjects. Section 4.4 deals with the use of indefinite pronoun grammatical subjects, especially the various types of reference that such pronouns have in actual use. In section 4.5, we make a brief detour into Chapter 4. Presence of the author the research article abstracts in order to study author roles and evaluation in such texts. Finally, section 4.6 contains case studies, of pronoun use, of the implicit and explicit presence of ‘we’ and of author roles and promotion in abstracts. 4.1 Quantitative and comparative results As we saw in Chapter 3, the use of first person and indefinite pronouns as grammatical subjects exhibits considerable variation both among the disciplines and among the languages. Here we will deal with first person subjects and indefinite pronoun subjects in turn. 4.1.1 First person subjects Our investigation of first person manifestation is limited to the use of first person singular and plural pronouns used as grammatical subjects. This means that our searches in the KIAP Corpus include English I and we, French je/j’ and nous, Norwegian Bokmål jeg and vi and Nynorsk eg and vi/me. Other uses of first person pronouns than those with subject function were not included, i.e. we did not search for English me and us, French me/m’ and moi (all ‘me’), Norwegian meg (‘me’) and oss (‘us’). Further, non-subject uses of French nous were excluded. Adnominal and pronominal first person possessives were not included, i.e. English my, mine, our and ours and corresponding forms in French and Norwegian. Myself and ourselves were also excluded. There are three main reasons for our not including personal pronouns in other than subject functions (i.e. primarily objects and complements of prepositions). The first and most important is that by using the pronouns in these other functions, the authors typically take on a semantically less prominent role than when referring to themselves by subject pronouns, since subject referents are figures and object referents are grounds (cf. Langacker 1987 and the cognitive linguistics literature more generally). We are more interested in the most prominent instances of author presence. The second reason is that the non-subject instances are less frequent than the subject ones.1 The third is that including objects would have created problems in relation to reflexive constructions, where there are two coreferent pronouns, and whose frequency is very much subject to cross-linguistic variation that is irrelevant for present purposes. The inclusion of possessives could have added an interesting 1. To give an example: in the 35 single-author English linguistics articles, there are 872 examples of I subjects, but only 30 instances of me. 19 of these are used as complements of a preposition, while 11 are used as objects (of which 6 are objects of let in a let me-imperative). Similar figures are found by Hyland (2001b). 73 74 Academic Voices dimension to the investigation, but we needed to restrict our focus. Also, reference to first person by means of possessives means an even less prominent author presence than does, e.g., reference by means of object pronouns. We now turn to the results. Disciplinary differences in the relative frequency of first person subjects (‘I’ and ‘we’) account for a larger share of the variance than do differences among languages, but about 73 % of the variance cannot be attributed to any of these factors or their interaction (cf. 3.2 and Appendix B). There is less use of first person subjects in medicine than in the other disciplines, while economics and linguistics are very similar in this respect. Thus, hypothesis 1 (see 4.0) has only partly been confirmed. Our finding that medicine has less first person use than the other disciplines corresponds with Hyland’s (2001a, b) results for microbiology in relation to sociology and applied linguistics. His results of more frequent use in applied linguistics than in sociology appear to conflict with ours for linguistics and economics. As for the language comparison, French uses first person subjects less than the other two languages. For English and Norwegian, the difference is smaller. It is significant in linguistics (and at the superlevel), where Norwegian has a higher relative frequency, but not in the other disciplines. Thus, hypothesis 2 has also only partly been confirmed. The feature of first person subjects is a composite one – the frequencies are the sums of three separate frequency counts: first person singular (‘I’) and plural (‘we’) subjects in single-author articles and first person plural (‘we’) subjects in multiauthor articles. These three feature components contribute in rather different ways to the overall first person feature. It is obvious that the difference in numbers of single- and multi-author articles in the three disciplines complicates disciplinary comparisons, at the superlevel as well as at the sublevel. To a certain degree, it also complicates language comparisons, since the distributions of single- and multiauthor articles differ in that respect, too, albeit to a smaller extent. Because of these complications, we have also studied the three feature components of first person separately. We have performed statistical analyses (Kruskal– Wallis2 and Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon tests, α = 0.05, cf. 2.2.5) of the differences in relative frequency between disciplines and languages.3 Since the corpus contains few medical articles written by one author, medicine has been excluded from the study of ‘I’ and ‘we’ in single-author articles. Similarly, there are few linguistics articles with several authors, and this discipline is not included in the study of 2. The results of the Kruskal–Wallis test (one-way analysis of variance) are reported here only when no significant variance is found. 3. No details about these and other subsidiary statistical analyses have been included, only the information about significant results or lack of such. Chapter 4. Presence of the author ‘we’ in multi-author articles. (However, the data for the excluded subcorpora are included in Tables 4.1-1–3.) First person singular subjects Table 4.1-1 presents data for the use of first person singular subjects (I, je/j’ and jeg/eg) in articles with one author. The most important figures are the median relative frequencies. As we can see, there is considerable variation both among the disciplines and among the languages. In general, it can be said that ‘I’ is used more by linguists than by economists (and possibly more by economists than by medical authors). The frequency that we find for engecon is considerably lower than what Harwood (2005) finds for economics (0.324 %); even engling has less use of ‘I’ than that. Further, we find that ‘I’ is used more in English and Norwegian articles than in French ones. Table 4.1-1. The use of first person singular subjects in single-author articles Corpus No. of articles + ’I’ No. of tokens Mean rel. fr. Median rel. fr. Standard Quartile deviation deviation engecon engling engmed frecon frling frmed noecon noling nomed 23 35 1 31 48 4 33 48 10 11 32 1 1 24 0 19 47 2 242 872 7 15 182 0 212 991 9 0.184 0.273 0.309 0.010 0.082 0.000 0.107 0.373 0.047 0.000 0.234 0.309 0.000 0.007 0.000 0.039 0.346 0.000 0.261 0.235 n.a. 0.055 0.126 0.000 0.158 0.272 0.136 0.152 0.186 0.000 0.000 0.077 0.000 0.062 0.203 0.000 econall lingall medall 87 131 15 31 103 3 469 2045 16 0.093 0.240 0.052 0.000 0.169 0.000 0.180 0.251 0.132 0.033 0.196 0.000 engall frall noall 59 83 91 44 25 68 1121 197 1212 0.239 0.051 0.241 0.172 0.000 0.130 0.245 0.107 0.264 0.199 0.019 0.210 KIAP 233 137 2530 0.173 0.054 0.233 0.141 Relative frequencies and deviations in %; + ‘I’ = number of articles using ‘I’; n.a. = not applicable. 75 76 Academic Voices The discipline factor. The difference between economics and linguistics is statistically significant both at the superlevel and at the sublevel (in each language).4 This confirms hypothesis 1 (see 4.0) for ‘I’. The language factor. The differences between English and French and between Norwegian and French are statistically significant both at the superlevel5 and at the sublevel. The smaller differences between English and Norwegian that can be seen in the table are not statistically significant at either level. Hypothesis 2 is therefore only partly confirmed for ‘we’. The gender factor. We have also compared articles written by one male author with those written by one female author. There are no significant differences in the use of ‘I’ subjects between the genders in any of the six discipline–language subcorpora, nor when they are considered together (in various ways).6 First person plural subjects Table 4.1-2 presents data for the use of first person plural subjects (we, nous, vi/me) in articles with one author, i.e. the same subcorpora as for ‘I’ in Table 4.1-1. The results are rather different from those found for ‘I’. In fact, ‘we’ is used more than ‘I’ in all the subcorpora (except in the single engmed article) and has a median relative frequency that is more than five times as high for the whole KIAP Corpus as that of ‘I’ – 0.28 % as compared to 0.05 %. If we compare our figures to those of Harwood (2005), we see that the frequency in both engecon and engling is considerably higher than in his economics (0.063 %) and business and management (0.105 %) corpora, but lower than his results for physics (0.597 %) and computing science (0.717 %). Adding together our median frequencies for ‘I’ and ‘we’ in single-author articles, we can again compare with Harwood’s findings. Engecon has a frequency of only 0.189 %, which is much lower than Harwood’s result for economics (0.387 %). Our engling reaches a little higher than that (0.471 %), but that is also lower than what Harwood finds for his other three disciplines, with computing science topping the list at 0.740 %. Our findings can also be compared to those of Vassileva (2000). We find rather different distributions of ‘I’ and ‘we’ in single-author linguistics articles than she does. Based on the number of tokens in Tables 4.1-1–2, they can be calculated to: 48 % ‘I’ and 52 % ‘we’ in engling (Vassileva: 69 % vs. 31 %); 26 % ‘I’ and 74 % ‘we’ in frling (Vassileva: 40 % vs. 60 %); 37 % ‘I’ and 63 % ‘we’ in noling. Thus, we 4. For an explanation of our terms superlevel and sublevel, see 2.2.5. 5. Recall that only economics and linguistics are included, so that the superlevel involves two rather than three disciplines here. 6. Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test, α = 0.05; see section 2.2.5. Chapter 4. Presence of the author find considerably higher shares of ‘we’-use in both English and French than Vassileva does. On the other hand, our results corroborate hers that the share of ‘we’ is greater in French than in English (with Norwegian assuming a middle position). Table 4.1-2. The use of first person plural subjects in single-author articles Corpus No. of articles No. of tokens Mean rel. fr. Median rel. fr. Standard deviation Quartile deviation engecon engling engmed frecon frling frmed noecon noling nomed 23 35 1 31 48 4 33 48 10 426 947 0 674 527 45 1118 1705 52 0.300 0.286 0.000 0.409 0.242 0.278 0.571 0.670 0.219 0.189 0.237 0.000 0.312 0.195 0.071 0.382 0.564 0.133 0.374 0.250 n.a. 0.379 0.250 0.463 0.544 0.502 0.217 0.197 0.147 0.000 0.261 0.159 0.124 0.302 0.299 0.153 econall lingall medall 87 131 15 2218 3179 97 0.441 0.411 0.221 0.312 0.263 0.107 0.456 0.412 0.284 0.280 0.200 0.162 engall frall noall 59 83 91 1373 1246 2875 0.287 0.306 0.584 0.219 0.210 0.475 0.302 0.320 0.510 0.167 0.178 0.343 KIAP 233 5494 0.410 0.281 0.424 0.236 Relative frequencies and deviations in %; n.a. = not applicable. Table 4.1-3 presents the data for first person plural subjects (we, nous, vi/me) in articles with more than one author, i.e. the complement subcorpora of those of Tables 4.1-1–2. Recall that in our statistical studies, linguistics has been excluded because of the low number of relevant articles, while medicine is included. The median relative frequencies are higher than in single-author articles in most of the subcorpora, including the whole corpus, with a median relative frequency of 0.36 %. But in other respects, the results resemble those for ‘I’ more than those for ‘we’ in single-author articles. ‘We’ is clearly used more frequently in economics than in medicine, and this goes for each language as well as when the language subcorpora are treated together (0.78 % in economics compared to 0.21 % in medicine). Just as for ‘I’ in single-author articles, the frequencies are higher in English and Norwegian than in French. 77 78 Academic Voices Our results for multi-author articles can be compared to those of Kuo (1999): engmed has a lower frequency of we than has Kuo’s physics corpus (0.413 %), while engling and engecon have lower and higher frequencies, respectively, than Kuo’s computing science corpus (0.749 %). Table 4.1-3. The use of first person plural subjects in multi-author articles Corpus No. of articles No. of tokens Mean rel. fr. Median rel. fr. Standard deviation Quartile deviation engecon engling engmed frecon frling frmed noecon noling nomed 27 15 49 19 2 46 17 2 40 1491 1093 470 441 21 230 1230 40 272 0.879 0.728 0.303 0.392 0.273 0.203 1.110 0.512 0.344 0.949 0.657 0.248 0.411 0.273 0.166 0.941 0.512 0.293 0.383 0.417 0.244 0.248 0.336 0.209 0.509 0.592 0.281 0.238 0.269 0.160 0.123 0.119 0.117 0.351 0.209 0.191 econall lingall medall 63 19 135 3162 1154 972 0.795 0.657 0.281 0.776 0.600 0.209 0.476 0.429 0.250 0.306 0.301 0.147 engall frall noall 91 67 59 3054 692 1542 0.544 0.259 0.570 0.451 0.201 0.416 0.415 0.236 0.502 0.341 0.169 0.305 KIAP 217 5288 0.463 0.360 0.419 0.257 Relative frequencies and deviations in %. The discipline factor. In single-author articles, there is no significant difference between economics and linguistics in the relative frequency of ‘we’, at either superlevel or sublevel (in any language). However, in articles with several authors, the differences between economics and medicine are significant both at the superlevel and at the sublevel (in each language). Thus, there is only partial confirmation of hypothesis 1 (see 4.0). The language factor. In single-author articles, there are differences between the languages: Norwegian uses ‘we’ more than the other languages. At the sublevel, there are significant differences in linguistics between Norwegian and English and French, respectively, while the difference between English and French is not significant. The same three results hold at the superlevel. At the economics sublevel, the variance due to language differences is too small to warrant pairwise Chapter 4. Presence of the author comparisons, but the mean rank for Norwegian is higher than those for the other languages.7 To sum up for single-author articles, hypothesis 2 must be rejected for several reasons. In articles with several authors, there is least use of ‘we’ in French. The differences between French and English and Norwegian, respectively, are significant both at the superlevel and at the sublevel (in both disciplines), while there are no significant differences between English and Norwegian at any level. Again, hypothesis 2 has only partly been confirmed. The authorship factor. Since the economics subcorpora have a reasonable number of both single-author and multi-author articles, this discipline allows us to compare the use of ‘we’ in these two categories of articles (cf. especially the median relative frequencies for engecon, frecon, noecon and econall in Tables 4.1-2–3). For all of these subcorpora, there is more frequent use of ‘we’ in multi-author than in single-author articles, but the difference is clearly greater for English and Norwegian than for French. At the sublevel, the difference is significant for the first two languages, and there is also a significant difference at the superlevel. However, the difference at the French sublevel is not significant. The gender factor. We have also compared articles written by one male author with those written by one female author. There are no significant differences in the use of ‘we’ subjects between the genders in any of the six discipline–language subcorpora, nor when they are treated together (in various ways). 4.1.2 Indefinite pronoun subjects Our investigation of indefinite pronouns meaning ‘one’ is limited to grammatical subjects. The corpus searches, then, included English one, French on/l’on and Norwegian man and en/ein. For English, non-subject examples were excluded manually, as were examples of the numeral one, and the same goes for Norwegian examples with en/ein in non-subject functions and as a numeral or indefinite article (a huge number of examples). The data are presented in Table 4.1-4, and the picture looks rather different from that of first person pronouns. Here, differences among the languages account for almost half (49 %) of the total variance in the corpus (see Appendix B for details). This is because English one is used much less frequently than the corresponding French and Norwegian pronouns (an unsurprising confirmation of our expectation from 4.0). French uses indefinite pronouns more than Norwegian in 7. Pairwise comparisons indicate that the differences between Norwegian and French and between French and English are not significant, but that the difference between Norwegian and English is. 79 80 Academic Voices economics and linguistics (sublevels), and when the three disciplines are considered together (superlevel), whereas the opposite is the case in medicine (sublevel). This is consonant with Fløttum (2003b). In addition to the massive effect of language differences, disciplinary differences account for 9 % of the corpus variance. In English and French (sublevels), linguistics uses indefinite pronouns more than economics, and economics uses them more than medicine. This also holds when the three language subcorpora are considered together. Such differences are not found in Norwegian (at least not to a statistically significant degree; sublevel), although the median is a little higher in linguistics than in the other disciplines here too. Table 4.1-4. The use of indefinite subjects Corpus No. of articles No. of tokens Mean rel. fr. Median rel. fr. Standard deviation Quartile deviation engecon engling engmed frecon frling frmed noecon noling nomed 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 108 210 4 1213 1564 238 834 1019 296 0.036 0.049 0.001 0.431 0.680 0.169 0.262 0.366 0.277 0.019 0.036 0.000 0.386 0.625 0.117 0.266 0.311 0.263 0.052 0.047 0.006 0.300 0.399 0.163 0.177 0.285 0.199 0.023 0.034 0.000 0.200 0.245 0.106 0.151 0.196 0.122 econall lingall medall 150 150 150 2155 2793 538 0.243 0.365 0.149 0.170 0.255 0.069 0.259 0.383 0.186 0.182 0.257 0.131 engall frall noall 150 150 150 322 3015 2149 0.029 0.427 0.302 0.000 0.346 0.275 0.045 0.367 0.229 0.021 0.243 0.151 KIAP 450 5486 0.252 0.141 0.301 0.178 Relative frequencies and deviations in %. One of the few examples of significant gender differences that we have found for our features concerns indefinite pronoun subjects in English linguistics. Male English-writing linguists use one more frequently than their female colleagues. Their respective median relative frequencies are 0.09 % and 0.03 %, and the difference is statistically significant.8 The median relative frequency for male economists is also higher than for female authors, but the difference is not significant. However, the 8. Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test, α = 0.05; see section 2.2.5. Chapter 4. Presence of the author difference between the genders is significant when the disciplines are considered together. For other subcorpora and combinations of them, there are no significant gender differences. 4.2 Author roles Behind every utterance in a text, there is a responsible locutor, corresponding to the author(s) of the text, even in the research article, traditionally considered as “neutral” with few traces of the author. However, the presence or the responsibility of the author manifests itself in different ways in different contexts. In a singleauthor text the presence of the first person singular pronoun constitutes the most explicit manifestation of the author’s voice, as I in the following example: (1) In fact, the availability of contracts makes marriage less understandable; with perfect contracts, why marry? I argue that the social distinctions between marriages and informal relationships are better understood by recognizing that marriage is not a contract. (engecon18) However, by choosing specific words constituting the immediate cotext of the pronoun, the author assigns different roles to him- or herself. In the polyphonic perspective adopted in this book, we may say that the author’s voice is presented in different self-performances. The voice presented may be scientifically, strategically, interactionally or evaluatively biased (see below). In the previous section we have seen that the frequency of the first person singular pronoun varies considerably according to discipline, language and individual author. French in particular is known to avoid the use of first person pronouns, especially the singular, which is reflected in the expression “le moi haïssable” (‘the I to be hated’; see Loffler-Laurian 1980).9 However, when it is present, in French and in the other languages, the following question arises: what kind of I or je or jeg/eg is this? The presence of the pronoun tells us that this is the author speaking, but considered alone it does not tell us anything about the type of voice manifested or the type of presence assumed. Quantitative data need to be complemented by a qualitative analysis concerning the pragmatic-rhetorical nature of this kind of manifestation. In this section we will try to answer the question raised above, reformulated as follows: What are the rhetorical roles the author takes on when referring to him- or 9. We return to this in section 4.4. 81 82 Academic Voices herself by means of a first person singular pronoun?10 We do so by looking at the immediate cotext where the pronoun occurs, i.e. first and foremost the verb construction which it is combined with, but also metatextual expressions surrounding it. The verb meaning contributes to the nature of the author’s presence in this context. We will try to identify the activities – abstract or concrete – which the author performs by means of a verb. The semantic-pragmatic meaning of the verb will constitute the first criterion in the determination of the rhetorical role that the author takes on. The second criterion will be expressions referring to the utterance situation (deictic expressions other than the first person pronoun) or to text structuring (metatextual expressions). We propose four roles, which will be illustrated below: the author as writer, as researcher, as arguer and as evaluator.11 As far as we know, there are no directly comparable studies undertaken previously concerning the quantitative presence of these or comparable roles in research articles (our categories are nevertheless inspired by various studies related to “author presence”, in particular Vassileva 2000 and Hyland 2000; see below). However, it is possible to formulate some hypotheses concerning the distribution of author roles in different disciplines and languages. According to the traditional conception of academic discourse, one might think that the researcher role will be the dominant one. However, given the present knowledge about academic discourse and the competition taking place in every research community, there is reason to believe that both writer and arguer will be important roles as well. The evaluating author might be the less directly present. As regards language differences, previous studies may lead us to formulate a hypothesis that English authors are more explicitly argumentative and interactional than Norwegian and especially French authors. As indicated above, there are studies related to authorial presence to take into account in the existing literature. Here we would like to refer to Hyland’s studies on authorial presence in English language articles taken from different disciplines. Our work is inspired by his studies on self-mention in research articles (Hyland 2001b) and on authorial identity in academic writing (Hyland 2002a). These have broader perspectives than our verb-oriented one; however, the classification of verbs undertaken by Hyland (2000) in his study of citation processes contains categories similar to ours. His research and cognition acts correspond to some extent to our researcher role, and his discourse act to our writer role. We will come back 10. We focus here on first person singular pronouns, but the roles are relevant both to first person plural and to indefinite pronouns when these refer to the author(s), or even to author and reader. 11. In our previous studies, we have only treated the first three roles (Fløttum 2003g and 2004d); the “evaluator” role is introduced here. Chapter 4. Presence of the author to his quantitative results in sections 6.2 and 6.3, in connection with bibliographical references. Vassileva’s (2000) study of authorial presence is also relevant, especially since she investigates the frequency of first person pronouns in different languages (see 4.0). In order to answer her question “who is the author”, she proposes different so-called “micro-speech acts” relevant as characterisations of first person singular presence (the ‘I’ perspective). The micro-speech acts are the following (ibid.: 61–63): analysis/argumentation, aims/advance organisers, personal view, personal experience, focusing, self-reference, conclusions, terminology/procedures, exemplification, reference, back organisers and permission. Her classification is quite fine-grained, and the various acts are very much related to specific parts of the article structure and content. It may therefore be difficult to generalise on the basis of them. We would like our role categories to be more general and thereby relevant to every part of the article (even if some roles might be more frequent in some parts than in others). In our view a restricted number of roles may contribute to a more general rhetorical characterisation of author presence in research articles and enable a comparison between different disciplines. 4.2.1 Verb groups In order to define the proposed roles, we have chosen the verb meaning as the first criterion to be considered. We are aware that lexical-semantic and semanticpragmatic classifications are problematic, and the four verb groups we propose are open to discussion. However, they have been established in order to serve the purpose of the study undertaken here; i.e. we want them to help us in characterising author manifestation (the author’s voice) and the author’s presentation of own work. The proposed verb groups have already been used with good results in various exploratory studies.12 We propose the four following groups:13 • • discourse verbs (e.g. summarise, (re)turn to):14 typically manifested in the writer role research verbs (e.g. analyse): typically manifested in the researcher role 12. See for example Fløttum (2003b, 2003g); Dahl (2004b, c); see also Kinn’s (2004) article on cognitive research agents. 13. For practical reasons we only give examples of English verbs here. 14. In earlier versions of this classification, the verb group in question has been called rhetorical verbs (RH verbs; see Fløttum 2003b: 41). That term has been replaced by discourse verb since most of the verbs classified in this group are not argumentative. 83 84 Academic Voices • • position verbs (e.g. claim):15 typically manifested in the arguer role evaluation and emotion verbs and verb constructions (e.g. be sceptical about; feel): typically manifested in the evaluator role The first group consists of what we have called discourse verbs or verb constructions. These verbs, which to some extent correspond to Hyland’s discourse act verbs (Hyland 2000: 27), denote either processes involving verbal or graphical representation, such as describe, discuss, illustrate, outline, present, repeat, show, summarise, or processes directly related to the text structuring and the guiding of the reader (Dahl 2004c), such as begin by, focus on, move on, (re)turn to, conclude by. The research verbs, in the second group, refer to the action or the activities directly related to the research process, such as analyse, assume, consider, choose, compare, explore, find, follow, limit, study, test, use. Some of these verbs (like follow and use) have a general meaning and are commonly used in non-specialist contexts as well. The reason why we put them in this group is that they appear with complements related to the research context (I use stock return data to calculate … (engecon06); I follow Whelpton (1995) in assuming that … (engling47)). Hyland (2000: 27) proposes a separate cognition act concerning mental processes as exemplified by verbs like conceptualise and view. We have chosen to include such verbs in the group of research verbs used in the classification of first person pronouns. The reason is that it is difficult to make a clear distinction between the two groups. Another and maybe better justification is the evident fact that there is a substantial part of cognition in all kinds of research processes. This means that in the present study we include verbs and verb constructions like be aware of, know of, see, understand in the research group. However, it might have been interesting to study to what extent research verbs of a clearly cognitive nature are used, in other words the proportion of cognitive to other research verbs.16 The position verbs, constituting the third group, denote processes related to position and stance, explicit argumentation concerning approval, promotion or rejection. The following are examples of position verbs: argue, claim, dispute, maintain, propose, reject. Finally, we have established a fourth group which contains various emotional and evaluating constructions. They are used to represent emotional and evaluating 15. In earlier versions, this verb group has been called opinion verbs (OP verbs; see Fløttum 2003b: 41). However, the term position verb seems more appropriate for the group in question. 16. In section 4.4, in the study of indefinite pronouns, we do establish a group of cognitive verbs. Chapter 4. Presence of the author voices of the author – reactions towards different observations made by the author him- or herself or by somebody else. Examples of such verbs and constructions are feel, be content to, be sceptical about, be struck by, find something + evaluative adjective. It may be difficult to maintain a clear distinction between these constructions and the position verbs, for example between be sceptical about and dispute. However, the verb dispute is likely to be preferred to being sceptical about in a situation where the author wants to take a firmer stance. One reason to establish a fourth group, instead of making the position verb group more open, is that these verbs are interesting in the study of the potentially individual style of the article. As indicated above, semantic-pragmatic classification of verbs is quite problematic. Verbs are lexical items susceptible to different semantic-pragmatic interpretations in different co(n)texts. For that reason some verbs belong to more than one group. We have chosen not to include exhaustive verb lists, but hope that the explanations given below will indicate how we have used the verbs as indicators of specific author roles. The four verb groups are different in terms of size. The research verb group is by far the largest one; a wide range of verbs of this type are found in our corpus. As regards the discourse and the position verbs, they are less numerous, and less frequent. They also seem to be more “general” in that the same verbs tend to be used across disciplines. Finally, the evaluation and emotion group is rather large, since we have included open constructions such as find something + evaluative adjective. However, this group is by far the least frequently manifested. The four verb groups indicate the nature of the author’s presence in the article. Through discourse verbs he or she performs explicitly the activity of verbal or graphical representation or of structuring the text, assuming the writer role, interactionally biased in the guiding of the reader through the text. Through research verbs the author refers to some activity in the research process, assuming the researcher role, scientifically biased in the reporting of the research activities undertaken. Through position verbs, he or she takes position in relation to the relevant research community, presenting own views on a given subject and thus assuming the arguer role. This role is strategically biased in that the author’s own opinion is explicitly presented and expressed. Finally, by combining the first person pronoun with an evaluation or emotion verb construction, the author takes on the role of evaluator (of own or others’ findings); evaluatively or subjectively biased in that his or her own feeling related to a specific matter is expressed. This presentation may suggest a perfect correspondence between verb groups and author roles. But, as already indicated, there is no clear-cut division between the verb groups. Different verbs may have different meanings in different (syntactic) contexts, and they may be susceptible to the influence of metatextual elements in such a way that they switch roles. We will return to this question below. 85 86 Academic Voices Before illustrating how the roles are realised in the present corpus, we have to define what we consider as the main verb, i.e. the verb which constitutes the basis for the role classification. The notion of main verb should be understood in a broad semantic-pragmatic sense. It represents the activity the author engages in. In addition to temporal and aspectual auxiliaries (be/have and corresponding verbs in French and Norwegian) used to form periphrastic constructions, we exclude modal verbs (will/shall, can, may) as well as other modalising or hedging elements placed between the pronoun and what we define as the main verb. The following examples illustrate the semantic-pragmatic conception of main verb (in bold) used in this classification of author roles: (2) I will return to this problem below. (engecon06) (3) I wish to suggest otherwise […]. (engecon10) (4) I do not want to give the impression here that […]. (engecon08) (5) I would like to contrast […]. (engling45) (6) […] as I will try to show […]. (engling31) (7) Secondarily I hope to have shown […]. (engling37) The following are examples taken from the French subcorpus: (8) […] je vais maintenant décrire […]. (frecon07) ‘I will now describe …’ (9) En conclusion, je tenterai de dégager quelques pistes de recherche. (frling08) ‘In conclusion, I will try to provide some research orientations.’ And the following from the Norwegian subcorpus: (10) Jeg vil nå fokusere på […]. (noecon01) ‘I will now focus on …’ (11) Så langt har jeg forsøkt å forklare […]. (noling01) ‘So far I have tried to explain …’ The modalising elements of course constitute important aspects in the characterisation of author presence, and consequently in the characterisation of the whole article, especially the article’s “tone”. However, except for auxiliary verbs used to form periphrastic tense constructions in all languages (have, be / avoir, être / ha, være) and the future in English (will) and Norwegian (vil) (in French the simple Chapter 4. Presence of the author future tense is made by adding an inflectional suffix to the infinitive form),17 the number of such modalising elements is not very high. In English, excluding be, have, will, shall, there are about 100 out of 1121 cases where some modalising element precedes the “main verb”; in French, if we exclude avoir, être, aller, venir de, the number is about 30 out of 197; and in Norwegan, if we exclude ha, være, skal, vil, the number is about 100 out of 1212. Examples of such modalising expressions are – in English: will like to (15 occ.) and want to (10 occ.), in French: voudrais (‘would like’, 8 occ.) and aimerais (‘would like’, 2 occ.), and in Norwegian: kunne (‘could’, 18 occ.) and the verb forsøke (‘try’) in different forms (13 occ.). Since the number of such expressions is relatively low, we have not studied them systematically. Our main focus has been to describe the nature of explicit authorial voice and activity within the article. Finally, it should be noted that the various adverbial constructions found in the immediate cotext of both pronoun and verb do not influence the verb classification as such, but they will be important in the interpretation of author roles, especially the metatextual expressions. 4.2.2 Author roles and cotext Let us now see to what extent there is correspondence between the verb groups and the four proposed author roles. We first present some examples which are easily identified as one of the four roles. • The writer role, manifested by the presence of a discourse verb: (12) In Sections 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3, I describe each of the possible perspectives […]. (engling34) (13) I shall return to this sequence later, […]. (engling20) In (12) the verb describe assigns a writer role to the author by denoting a process involving verbal representation (of some research, idea, etc.). In (13) the verb return (to) also assigns a writer role to the author, in this case concerning the structuring of the text. We want to emphasise that the writer role is one that the author carries throughout the article. In many cases, however, this role is not explicit (for obvious reasons) or it is set aside in order for the author to assume another role explicitly, expressed by a verb from one of the other groups. 17. There are 197 hits of I will in our corpus of 1121 occurrences of I, but only 74 of the corresponding Norwegian expressions jeg/eg vil/skal of a total of 1212 jeg/eg. As regards French, there are 40 future forms in the group of 197 je-occurrences. 87 88 Academic Voices • The researcher role, manifested by the presence of research verbs: (16) As before, I calculate welfare gains […]. (engecon06) (17) […] I assume that this position is Spec, VP […]. (engling01) (18) I conducted these interviews in Spanish. (engmed04) In these examples the author is assigned the researcher role by typical research verbs such as calculate, assume and conduct (interviews). • The arguer role, manifested by the presence of position verbs: (19) Yet, I argue that these on-line studies only examine the immediate activation of individual word meaning […]. (engling22) In the English articles, the most typical position verbs indicating the arguer role are argue (as in (19)) and claim. The verb believe is another example: (20) I believe that experimental economics has progressed […]. (engecon06) When assigning the arguer role to the author, the verb believe is of course denoting that the author has the opinion that something is true. • The emotional or evaluating role, manifested by the presence of emotional or evaluative verb constructions: (21) […], I have been struck by the practical differences that separate present-day econometrics and experimental economics, […]. (engecon30) (22) But I am sceptical about extending iconicity to distance phenomena. (engling03) In (21) the author is expressing an emotional reaction (be struck by), and in (22) he is evaluating a phenomenon treated in the article (be sceptical about). The above examples have presented no serious problems as regards the classification into the four different roles. This has to do with the relatively clear correspondence between verb meaning and role activity. We shall now look at a few examples that are less clear-cut. First, one and the same verb may appear in different roles according to meaning, to different syntactic constructions or to position in the article structure. The verb conclude, for example, can be interpreted as a discourse or position verb. In the construction I conclude by + -ing-form of the succeeding verb, we normally classify it as representing the writer role (structuring the text), as in the following example, taken from the introduction part: (23) I conclude by outlining some further predictions […]. (engling45) Chapter 4. Presence of the author In the construction I conclude that, which represents a way of arguing and taking position, we may classify it as an example of the arguer role: (24) I conclude that there is a clear correlation between […]. (engling03) Other examples of clearly polyfunctional verbs are find and show. In (25), find + the adjectival phrase slightly odd assigns the evaluator role to the author: (25) I have always found this formulation slightly odd, […]. (engecon30) When the verb is used in the construction find that, it may get the meaning of a position verb and may thus assign the arguer role to the author, as in (26), taken from the conclusion section: (26) I found that when a model is formulated to allow for complex integration strategies the issue of interdependencies across countries becomes important to understanding the structure of FDI. (engecon44) In this case one might also object that I found that … is a manifestation of the researcher role; however, we think that the cotext of the utterance and its place in the conclusion section constitute support for the interpretation of it as manifesting the arguer role. We will now look at two possibilities for the verb show. In (27) show assigns the writer role to the author (an interpretation clearly supported by the metatextual expressions). (27) In Section 4 below, I show how force-dynamic relations constitute a sufficient condition for dynamicity and in Section 5, I show how thematic relations must be linked in order for the predicate to have a determinate aspectuality. (engling39) In (28), on the other hand, show in the construction show that may assign the arguer role to the author: (28) I show that two recent accounts of this are inadequate, both conceptually and empirically. (engling49) There is of course no clear-cut distinction between the two constructions show how and show that, but there are two possible interpretations according to the cotext in which they occur. Discourse verbs typically occur in metatextual cotexts, especially in the outlining of the article structure presented in the introduction: (29) In Section 2, I outline the model. (engecon44) 89 90 Academic Voices When a verb normally understood as being of the research type occurs in a similar metatextual cotext, we classify the whole sequence as a manifestation of a dual role, the writer-researcher role. Example (30) is in fact the direct continuation of (29): (30) In Section 3, I consider the model in a partial equilibrium setting […]. (engecon44) The verb consider is a typical research verb corresponding to the researcher role. However, through the influence of the metatextual expression (here: In section 3) and the position in the introduction section presenting the structure of the article, the author takes on a dual role. The roles as writer and researcher are to some extent blurred. When there is an explicit reference to a specific section (as in (30)) or a deictic adverb like here or now also referring to a specific section in the article, we classify the example as representing a dual writer-researcher role. The same holds for position verbs combined with expressions referring to specific sections in the article. Because of the metatextual phrase In this section, example (31) is classified as being of the dual role type, in this case writer-arguer: (31) In this section I will argue that there is no logophoricity condition on rationale clause antecedence […]. (engling47) Example (32), on the other hand, is interpreted as the arguer role only, despite the presence of the metatextual expression In this paper: (32) In this paper I argue that we should abandon a speech act theoretic approach […]. (engling05) The reason is that the expression In this paper refers to the whole article; the purpose here is not to outline text structure. It is more likely that the author wants to position herself by making explicit (one of) the main claim(s). The role assumed here is clearly the arguer role. The same holds for the combination of the same type of metatextual expression with a research verb. If example (30) had taken the form of (33), we would have classified the author role as researcher: (33) In this article, I consider the model in a partial equilibrium setting … The above considerations are presented in order to show that our four quite general roles need to be more fine-grained in some cases. We have, as just stated, added two dual roles to our main classification. These are used when the verbs concerned appear in cotexts containing metatextual expressions indicating functions which are different from the function inherent in the meaning of the verb in question. Finally, it should be noted that not all verbs combined with a first person singular pronoun fit easily into one of the four verb groups. For these we have established a fifth, residual, group. However, the large majority of the verbs do in fact Chapter 4. Presence of the author fall into one of the four groups. Of all the occurrences with a first person singular pronoun, 2530 in all, only 63 are placed in the residual group. There will always be a certain degree of subjective interpretation in this kind of taxonomic work. However, in our view the results give a good indication of what the authors are doing, i.e. through which voice they enter the polyphonic drama they set up in their own text. The overall results are presented in Table 4.2-1, where the percentages indicate the distribution of the roles within the total of 2530 first person singular pronoun occurrences. Table 4.2-1. Distribution of author roles with first person singular pronouns Writer Writer & Researcher Researcher Arguer Writer & Arguer Evaluator Residual 26 % 05 % 46 % 14 % 02 % 04 % 03 % Total occurrences 2,530 As can be seen from this table, the researcher role is the dominant one, constituting around half of all the first person singular pronoun occurrences (46 % plus 5 % in the dual writer-researcher role). What may be more surprising is the relatively prominent position of the writer role, with around one fourth of all the occurrences (about one third if the dual roles are included). As regards the arguer role, the result may also be surprising, but the surprise goes in another direction than for the writer role. Given the well-known competitive situation within research, we might have expected a more explicit author manifestation by an arguer role combined with the ‘I’ presence. In fact, the arguer role only represents about one seventh of the total (14 % plus 2 % in the dual writer-arguer role). The evaluator role is the least frequent one, and this result corresponds well to what we expected. It represents only about 4 % of the occurrences, and these are mostly found in a few articles. Thus, the role is relevant to the characterisation of the tone in individual articles, but not to the general characterisation of research articles. As regards the distribution of the three main roles, we conclude as follows:18 When academic authors use ‘I’, they use it first and foremost “scientifically”, i.e. to make explicit their presence as researchers. However, they also use ‘I’ to a surpris18. This interpretation is based on the results from economics and linguistics; the use of ‘I’ in medical articles is too modest to be considered here. 91 92 Academic Voices ingly great extent interactionally, i.e. to indicate that they are present as writer, or text organiser and readers’ guide. This is a sympathetic trait, if one may say so talking about research writing. In a world full of stress and competition for presenting original results, the authors take the time to tell their reader what to find and where to find it in the articles. Finally, the authors use ‘I’ strategically to a smaller extent than expected when taking into consideration the competitive research world: the arguer role is relatively infrequent. This seems to imply that there is still some reluctance to commit oneself to direct arguing, and that the traditional conception of scientific discourse as “neutral” is still quite strong. However, the relatively small number of occurrences of the arguer role does not imply that there is little argumentation in the articles. It just means that the author hesitates to involve him- or herself in this form of direct commitment; a certain prudence is favoured as regards the use of ‘I’. With a rhetorical conception of science, one might in fact expect a certain balance between positioning oneself (strategic use of ‘I’) and inviting cooperation (interactional use of ‘I’). We will now look at the results in more detail in order to identify similarities or differences between languages and disciplines. In Table 4.2-2 we exclude the three medicine subcorpora as well as French economics because of the low number of articles using ‘I’. We only look at the three main roles, writer, researcher and arguer, with the rest (evaluator, dual and residual) in an “other” category (see Table 4.2-2). Table 4.2-2. Distribution of author roles with first person singular pronouns in subcorpora Subcorpus engecon noecon engling frling noling Writer Researcher Arguer Other Occurrences 21 % 41 % 24 % 24 % 28 % 56 % 47 % 41 % 47 % 47 % 7% 3% 21 % 12 % 12 % 16 % 8% 14 % 17 % 13 % 242 212 872 182 991 For both discipline and language the researcher role is the most important; the percentage varies from 41 in engling to 56 in engecon. The interesting differences appear in the frequency of the writer and arguer roles. A first observation indicates that Norwegians are more writers than arguers and that English authors argue more explicitly than Norwegian ones. This is an interesting result, especially since we knew very little about Norwegian scientific style at the outset of the KIAP project. As regards English scientific style, earlier comparative studies (Mauranen 1993a; Vassileva 2000) have found that it tends to be more explicit and direct than Nordic, Romance and Slavic styles, and our results here point in the same direction. Chapter 4. Presence of the author If we look at discipline tendencies, linguists definitely argue more than economists. The particularities to note here are that Norwegian economists use the writer role (41 %) a good deal more than the others, and that English linguists use the arguer role (21%) a lot more than the others. The French linguists are close to the general percentage for all three roles; much the same is true for Norwegian linguists (see Table 4.2-1). We will now take a closer look at the verbs that are combined with the first person singular pronoun in the different subcorpora. The verbs that are used explain to a certain extent the frequency of the different roles attributed to the pronoun ‘I’. We only list the top five verbs for each corpus, with the number of occurrences for each, and with the total number of verbs (types) (see Table 4.2-3). Table 4.2-3. Top five verbs used with first person singular pronouns Corpus N Verb 1 Verb 2 Verb 3 Verb 4 Verb 5 engecon 98 consider 19 use 17 assume 16 focus 13 show 13 noecon 95 anta 23 ‘assume’ diskutere 13 ‘discuss’ betegne 5 ‘characterise’ drøfte 5 ‘discuss’ presentere 5 ‘present’ engling 240 argue 82 show 48 suggest 37 assume 34 believe 31 frling 102 proposer 9 ‘propose’ revenir 7 ‘return’ considérer 6 ‘consider’ utiliser 5 ‘utilise’ constater 5 ‘establish’ noling 249 me(i)ne 53 ‘think’ kalle 37 ‘call’ se/sjå 20 ‘see’ finne 20 ‘find’ bruke 20 ‘use’ N = number of different verbs. First, we note the large number of different verbs in all the subcorpora. Second, there are not many verbs that appear “regularly” with the first person pronoun, except perhaps for the top five in English linguistics. The table shows that argue is used 82 times and show 48 times (out of 872 ‘I’ occurrences; see Table 4.2-2). We also note that Norwegian mene is used 53 times in Norwegian linguistics (out of 991 ‘I’ occurrences). The table explains to a certain extent the high frequency of the writer role in Norwegian economics (the verbs diskutere, drøfte and presentere are typical discourse verbs), as well as the high frequency of the arguer role in English linguistics (the frequency of the verb argue is 82 and 31 for believe). We will close this section by providing some typical examples of the three main roles in the five subcorpora studied above: • English economist as writer: I summarize this result in the following proposition: […]. (engecon44) 93 94 Academic Voices • • • • • • • • • • • • • • English economist as researcher: Therefore, I assume zero network costs in the foreign market […]. (engecon39) English economist as arguer: In this paper, I show that this intuition is not true in general. (engecon06) Norwegian economist as writer: Jeg skal nå diskutere noen mulige argumenter […]. (frecon20) ‘I will now discuss …’ Norwegian economist as researcher: Som utgangspunkt for analysen skal jeg anta at hjemlandet er kapitalimportør. (noecon45) ‘As a point of departure for the analysis I will assume that …’ Norwegian economist as arguer: Her skal jeg imidlertid argumentere for at […]. (noecon41) ‘However, here I will argue that …’ English linguist as writer: […], first, I will present a non-quantificational grammar […]. (engling48) English linguist as researcher: […], I will assume Sells’ (1987) characterisation of logophoricity […]. (engling47) English linguist as arguer: I argue that the strongest hypothesis is one which maintains […]. (engling45) French linguist as writer: […] pour simplifier je décris brièvement les procès conjugués […]. (frling30) ‘… in order to simplify I describe briefly …’ French linguist as researcher: J’envisage donc a priori la possibilité d’une relation entre […]. (frling13) ‘I envisage …’ French linguist as arguer: Par ailleurs, je propose des hypothèses explicatives concernant […]. (frling32) ‘Moreover I propose …’ Norwegian linguist as writer: Eg skal ikkje her gå utførleg inn på […]. (noling13) ‘I will not go into detail here …’ Norwegian linguist as researcher: Jeg opererer med en teoretisk definisjon […]. (noling14) ‘I use a theoretical definition …’ Norwegian linguist as arguer: Jeg vil hevde at et tredje synspunkt også er mulig, […]. (noling16) ‘I will claim that …’ Chapter 4. Presence of the author 4.3 First person plural subjects In the previous section, we discussed the various roles that the single author assumes when referring to him- or herself with the first person singular subject pronoun I – or je or jeg/eg. Most importantly, the author may be mentioned in contexts where he or she can be seen as primarily filling one of the roles of writer, researcher, arguer or evaluator. In these roles, the author engages to varying degrees in interaction with the reader: telling the reader what research has been done, making the reader aware of the structure of the text, trying to convince the reader of his or her own views. In articles written by several authors, the pronouns we, nous and vi/me are used for the same purposes. However, first person plural pronouns are pragmatically much more complex than the corresponding singulars. This complexity is reflected in the number of epithets used to describe different kinds of ‘we’: inclusive we, exclusive we, authorial we, royal we, generic we, coaxing we, etc. (cf. e.g. Loffler-Laurian 1980; Rounds 1987; Faarlund, Lie & Vannebo 1997: 323–326; Kuo 1999; Vassileva 2000; Rastall 2003; Fortanet 2004). The picture can be broken down into two main aspects: questions of reference (who the pronoun refers to – it often borders on ‘one’ or ‘I’, and sometimes even on ‘you’) and questions of role relations and rhetorical motivations (how the choice of ‘we’ is influenced by the roles that the authors take on and by what aims they attempt to achieve linguistically). We will start by sketching the referential properties of first person plural pronouns (4.3.1), with some added discussion of rhetorical functions. Next, we look at ‘we’ in combination with English find and French proposer (‘propose’) (4.3.2). We then go on to a discussion of disciplinary and language differences and certain special uses of ‘we’ (4.3.3), before ending with a note on ‘we’ and polyphony (4.3.4). 4.3.1 The reference and functions of first person plurals Concerning questions of reference, we first need to acknowledge the fundamental referential vagueness of ‘we’. Pronouns meaning ‘we’ typically refer to more than one person, at least one of whom is the author(s) (or the speaker in spoken language, but we will concentrate on written language here). That is, it includes the author(s), but there is variation in terms of whether the reader is included and whether others are, as well as who these potential others might be. The question of reference is further complicated by the fact that ‘we’ is frequently used figuratively (or, to be more specific, metonymically), especially referring to a single author alone (‘we’ for ‘I’) or to the reader (‘we’ for ‘you’). This section presents a sketch of the various referential possibilities, using selected examples from the KIAP Corpus and drawing on existing literature, and we also discuss briefly some of the 95 96 Academic Voices rhetorical effects of the various uses. As pointed out by Myers (1989), personal pronouns are frequently used strategically, and this is particularly true for ‘we’. Many authors have discussed the reference of first person plurals and employed classificatory systems to sort out the possibilities (cf. e.g. Loffler-Laurian 1980; Wales 1980, 1996; Mühlhäusler & Harré 1990; Fortanet 2004; Kinn 2005c) One simple system is the one of Rounds (1987: 17–19), who distinguishes between “traditional semantic mappings” and “semantic remappings”. One could alternatively speak of literal versus metonymic uses of the pronoun. Such a distinction is useful as a point of departure. As regards traditional semantic mappings, Rounds recognises the distinction between (1) inclusive ‘we’, which includes the second person(s), and (2) exclusive ‘we’, which does not, a dichotomy that is well known from the literature.19 She further lists three semantic remappings, viz. ‘we’ used about (3) a single speaker, i.e. ‘we’ for ‘I’, (4) ‘we’ used about the hearer(s), i.e. ‘we’ for ‘you’, and (5) anyone potentially involved in a certain kind of event, i.e. ‘we’ for ‘one’. In the following, we will first look briefly at literal examples of exclusive and inclusive ‘we’ and variants of those, before turning to metonymic uses, where we will concentrate on ‘we’ for ‘you’ and two kinds of ‘we’ for ‘I’. Exclusive ‘we’ A typical example of ‘we’ referring to several authors and nobody else is given in (1); it is clear that it is the authors that perform the emphasising and the arguing. (1) Igjen vil vi understreke at vi ikke argumenterer imot reguleringer av dette markedet. (noecon01; several authors) ‘We want to emphasise again that we are not arguing against regulations …’ A clear example of the inclusion of third (but not second) persons is provided in (2). This is taken from an article with one author, and the referent of ‘we’ can reasonably be taken to be the (medical) staff of the institution in question. (2) Graden av reinnleggelse gir derfor ikke noe mål på kvaliteten av tilbudet vi har gitt, […]. (nomed29; one author) ‘… the quality of the services that we have offered, …’ Somewhat less clear is (3), where the interviewers and examiners include the authors, but where it is possible that more people have been involved in the research process referred to. (The exact reference might be possible to determine from a wider cotext.) 19. Many languages have separate expressions depending on clusivity, but the three languages in this study do not distinguish between inclusive and exclusive subject pronouns. (However, both English and French have specifically inclusive imperative constructions, and the ’s of English let’s-imperatives can be said to be an inclusive pronoun; cf. section 5.3.) Chapter 4. Presence of the author (3) Vi benyttet oss av intervju og en fysisk undersøkelse av pasientene. (nomed05; several authors) ‘We made use of interviews/an interview and a physical examination of the patients.’ Inclusive ‘we’ The three examples above have in common that they clearly exclude the reader from the referent. The opposite of this is the inclusive ‘we’, where the reader is included. Several authors have discussed such pronoun use in research articles, e.g. Kuo (1999) and Hyland (2001a); see also Breivega (2003: 146). Inclusive ‘we’ is exemplified in (4), where what is had is data that the author and the reader share. (4) I (7b) og (7c) derimot har vi et argument som uttrykker hvem som synger, […]. (noling49; one author) ‘In (7b) and (7c) [linguistic examples], on the other hand, we have an argument that expresses who is singing …’ As several authors have pointed out, such use of the inclusive ‘we’ is common in many disciplines and is a way of involving the reader that has a strong rhetorical potential (see e.g. Mühlhäusler & Harré 1990 (172–175) and Hyland 2001a). The reader is (on the face of it) engaged in the research process and is assumed to agree: What he or she has done, obtained and observed together with the author will more likely be accepted as true, relevant and reasonable. We return to the rhetorical functions of reader inclusion in 5.3, in the study of ‘let us’-imperatives. The ‘we’ in (4) does not include any third persons. In (5), however, the pronoun appears to refer to Norwegians in general (or, more properly, those Norwegians who have a say in deciding the duty levels). (5) Enkelte hevder at vi bør unngå et høyere nivå på norske avgifter enn det våre konkurrentland har. (noecon43; several authors) ‘Some claim that we should avoid a higher level of Norwegian duties …’ This referent includes the authors and many others. Assuming that the reader is Norwegian, he or she is also included, i.e. the ‘we’ is inclusive. But when the reader is not Norwegian, the ‘we’ will be exclusive. This illustrates an important point: The reference of ‘we’ is not fully determined by the author, but depends also on the reader’s identity and his or her text interpretation. The ‘we’ in (6) includes at least the society of economists and approaches a generic reference where alternatively ‘one’ could have been used. More or less vague references to the discipline community is an important function of inclusive ‘we’ (cf. also Myers 1989 and Kuo 1999). 97 98 Academic Voices (6) Hovedpoenget mitt er […] å indikere hvordan vi kan benytte denne litteraturen til å belyse hvorfor fattigdomsproblemet bør løses. (noecon20; one author) ‘My main point is … to indicate how we can use this literature …’ In Rounds’ (1987) system one or both of the last two examples could possibly be classified as a remapping (‘we’ for ‘one’) rather than a traditional inclusive mapping; the distinction is quite hard to make. Metonymic uses of ‘we’ Rounds (1987), in her system sketched above, is not very explicit about the relation between traditional (literal) mappings and (metonymic) remappings. But her choice of the term remapping appears to indicate a kind of process where one mapping is changed into another one. Given such a remapping, an important question is whether the original mapping remains. For instance, when an author uses a pronoun meaning ‘we’ about the reader, is the referent only ‘you’, or is it ‘we’ and ‘you’ simultaneously? In many discussions of the reference of first person plurals, relations between speaker (author) and hearer (reader) are discussed, in terms of the participants’ roles in the context and of the rhetorical functions of pronoun use (cf. e.g. Rounds 1987; Mühlhäusler & Harré 1990; Hyland 2001a, b; Fortanet 2004). These issues are especially central in connection with ordinary inclusive ‘we’ (see above) and metonymic pronoun use. For example, Kuo (1999: 125) writes: “The fact that the writer of a single-authored article uses we, instead of I, as he/she is referring to himself/herself, may suggest an intention to reduce personal attributions.” The crux here is not Kuo’s specific interpretation, but a more general point: For such an interpretation to be at all reasonable (which we think it is), the pronoun must have a double reference when used in such a way: a metonymic “real” one, viz. to ‘I’ (the author), and one suggested by the literal meaning of the pronoun, viz. an exclusive or inclusive ‘we’. And indeed, the term metonymy that we employ here presupposes such a double reference. The upshot of this is necessarily a referential system that is more complex than most of those that have been proposed in the literature: When Wales (1996) discusses metonymic uses of English we, she refers to them as “disguises” (p. 66), which is another way of saying that there is one “real” referent hidden behind another. Thus, the double referential classification that we assume is not strictly new, but is implicit in much of the literature. The important point is that a classification based only on the “real” referent, like the remappings of Rounds (1987), is not complete. When ‘we’ is used for ‘I’ or ‘you’, the question arises whether the source of the remapping is exclusive or inclusive ‘we’. In the following, three metonymic uses are discussed: inclusive ‘we’ for ‘you’, inclusive ‘we’ for ‘I’ and exclusive ‘we’ for ‘I’. Chapter 4. Presence of the author When pronouns are used metonymically, then, the literal reference of the pronoun and the metonymic (“real”) one are at play simultaneously. The result is what in cognitive science is called a blend (cf. Fauconnier & Turner 2002; Kinn 2005a). To the extent that language users are at some (conscious or subconscious) level aware of the blend and its interplay between different references, it has the potential of being emotionally effective (cf. the discussion of the rhetoric of ‘let us’-imperatives in 5.3). Inclusive ‘we’ for ‘you’ The ordinary inclusive ‘we’ that is used for the author(s)–reader dyad sometimes blends into one used primarily to refer to the reader. A relatively clear example is given in (7), where the authors are telling the reader to keep something in mind; they themselves are obviously aware of it when writing. Of course, writing ‘you must remember’ would have been highly unusual. (7) Nivået på ledigheten […] var da […] likt nivået ved fullstendig koordinering […], men vi må huske på at det første tilfellet ikke bare er en situasjon uten koordinering av lønnsdannelsen, […]. (noecon23; several authors) ‘…, but we must remember that the first case …’ The interpretation of ‘we’ in (8) is less clear. It can be argued that what the authors are saying is ‘if you look at (≈ study) the table, you will see (≈ understand) that …’. Whether the authors study the table or not, is rather irrelevant; they are telling the reader that by doing so, he or she will acquire a certain knowledge. Again, it would have been odd to write ‘as you see’, but that is the most likely interpretation. (8) Som vi ser av tabellen avtar kostnaden signifikant ved økt barn/voksen-rate. (noecon21; several authors) ‘As we see from the table, …’ As discussed by Rounds (1987: 21), this usage promotes a sense of cooperation rather than making explicit the different role assignments. In (8), the authors point to a piece of information and the reader observes it, but they are portrayed as fellow observers (cf. also Wales 1980, 1996; Mühlhäusler & Harré 1990). Inclusive ‘we’ for ‘I’ An example that is in one way similar to those in the preceding section is given in (9): There is little doubt that the subject pronoun here at one level, the literal one, refers to the author–reader dyad, i.e. is an inclusive ‘we’. But at the metonymic, or “real” level, the reference is to the author alone. (9) Vi begynner med to NPer inneholdende substantivet čaëk ‘te (diminutiv)’ som attributt i genitiv: […]. (noling06; one author) ‘We begin with two NPs …’ 99 100 Academic Voices The verb ‘begin’ denotes an activity performed by the author, but the reader can join the author in the process. In this case, then, it seems legitimate to assume that we are dealing with an instance of inclusive ‘we’ for ‘I’. Inclusive ‘we’ for ‘I’ has rhetorical functions similar to those of inclusive ‘we’ for ‘you’: It creates a sense of togetherness and blurs the author–reader divide, and this community promotes agreement. As Mühlhäusler & Harré (1990: 175) point out, the use of ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ also diminishes the responsibilities of the speaker, since he or she is portrayed as collaborating with the hearer. The example in (10) illustrates well the intricacies of reference. In addition to the main verb få (‘obtain, get’) whose overt subject is ‘we’, there is an infinitival construction with the verb sette (literally: ‘put, set’, but translated here by ‘letting’), which is part of an adverbial. (10) Ved å sette (5) = (6) får vi (10). (noecon41; one author) ‘By letting (5) = (6), we obtain (10) [an equation].’ The verb få in the present is typical of ordinary inclusive ‘we’; since the calculations take place in the text, author and reader are together in obtaining the results. But this togetherness is less clear for sette: It is the author alone, in the role of researcher, who equates the expressions, and the understood subject is arguably the author, i.e. inclusive ‘we’ for ‘I’. But such an interpretation interferes with that of the overt subject: For grammatical reasons, the understood subject of the infinitive is (or should be) coreferential with the subject of the main verb. Whether the subject pronoun should then be regarded as an instance of ordinary inclusive ‘we’ or one of metonymic inclusive ‘we’ for ‘I’ remains a moot point. It is not at all clear that it is possible to decide. Exclusive ‘we’ for ‘I’ In the last usage to be discussed, ‘we’ is also employed for ‘I’, i.e. a single author refers to him- or herself in the plural. An example is given in (11), where it would have been possible to use ‘I’ instead of ‘we’. (11) På bakgrunn av at […], argumenterer vi for at resultatene trekker i retning av forsiktighetsmotivert sparing. (noecon37; one author) ‘On the background that …, we argue that …’ The verb ‘argue’ denotes an activity performed by the author where the reader is given a different role, viz. as the one that the argumentation is directed at. It seems reasonable, then, to assume that there is no reader inclusion here, i.e. it is an instance of exclusive ‘we’ for ‘I’. This is what in English is called “authorial we” (see Wales (1996); various other terms are also in use), and in French “nous de modestie” (‘humble we’), cf. Loffler-Laurian (1980). We return to this usage in 4.3.3. Chapter 4. Presence of the author 101 Summing up We have been at some pains to clarify the referential possibilities of first person plural pronouns and would not be surprised to learn that some readers disagree with certain interpretations. One aim of the preceding sections has been to illustrate the difficulties of hard and fast classification. It can be quite difficult to distinguish between ordinary inclusive ‘we’, inclusive ‘we’ for ‘you’ and inclusive ‘we’ for ‘I’. The distinction between inclusive ‘we’ for ‘I’ and exclusive ‘we’ for ‘I’ is also elusive. Other authors have also pointed to difficulties in distinguishing between the various uses (cf. e.g. Wales 1980: 36; Mühlhäusler & Harre 1990: 174; Kuo 1999: 134; Fortanet 2004: 54). Notable exceptions are Hyland (2001a, 2001b) and Harwood (2005), who have classified examples of we into inclusive and exclusive ones. When we started investigating first person plural subjects, it was our aim to classify the 10,782 examples in the KIAP Corpus on the basis of reference. We wanted, among other things, to identify the instances where ‘we’ is used about the author(s), in order to investigate the distribution of author roles in the same way as for the first person singular in 4.2. As it turned out, the classification was so fraught with problems that we decided to leave it for future studies. A possible solution would have been to (try to) classify only on the basis of “real” reference. Such a classification could have been aided especially by looking at the use of verbs (cf. 4.2 and also Wales 1996: 66, who points to differences in typical verb use between inclusive and exclusive ‘we’). But as should be clear from the discussion above, such a procedure would have meant excluding half of the reference for the metonymic uses. Further, it will be clear that even the “real” reference can be quite difficult to pin down. As Rounds (1987: 22–24) points out, the speaker (or, in our case, the author) can use the referential vagueness of ‘we’ rhetorically. Exclusive and inclusive uses blend together, and the inequality of roles of speaker and hearer (or author and reader) can be as good as erased from language use. 4.3.2 ‘We’ in combination with two verbs To illustrate in some more detail how ‘we’ is used in research articles, we will study the co-occurrences of this subject pronoun with two verbs: • • English find in multi-author economics and medical articles French proposer in multi-author economics and single-author linguistics articles The verb find is normally used in connection with research findings, i.e. with the researcher role (see 4.2) that we have established for ‘I’ in single-author articles, but it can also be used with an arguer role for the grammatical subject. We 102 Academic Voices include all constructions with this verb, viz. find + noun phrase and find that + clause, as well as some other semantically similar uses. French proposer (‘propose, suggest, intend, aim’) is typically used in connection with suggestions for methodological or theoretical approaches, i.e. with an arguer or researcher role for the subject. We include all constructions with this verb. We find three patterns in the two subcorpora that we are looking at here: proposer + noun phrase (‘propose, suggest’), proposer de + infinitival verb phrase (‘propose to’), se proposer de + infinitival verb phrase (‘intend/aim to’). (There are no occurrences of proposer que + clause (‘propose that’).) There are 94 occurrences of find with a we-subject in the English multi-author economics articles. Examples of non-modalised present tense (we find) account for 83 of these, while there are only 5 occurrences of non-modalised past tense (we found). (In addition, there are 6 occurrences with a modal verb.) Three of the occurrences are given in (12)–(14). (12) What happens as we move outwards from the centre, while staying within zone I? We find the answer by totally differentiating ((10) and (11) [equations already introduced]). (engecon36; several authors) (13) We present a model of industry-level employment dynamics […]. We then estimate econometric models […]. We find strong evidence that movements in real exchange rates significantly affect gross job flows in U.S. manufacturing. (engecon35; several authors) (14) […] the model usually had difficulty closely matching the autocovariances of output growth. In contrast to the results for output growth, we found no clear pattern for inflation. (engecon22; several authors) (12) is a typical example of inclusive we; the authors are demonstrating a methodological procedure and engage the reader in this activity. The use of the present tense is typical of such examples. (13) is from an article introduction. The we in the first sentence appears not to include the reader, since he or she is the receiver of the presentation. The we in the second sentence could be of the referential type illustrated in (12) and include the reader, but this is a less likely reading given the preceding text. Since the finding referred to in the third sentence is something the reader has yet to experience, it seems that this is an exclusive we. (14) is also from an article introduction, i.e. the finding referred to is in the past for the authors, but not yet demonstrated to the reader. The use of the past tense makes it clear that this is an exclusive we. Thus, there is a connection between verb tense and pronominal reference: Inclusive ‘we’ tends to go with the present tense, exclusive ‘we’ with the past tense. However, there is no straightforward relation between reference and tense. Chapter 4. Presence of the author 103 The picture with respect to the distribution of tenses is quite different in the multi-author medical articles. In this subcorpus, there are 54 occurrences of find with a we-subject. 47 occurrences are in the past tense, 5 are in the present perfect (we have found), and 2 are in the present tense. Three examples are provided in (15)–(17). (15) Using SAS regression diagnostics, we found no evidence of collinearity. (engmed24; several authors) (16) Using this approach, we have identified a monosialylated oligosaccharide (HPAgly1) […]. HPAgly1 was originally observed in a cell line that bound HPA strongly (MCF-7), and we have found that it is over-expressed in excised breastcancer specimens that stain with HPA. (engmed08; several authors) (17) A number of studies have also found increased mortality rates among people who have undergone cataract extraction.3 5 6 9 10 13 Although we find an increased mortality rate in univariate analyses for people who had undergone cataract surgery, this finding was not statistically significant in our multivariate analyses. (engmed37; several authors) (15) is quite typical of this subcorpus. The research process (here the use of a statistical method on data) is presented as a past activity. Hence, the verb is in the past tense, and the pronominal reference is clearly exclusive. As can be seen from (16) and (17), we can also be exclusive when the tense is present perfect or present. Turning now to French proposer, there are 26 occurrences of this verb with a nous-subject in the French multi-author economics articles. 25 of the occurrences are in the present tense (nous (nous) proposons) and 1 in the present perfect or passé composé (nous avons proposé). The situation is very similar in the single-author linguistics articles, with 30 occurrences. 24 of these are in the present tense and 5 in the passé composé. In addition, there is one occurrence of nous pourrions proposer (‘we could propose’), i.e. with the modal verb pouvoir in the present conditional. Thus, both economists and linguists mainly use proposer in the present tense, but the passé composé is not infrequent, either. Four examples are given in (18)–(21). (18) Nous avons proposé dans cette étude un modèle analytique d’équilibre général […]. Nous avons montré théoriquement que l’effet de la distorsion fiscale […] était non intuitif, […]. (frecon41; several authors) ‘We have in this study proposed an analytic model …’ (19) En d’autres termes, est-ce qu’un comportement mimétique s’explique par la connaissance détenue par les individus ? Pour répondre à cette question centrale, nous proposons au préalable de préciser les principaux fondements conceptuels de la notion de mimétisme rationnel, […]. (frecon20; several authors) ‘… we propose initially to make the principal conceptual foundations precise …’ 104 Academic Voices (20) Partant de la caractérisation du préfixe sous- comme un mot relateur de la forme X R Y, nous proposons une hypothèse sur l’identité sémantique de sousque nous désignerons comme sa forme schématique8. (frling48; one author) ‘… we propose a hypothesis on the semantic identity …’ (21) L’analyse d’exemples classiques et d’un corpus oral nous a permis de dégager quatre types d’emplois12 que nous nous proposons maintenant d’examiner. (frling31; one author) ‘… four types of use which we now intend to examine.’ In these examples, nous is most naturally interpreted as exclusive, i.e. the reader is not included. In the multi-author economics articles, this can be regarded as an ordinary exclusive nous, referring to a group of authors. In the single-author linguistics articles, however, we have examples of ‘we’ for ‘I’. This is the authorial or humble ‘we’, in French called ”nous de modestie” (see 4.3.1 and 4.3.3). 4.3.3 Differences between languages and disciplines Having illustrated the referential flexibility and vagueness of first person plural pronouns, we will now address four issues in relation to the quantitative findings presented in 4.1: • • • • the use of ‘we’ as such (irrespective of its reference) the use of inclusive ‘we’ when ‘I’ would have been more direct the use of inclusive ‘we’ when ‘you’ would have been more direct the use of exclusive ‘we’ when ‘I’ would have been more direct The first issue concerns the explicit textual presence of the authors, which is the overarching theme of this chapter. The three other issues concern metonymic uses of first person plural pronouns. We saw in section 4.1 that ‘we’ is used much more than ‘I’ in single-author articles, except in English linguistics, where the difference between I and we is negligible (cf. the figures for the economics and linguistics subcorpora in the columns for median relative frequency in Tables 4.1-1–2). The plural was also seen to be more frequent in multi-author than single-author articles, as is to be expected (cf. the figures for engecon, engling, frecon, noecon and nomed in the columns for median relative frequency in Tables 4.1-2–3; the remaining subcorpora either have too few single-author or multi-author articles for a comparison to be tenable). There is little doubt that the explicit presence of ‘we’ is a frequent type of author manifestation in research articles, possibly the most frequent one. As for disciplinary differences, we found that economics and linguistics have about the same frequency of ‘we’ in single-author articles, while economics has Chapter 4. Presence of the author 105 much more use of ‘we’ in multi-author articles than medicine. The low frequency in medicine corroborates the general picture emerging from our studies that this discipline has fewer personal traces than the other disciplines. Although we have not classified the occurrences of ‘we’ for their referential properties (for reasons discussed in 4.3.1), it is our firm impression that a major difference between medicine and the other two disciplines is that the former has very little use of inclusive ‘we’. This fits well with the low frequency of metatext (see 5.2) and ‘let us’-imperatives (5.3) in medicine; these are all reader-oriented features that are clearly less commonly used in this discipline than in economics and linguistics. This also implies, however, that when medical writers use ‘we’, they typically refer to themselves and not to the reader. The exclusive presence of the authors in medicine is therefore not as weak compared to economics and linguistics as our statistics might appear to indicate. As for differences between the languages, Norwegian has more frequent use of ‘we’ in single-author articles than English and French,20 while in multi-author articles English and Norwegian are similar in having more occurrences of ‘we’ than French. In general, then, it is French that has the fewest occurrences of ‘we’. This confirms the observation in Loffler-Laurian (1980) that the French avoidance of ‘I’ (cf. sections 4.2 and 4.4) extends to ‘we’. It is interesting to note that Norwegian linguistics has more use of ‘we’ (in single-author articles) than English, but at present we have no satisfactory explanation for this. One possibility is that there is more ‘we’ for ‘I’ in Norwegian; it is well known that the authorial ‘we’ is discouraged in English-speaking communities (see below), although as previous studies have shown (see 4.0), it is definitely still used in various disciplines. There is less focus on this in Norway, and we are not able to point to any general tendency to encourage or discourage ‘we’ for ‘I’ (although there are certainly those who think that ‘I’ should be avoided, as well as those who ridicule the use of ‘we’ for ‘I’). It is tempting to speculate that a contributing factor could be that there is more inclusive ‘we’ in Norwegian than in English (in terms of the frequency of inclusive use in itself, rather than relative to exclusive use), and that Norwegian authors might be even more reader-oriented than their English-writing colleagues (cf. section 5.2). Two related observations supporting such a view are, first, the fact that the pronoun–verb combination ‘we see’ is 13 times more frequent in Norwegian than in English single-author economics articles (Norwegian: 159 examples, or a relative frequency of 78 per 100 000 words; English: 8 examples, or 6 per 100 000 words), and, second, that the combination is almost twice as frequent in Norwegian as in English single-author linguistics articles (Norwegian: 262 examples, or 20. The difference between Norwegian and English is not significant in economics. 106 Academic Voices 101 per 100 000 words; English: 169 examples, or 56 per 100 000 words). Verbs of seeing are typically used with inclusive ‘we’ (cf. Wales 1996: 66). The second and third issue to be addressed, viz. the use of inclusive ‘we’ when, in principle, ‘I’ or ‘you’ would have sufficed, need to be considered together. What they have in common is that they treat author(s) and reader as collaborators with the same roles in the activities referred to. The creation of common activities tends to be centered around the text. For example, when the authors write ‘as we see from the table’ in (8) above, they include themselves as participants in the visualcognitive activity that they want their reader to perform. This activity is directly connected to the text. Further, when the single author writes ‘we begin with two NPs’ in (9) above, he includes the reader as a co-researcher in his presentation of linguistic data. Here, too, the text is present, as a space where research-related activities begin, but the focus is on the data. Such textual orientation is much more common in economics and linguistics than in medicine, and while medical research is normally presented as an activity that belongs to the past, using the past tense, the other two disciplines often have present tense (or related tenses, e.g. the present perfect), connecting up with the textual here and now. Of course, the creation of an activity with common roles for author(s) and reader is more natural in relation to the textual present, and this is no doubt a major factor behind the higher frequency of inclusive ‘we’ and (consequently) ‘we’ in general in economics and linguistics than in medicine. As regards rhetorical aspects of inclusive ‘we’ for ‘you’ or for ‘I’, which we touched upon in 4.3.1, we will return to these in connection with ‘let us’-imperatives (section 5.3), since these phenomena have more to do with author/reader interaction than with author manifestation as such. Suffice it here to point to the textbook- and lecture-like character of such language use. Finally, we need to consider the use of exclusive ‘we’ for ‘I’ (authorial or humble we, ”nous de modestie”). This usage is especially interesting in connection with French, where the use of je (‘I’) has long been eschewed in academic discourse (cf. sections 4.2 and 4.4) – although, as we have seen, the first person singular is indeed used in French linguistics. When je cannot be used, the author has to resort either to impersonal constructions (e.g. the passive) or use other pronouns, above all nous (‘we’) (but also on (‘one’); see 4.4). Loffler-Laurian (1980: 138) writes about this nous that “le locuteur-auteur fait mine de se fondre dans une pluralité, parmi un nombre indéfini de personnes, de n’être qu’une sorte de porte-parole anonyme – ou presque”.21 She regards this pronominal use, then, as a way for the single author to make him- or herself less visible, seemingly speaking not on his or her own behalf, but as a member of a (fictitious) larger group. Even though this 21. In English: “the speaker-author pretends to melt into a plurality, among an indefinite number of people, to be only a kind of anonymous mouthpiece, or almost so”. Chapter 4. Presence of the author 107 humble nous to some extent replaces the singular je in French, there is still less frequent use of the first person plural in French than in English and Norwegian. Clearly, then, French avoids the use of first person as such to a higher degree than the other two languages. The use of nous in combination with proposer in single-author articles that we looked at above is an example of the humble nous. It should not be assumed, however, that all uses of nous in French research articles are of the exclusive type. In (22), it is obvious that the single author does not only refer to his own seeing; the reader is included. The same can be said about (23), which comes from a multiauthor article. Thus, the reader can be included in the reference of nous used in single- as well as multi-author articles. (22) Nous avons vu que les profits par tête et le taux d’intérêt s’expriment par les équations : […]. (frecon43, one author) ‘We have seen that …’ (23) Nous allons voir qu’il peut toutefois être optimal pour le monopole de proposer un rabais en t = 0, pourvu qu’il rationne la quantité mise en vente en primeur. (frecon23; several authors) ‘We are going to see that …’ The inclusion of the reader in French first person plurals is further evidenced by ‘let us’-imperatives (see 5.3). Imperative expressions like montrons (‘let us show’) indicate that even verbs that apparently exclude the reader by assigning a different role to him or her than to the author – the author shows the reader something – can be used with an inclusive ‘we’. This tells us that even the clearest cases of exclusive nous above (e.g. (18)–(21)) may not be so clear after all: If the inclusive montrons (‘let us show’) is used in a single-author article, how can we be certain that nous montrons (‘we show’) in the same article is exclusive and not inclusive? The various types of reference blend into each other, and it proves to be exceedingly hard (if at all possible) to distinguish with certainty e.g. the ”nous de modestie” from the inclusive nous. Authorial or humble ‘we’ (exclusive ‘we’ for ‘I’) appears to be more commonly used in French than in Norwegian and English. However, it is used to some extent in these other languages too. Some examples are shown in (24)–(27). (24) Vi vil deretter relatere de ulike teoretiske momentene til faktiske mobilitetskostnader i ulike OECD-land, og diskutere effektiviteten i landenes arbeidsmarkeder i lys av dette. (noecon06; one author) ‘After that, we will relate the various theoretical points … and discuss the effectivity …’ 108 Academic Voices (25) Vi skal ikke avvise dette fullstendig, men hypotesen er heller ikke helt overbevisende. (noling24; one author) ‘We will not dismiss this completely, but the hypothesis is not quite convincing either.’ (26) Although its effects are indirect […] we will argue in the conclusion that they may be large. (engecon05; one author) (27) Throughout the paper, when we refer to ”English”, we mean the spoken and/ or written language typically found in England or the United States. (engling30; one author) It is our impression that the authorial ‘we’ is least commonly used in English. As discussed by Wales (1996: 65), English authorial we has been subject to ridicule and condemnation, and it has been called formal and old-fashioned. She writes that some journals require authors to replace it with I or use the passive (but this is evidently not the case for all journals, as the examples above demonstrate). The usage is also sometimes discouraged in textbooks on academic writing, even vehemently, e.g. in Day (1998: 210): “Do not use the ‘editorial we’ in place of ‘I.’ The use of ‘we’ by a single author is outrageously pedantic.” Of course, the very observation that there is a need to prohibit or discourage such usage shows that it is alive and fairly well, and Wales (1980: 28) observes that in academic registers it is “extremely common” and “far from being ‘old-fashioned’”, a fact made abundantly clear by the findings of Hyland (2001b) and Harwood (2005). As noted there and in Wales (1996: 65–66), the authorial we and the (literal and metonymic variants of) inclusive we of instructional language use (lectures, workshops) tend to blend together, possibly allowing the former to regain popularity. Of course, this blending underscores our observation that a classification of examples according to reference is extremely problematic. 4.3.4 ‘We’ and polyphony As noted in 4.0, the use of ‘we’ opens up for polyphonic plays of considerable complexity. The complexities of the first person plural will no doubt have become clear from the preceding sections. Of course, the main problem is to determine who is meant by ‘we’. What reference is attributed to the pronoun has consequences for the interpretation of the content of the points of view as well as the relation of these points of view to the discoursal beings that are their sources. In 4.3.1, we did not systematically discuss how it can be decided who ‘we’ refers to. In ScaPoLine it is assumed that the polyphonic structure provides instructions for the interpretation of utterances. In the case of ‘we’, the default instruction is to assume a referent Chapter 4. Presence of the author 109 of more than one person, one of whom is the locutor. Who else is implied must be decided by means of other instructions from the cotext or context. Let us look at the passage in (28), with no less than nine occurrences of we – the text has two authors. (28) We1 turn now to the functional aspect of the protoscene in Fig. 4, namely the claim that the TR and LM are within each other’s sphere of influence. A consequence of being within potential reach of the LM, is that the TR can affect the LM in some way and vice versa. For instance, […], we2 conventionally understand power and control being associated with an entity who is higher than the entity being controlled (we3 will discuss this in more detail when we4 deal with the control sense for over). In physical terms we5 can only control someone or something […] if we6 are physically proximal to the entity we7 seek to control. If, then, […], control, […], is dependent upon being higher than and physically close to the entity we8 seek to control, we9 would expect that these notions can be designated by over but not above. (engling17; subscript numbers added) The authors here employ several kinds of ‘we’, e.g. occurrences 8 and 9, used in the same sentence, evidently have different referents. This text refers to events in three different spheres: the text, the research process and human existence in general, and a ‘we’ is involved in each of them. We will not discuss occurrences 2 and 5–7 more than to point out that we there refers to human beings in general (a very wide inclusive ‘we’). Occurrences 1, 3 and 4 are related to the textual sphere. Instructions to that effect come from expressions referring to the utterance context and to the cotext: now, turn to, Fig. 4, discuss etc. This means that the relevant place to look for referents is the utterance situation. Since this is a written text, it includes both the writing and the reading, and the relevant participants are the authors and the reader. Since engling17 has two authors, we can refer literally to them, but it can also include the reader. To decide between an exclusive and an inclusive reading, we have to look for additional instructions, primarily those of verbs, viz. turn (to), discuss, deal (with). Who performs the turning, discussing, dealing? In literal terms, it is the authors; i.e. we is exclusive. But as seen in 4.3.1, ‘we’ is frequently used metonymically. The fact that the authors could very well have written “Let’s turn now to …” shows that reader inclusion is possible at least for occurrence 1. This we could, then, be an example of a type not discussed in 4.3.1, namely inclusive ‘we’ for exclusive ‘we’! Occurrence 9 is situated in the research sphere. It is part of a long sentence of the form “If p, then we would expect q”, p referring to human experience in general (functioning as a premise) and q to a state of affairs in the primary field of 110 Academic Voices study, viz. prepositional semantics. The sentence is a formulation of a prediction, q. Instructions pointing to the research sphere (and away from the sphere of human experience in general) come primarily from the combination of the epistemic verb expect and the proposition q, which pertains to the research field. The modalised expression would expect locates the epistemic attitude in a generic time-space, which includes the present as a central point in time. This is compatible with the tendency of linguistic research articles to portray the research process as going on, so to speak, as the text evolves, which implies that the research situation is (figuratively) the same as the utterance situation, i.e. the participants are the authorscum-researchers and the reader. All participants in the situation have access to the same information and may therefore be assumed to be co-responsible for the conclusions drawn on the basis of it. The authors have just argued, in the two previous sentences, that p is the case; hence they are responsible for the point of view that p is true. Further, they are responsible for the pov that ‘if p, then probably q’, and therefore also the pov ‘probably q’. But since the reader is also made part of the research situation, it would appear that he or she is also responsible for these points of view. The modalisation of would expect further generalises the whole context, so that the source responsible for the points of view might not only include the authors and the reader, but any linguist. That is, the source is ‘authors and colleagues, including reader’. (This use of we resembles closely the use of French on called ON3 in 4.4.) It is evident that the polyphonic drama set up by the author(s) is central in the rhetoric of the research article, in that points of view are attributed not only to the authors and other researchers mentioned in bibliographical references, but to the reader and to the disciplinary collective of researchers. 4.4 “Indefinite” authors 4.4.1 Indefinite pronouns in English, French and Norwegian Like many others we claim that first person pronouns represent the most explicit author presence, whatever the discoursal genre is. However, in our studies of author presence in research articles, we realised already in a pilot study (see Breivega et al. 2002) that the differences between English articles, on the one hand, and French articles, on the other, are so great that we found it necessary to investigate the extent to which other possible personal constructions are used in French. It became obvious that, for the French corpus, we had to take the indefinite pronoun on into consideration. For comparative reasons, we decided to study the frequency of the corresponding pronouns in English and Norwegian as well, viz. one and man, en/ein respectively. Chapter 4. Presence of the author Another and equally important reason for including the indefinite pronoun in the present study is that it reflects the polyphonic drama in a particular way, at least in French. It can include (and exclude) the voices of the author(s), the readers and third persons (corresponding to ScaPoLine’s locutor, allocutor and third discoursal beings; see 2.1) as well as an indefinite community of persons (corresponding to the collective third). Since the reference of these pronouns typically has to be determined by the co(n)text, they represent a very specific means for hiding as well as for bringing forth different voices. On the one hand, we can say that the pronoun is very useful to authors who want to hide; on the other, it is useful to authors who want to bring in the voice of a larger community, without having to be specific about the extension of this community. Even if these indefinite pronouns, one, on, man, en/ein, are not directly comparable and exhibit quite different uses in the three languages, all of them can be used with general as well as with specific and personal reference.22 For this reason, we think it is interesting to study their actual frequency in the empirical material under investigation. As shown in section 4.1, French researchers are the dominant “indefinite” users, but Norwegians are not far behind. This is an interesting result since, as far as we know, no large empirical study of this phenomenon exists for Norwegian. As regards the use of one as an indefinite pronoun in the English subcorpus, our study shows that English authors are relatively modest “indefinite users”. Our findings correspond to a great extent with Johansson’s (2002) results. He finds that German man is far more frequent than the corresponding pronouns in English and Norwegian. As regards frequency, Norwegian man seems to take a middle position between German man and English one. Johansson also argues that “German man seems to be more compatible with specific reference than the English and Norwegian generic pronouns” (ibid.: 527). This might be explained by a different semantic value of English one compared to French and Norwegian, or perhaps by the relatively frequent use of I and we in English. However, according to the material studied here, the latter explanation does not hold, as the Norwegian subcorpus also contains many first person pronouns. Before going on to what will be our focus here, the French pronoun on, we will take a quick look at what English and Norwegian grammars say about these indefinite pronouns. In A Grammar of Contemporary English, Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik (1972) have, in fact, little to say about one: indefinite one means ‘people in general’, in particular with reference to the speaker. This use of one is chiefly formal and is often replaced by the more informal you: One would/You’d think they would run a later bus than that! (Quirk et al. 1972: 222) 22. Johansson (2002: 516) also argues that the referential possibilities of English one, German man and Norwegian man are comparable even if there are great differences in use. 111 112 Academic Voices Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad & Finegan (1999), in their Grammar of spoken and written English, argue that when referring to people in general, English one has no “personal overtones” (ibid.: 331). However, they point to examples of one with specific reference used in academic discourse, where one may convey “a veiled reference to the author; this is characteristic of the impersonal style often adopted in academic prose” (ibid.: 354). They conclude as follows: The relatively high frequency of generic one in academic prose should be compared with the unexpectedly high frequency of we […], and with the very high passive frequency in this register […]. These are all connected with the preoccupation in academic work with making generalizations and with the wish to adopt an impersonal, objective style. (Biber et al. 1999: 355) As regards the Norwegian indefinite pronouns man and en/ein, very few studies have been undertaken on these pronouns. An exception is Lundeby (1996), who refers to a discussion from the beginning of the 1950s on the use of what in Norway is called “departemental man/en” (i.e. being used in the ministries), with reference to an institution or office, and where the advice is to use the plural vi instead of the indefinite pronoun in such contexts. The most comprehensive Norwegian grammar, Norsk referansegrammatikk, by Faarlund et al. (1997), states that the indefinite pronouns can be used with reference to the sender. The descriptions of Norwegian man and English one are thus more or less parallel. Both pronouns are classified as generic or indefinite, but the grammars seem to accept the use of these pronouns with specific reference. The need for studies on indefinite pronouns in scientific discourse genres is obvious.23 In section 4.1, we observed many interesting differences as regards the frequency of these pronouns, and it seems reasonable to think that the differences are related to the different referential values the pronouns can assume. For example, the disciplinary differences in the Norwegian subcorpus are not very great (not even significant) when compared to the disciplinary differences in the French subcorpus. A possible explanation of this observation might be that the general reference is predominant in Norwegian; thus, the use of Norwegian man, en/ein does not reveal any differences of frequency between soft and hard disciplines. The opposite might be the case in French. The pronoun on is quite frequently used with a personal reference; thus we may expect it to be more frequent in linguistics than in economics and medicine. This is also the case in our corpus (see 4.1). However, we will see below that this cannot be the whole explanation. The personal values of on are in fact quite frequent in French medicine. 23. For previous KIAP-studies on French on, see Fløttum (2003b, 2003i). For studies of on in other genres, see Norén (2004a); Jonasson forthcoming; Fløttum, Jonasson & Norén forthcoming. Chapter 4. Presence of the author 4.4.2 Previous studies on the French indefinite pronoun on Defined as referring to an indefinite group (‘ensemble’) of humans, the French pronoun on is traditionally classified as indefinite. On is also considered to be a rival to nous (‘we’), but can, in fact, replace any personal pronoun. The reference of on is notoriously elusive. It is this elusiveness which seems to enable it to function as a substitute for all personal subject pronouns (see Riegel, Pellat & Rioul 1994: 197). In addition to Riegel et al. (ibid.), other recent grammars tend to classify it as a personal pronoun, like Arrivé, Gadet & Galmiche (1985). However, Wilmet (1997) continues to classify it as an indefinite pronoun. This disagreement between grammars may be explained by the referential complexity of the pronoun; it demonstrates personal as well as indefinite uses. In more specific studies, different aspects are treated. However, in addition to the fact that on always has the grammatical function of subject, most seem to agree on the following characteristics of on: • • • On refers to one or more persons. On can be substituted for all personal pronouns. On has an unclear enunciative status (i.e. relation to speaker or locutor and receiver). Muller (1979: 70) ends up pointing to three uses of on: indefinite use (on = on), stylistic use (on = je, tu, nous, vous) and personal use (on = nous). We note that he does not include third person pronouns, il/elle, ils/elles, in his classification. More relevant to our work is Loffler-Laurian’s (1980) study of the presence of the locutor represented by the pronouns je, nous and on in scientific discourse, in this case texts taken from chemistry and physics. Taking as her point of departure the well-known French cultural maxim “le moi haïssable” traditionally taught in French schools, she argues that, in general, French researchers avoid the first person singular, use the first person plural as little as possible, and therefore have to resort to all kinds of impersonal, reflexive and passive constructions (ibid.: 135). Among the five values of on that she proposes, it is the on for nous which seems to be characteristic of Loffler-Laurian’s corpus. We also note her observation of on changing reference according to the verbs it is combined with. This point will be important in the classification proposed here (4.4.3). The aim of François (1984: 34) is to propose a classification of the enunciative values of on (taking into consideration referential, deictic, discoursal and stylistic criteria). He proposes five different values, forming a scale, ranging from on referring to some inanimate being (like in On était en juin, corresponding to an impersonal construction in English: ‘It was June’) to on referring to some specific human being, via uses with more or less vague reference. 113 114 Academic Voices Atlani (1984), in her study of on in journalistic texts, does not want to reduce the pronoun neither to an indefinite nor to a personal pronoun. We agree that it is important to insist on the heterogeneity of the pronoun in order to capture its different uses. We also agree with the importance Atlani attributes to the interpretation process of on. Always subject to interpretation, on represents a particularly complex discoursal phenomenon. In his master’s thesis from 1984, Larsen focuses on the relation between the pronouns on and nous (‘we’). Larsen’s basis for the semantic and distributional opposition between these pronouns is a corpus constituted by a philosophical essay (Genèse, by M. Serres). The 354 occurrences (231 nous and 123 on) are classified according to the verb they combine with. The verbs avoir, devoir, être, penser and savoir are preferred with nous, while on seems to co-occur with verbs like dire and pouvoir. As regards expressions like dit-on (‘one says’) and comme on dit (‘as one says’), Larsen believes that they are undergoing a lexicalisation process. (ibid.: 60). One of Larsen’s conclusions is that on shows a clearer tendency to combine with the abstract than nous does. In a study based on a corpus of spoken language (14–15 year old Parisian adolescents), Viollet (1988) proposes four values of on, which are clearly related to the corpus studied (ibid.: 69): two personal (deictic and anaphoric), one non-personal (doxa) and one undecidable. Like many other researchers, Rey-Debove (2001) describes on in relation to personal pronouns. However, she is particularly concerned with the case of the pronoun nous. In two relatively strong hypotheses, she claims that 1) on tends to replace nous, and that 2) on = nous progressively erases the real indefinite use of on (ibid.: 280). Further, Rey-Debove considers the verbal mode and tense as important for the disambiguation of on; she argues that, in general, it assumes its greatest extension (generic and often deictic) in combination with a verb in the present tense. In her morpho-syntactic study of “the double play of the pronoun on”, BlancheBenveniste (2003) begins with the observation that even if on may have very different kinds of references, French-speaking people are very seldom confused by its use. The interpretation of on is not problematic to native speakers. However, she continues, this pronoun is particularly complex: It may both include and exclude the author (or locutor). In her comparison between nous and on, she concludes that the typical “composition” of nous is ‘moi + non-moi’ (‘I + non-I’) and that the composition of on may, but does not have to, include ‘moi’ (the locutor) (ibid.: 49–51). We also note the following observation: “on s’oriente vers tous les humains placés dans les circonstances que mentionne l’énoncé” (ibid.: 46). This is a general but important instruction for the interpretation of on: On orients itself towards all the humans placed in the circumstances mentioned by the utterance. Chapter 4. Presence of the author In her master’s thesis, related to the KIAP project, Gjesdal (2003) studies on and its use in linguistics articles. The results obtained in the comparison between two corpora (32 articles from c. 1980 and 20 articles from c. 2000) do not confirm Rey-Debove’s (2001) hypothesis that on is replacing nous (see above). In fact, Gjesdal observes that the relative frequency of on is lower in the 2000 corpus than in the 1980 corpus. On the other hand, she finds that the use of je has increased (to a statistically significant extent) between 1980 and 2000. These are observations which are limited to the genre under study, i.e. the research article, and should of course not be taken as a general development of the French language. They are, however, interesting findings. In the qualitative part of her study, Gjesdal introduces various rhetorical functions contributing to the disambiguation of on. She also observes considerable differences as regards the articles’ individual styles in their use of the pronouns je, nous and on. To conclude, the previous studies of on show that it is necessary to undertake more empirical analyses of the phenomenon in question. The need for studies that go beyond the analysis of on versus nous is also obvious. In the next section we will study the pronoun in its diversity, as manifested in research articles. Its potential referential variation, also emphasised in the previous studies, will constitute the point of departure for our studies. Our hypothesis is that the genre in which on manifests itself will explain, to a large extent, the kind of heterogeneity it displays. 4.4.3 Six values of on in French research articles Based on previous – more or less empirical – studies (see above), and our knowledge of the research article, we formulate the hypothesis that the pronoun on will take on a series of different values in this specific genre. Its fuzzy contours and inherent indefiniteness seem to make this pronoun a perfect means of expression for a genre which would like to be objective and non-expressive. Whatever its reference might be, it never refers directly to the author. Even when it can be replaced by the pronoun je, it will always maintain a flavour of indefiniteness in its meaning.24 The central challenge is perhaps not so much its interpretation in a specific context as the identification of criteria which can explain these interpretations.25 In order to understand its functioning, we have to disambiguate on. Our main aim 24. The play between the personal and the indefinite allows us to consider the use of certain values of on as a metonymic relation. When on refers to the speaker, for example, there is a metonymy from ‘people in general’ to je (see our discussion of ‘we’ in 4.3). 25. We remind the reader of the observation made by Blanche-Benveniste (2003: 43). According to her, the use of on very rarely causes confusion for native speakers of French. 115 116 Academic Voices in this section is to add qualitative explanations of the figures presented in 4.1; we will identify and describe relevant criteria which may explain different values of on, on a scale from indefinite to personal. Even if we insist on the importance of the genre for the determination of relevant criteria, there are certain criteria which seem valid for any text genre: • • • verb tense; we consider mainly the present tense (présent, abbreviated as PR), the present perfect (passé composé, PC) and the future (futur, FUT) the presence of modal verbs the presence of adverbial complements Other criteria are more clearly related to the genre under investigation. Thus, for the research article, the following seem relevant: • • • • the presence of metatextual and deictic elements (like dans cet article, au tableau suivant, ici, maintenant, etc.) the meaning of the verb with which on is combined (like in on analysera, with a research verb) the presence of bibliographical references (like on affirme (Duval 1998) que …) the presence of discipline-specific expressions These criteria are mostly lexical-semantic, except for verb tense. As regards morpho-syntactic criteria, like adjective and participle agreement (in feminine and/or plural forms, such as in the example On est allées à l’école, where the participle form (allées) shows that on refers to a group of females) as well as the presence of a direct or indirect pronominal object, these are in general not relevant to our genre. The reason is that such constructions are rare or do not occur at all in research articles. Our general hypothesis is that on is more personal and less indefinite in cotexts where the following traits are present: • • • metatextual elements verbs in future (FUT) or present perfect (passé compose, PC) tense verbs referring to the research process or to the text organising The following constructed example contains all of these features, and on can be interpreted as referring to the author (corresponding to je): (1) Dans cet article, on examinera / a examiné … ‘In this article, one will examine / has examined …’ We consider the semantics of the verb as particularly important. As regards verb classification, which is notoriously difficult, we refer to section 4.2, where we define discourse verbs (example: présenter), research verbs (example: analyser) and Chapter 4. Presence of the author 117 position verbs (example: défendre ‘defend’). In this section, we have found it useful to refine the category of research verbs. This gives us three additional groups: cognitive verbs, referring to a mental process (examples: comprendre ‘understand’, concevoir ‘conceive’); reporting verbs, referring to the act of uttering (examples: énoncer, dire ‘say’) and perception verbs, referring to different types of perception (examples: entendre ‘hear’, voir ‘see’). Our final group is the ragbag group other verbs, where we, inter alia, put emotional, evaluative and volitional verbs. These verbs may signal different author roles, as is the case with first person pronouns (see section 4.2). As in that study, we emphasise that it is the main verb (defined in a broad semantic-pragmatic sense) that we consider. This means that in constructions like on voudrait analyser (‘one would like to analyse’) or on tentera d’identifier (‘one will try to identify’) it is the verbs analyser and identifier respectively which are the basis for the classification. However, modal verbs are taken into account when it comes to determining the value of on. The considerations presented above allow us to propose six values that the pronoun on can have in a French research article: Table 4.4-1. Values of the French pronoun on in research articles ON values referring to corresponding to ON1 ON2 ON3 author(s) author(s) + reader(s) author(s) + limited discourse community author(s) + non-limited community reader(s) other(s) je (‘I’) / nous (‘we’) je/nous + vous (‘you’, the reader(s)) je/nous + vous (‘you’, my/our colleagues) je/nous + tout le monde (‘everybody’) ON4 ON5 ON6 vous (the reader(s)) il(s)/elle(s) (‘he/she/they’, the other researcher(s)) In a polyphonic perspective, the pronoun on is similar to ‘we’ in many respects. As with ‘we’, the polyphonic play is obvious. By the use of on, points of view are attributed to the voices of a wide range of persons, or groups of persons, participating, or invited to participate, in the polyphonic drama set up. More specifically, we may say that ON1, ON4 and ON6 represent single dimension voices in that they refer only to the author(s), only to the reader(s) and only to third persons respectively. ON2, ON3 and ON4 are multiple dimension voices: They refer to the author(s) + reader(s) in ON2, the author(s) + colleagues in ON3 and the author(s) + ‘everybody’ in ON4. 118 Academic Voices As regards the personal versus general distinction, ON1, ON2, ON5 and ON6 are more personal (and specific in their reference) than ON3 and ON4; ON3 and ON4 are more complex, referring to indefinite groups or groupings of human beings. In ON1–ON4 the author is included; in ON5 and ON6 the author is not included. These values correspond in the following way to the self- and otherdimensions employed in different contexts in this book: self: ON1; self & other: ON2, ON3, ON4; other: ON5 and ON6. In the following presentation of the different values of ON, we indicate which criteria we consider as the most relevant to each type. We emphasise that the genre itself is considered as a general criterion, relevant to all values. ON1  referring to the author(s) Criteria which are particularly relevant to the interpretation of on as referring to the author(s) are the presence of metatextual or deictic elements, the verb tense being FUT or PC, and the verb being of the discourse or research type, as in the following, constructed, examples: (2) On illustrera ici … / Dans cet article, on a comparé … ‘One will here illustrate … / In this article one has compared …’ Here are some authentic examples: (3) On partira ici de deux formulations de cette hypothèse, […]. (frling26) ‘One takes as a point of departure two formulations of this hypothesis …’ (4) Dans un premier temps (par. 1), on présentera une liste de caractéristiques, […]. (frling06) ‘First (paragraph 1), one will present …’ (5) Dans ce papier, on se propose précisément de developper un test simple […]. (frecon25) ‘In this paper, one proposes, precisely, to develop …’ All these examples contain deictic or metatextual expressions (ici, Dans un premier temps (par. 1), Dans ce papier); the verbs are of the discourse or research type and in the future tense, except for propose in (5), which is the present (PR) tense. However, the presence of the metatextual Dans ce papier leaves no doubt about the interpretation of on as referring to the author in this example. In articles reporting on experiments or on the research process itself, we also find on with this value when combined with verbs in the present perfect (PC); note the adverbials dans un premier temps (‘firstly’) and ensuite (‘then’): (6) Dans l’étude, on a utilisé ces données pour déterminer dans quelles proportions l’analyse longitudinale remettait en question les estimation habituelles. Chapter 4. Presence of the author 119 […]. Dans un premier temps, on a comparé les estimations en coupe transversale avec celles issues de l’enquête sur les budgets familiaux. On s’est ensuite intéressé à deux variantes […]. (frecon01) ‘In the study, one has used … Firstly, one has compared … then one has taken an interest in …’ ON2 – referring to the author(s) and the reader(s) A criterion which is particularly relevant to the interpretation of this value is the semantic nature of the verb. For the pronoun on to be interpreted as referring to sender (author) and receiver (reader), i.e. je/nous and vous, the successive verb must refer to an action that at least two people can do together. Cognitive and perception verbs are typical in this context. The verb tense may vary, but it is often FUT or PC. In addition, there is often a metatextual element in the immediate cotext. The following are constructed examples: (7) On notera / remarquera … ‘One will note / will remark …’ (8) (Comme) on l’a vu (dans le tableau 1) … / Comme on va le voir … ‘As one has seen (in Table 1) … / As one will see …’ Authentic examples include: (9) Comme le montre le tableau III, […] on remarquera qu’elle [l’évolution de la valeur prismatique préscrite] n’a jamais dû être augmentée […]. (frmed47) ‘As table III shows, … one will remark that …’ (10) Comme on le verra par la suite, l’estimation du modèle […]. (frecon25) ‘As one will see in the following …’ (11) Les exemples [27] […] et [32] […] seront soumis aux six critères introduits dans la section 1. On constate en premier lieu que […]. (frling06) ‘The examples … will be submitted to the six criteria introduced in section 1. One observes …’ Example (12) contains the quite frequent expression comme on l’a vu (‘as one has seen’) where the perception verb is in the PC tense. The author includes the reader by referring to something already presented. (12) Le facteur individuel incorpore en effet les orientations du couple en matière de descendance et, comme on l’a vu, celles-ci se traduisent probablement dans les choix du ménage en matière d’habitation ou de biens durables, […]. (frecon01) The message is as follows: “as we – you and I together – have seen here”. 120 Academic Voices Especially in economics articles, many equations are introduced. The author often invites the reader to participate in the reasoning or calculating process by expressions like on obtient (‘one obtains/gets’) or on a (‘one has’):26 (13) Nous prenons dorénavant le taux de rémunération du travail comme numéraire, ainsi #. En substituant les quantités produites à l’équilibre dans l’expression (2), et en dérivant cette expression par rapport au temps, on obtient le taux de croissance […]. En remplaçant # par sa valeur et en reprenant l’équation (5), si la recherche est active dans le secteur l, on a : (10) #. (frecon05). ‘By substituting … one obtains … By replacing # … one has …’ ON3 – referring to the author(s) and a more or less defined limited community Criteria which are particularly relevant to the interpretation of on as referring to the author(s) and a limited discourse community constituted by a more or less defined group of colleagues include the following: verb tense being PR or main verb being preceded by a modal verb (especially a form of pouvoir (‘can/may’)) and the presence of specialised vocabulary in the immediate cotext. Since the verb may be of very different types, but often of the research, cognitive or perception type, a model example could be one with the verb analyser: (14) On analyse (généralement) / On peut analyser … + cotext of specialised vocabulary. ‘One analyses (generally) / One can/may analyse …’ In all three disciplines, the pronoun on is used to refer to the more or less vaguely defined community consisting of author(s) and colleagues. In contrast to ON1 and ON2, ON3 is a value clearly situated on the indefinite side of the scale indefinite–personal. The present tense (PR) in its general meaning is easily combined with this on. The semantics of the verb does not seem important in this context, but these verbs are naturally often of the research or cognitive type. However, the criterion related to the presence of specialised expressions is essential. It contributes to the distinction between ON3 and ON4, the two indefinite values, which otherwise are easily confounded. Let us look at some examples: (15) […] dans le cas de verbes intransitifs à sujet inanimé et auxiliés en avoir, on n’observe pas, généralement, de formation transitive à sens causatif correspondent […]. (frling30) ‘… one does not observe, generally, transitive formations with a causative sense …’ 26. The symbol # replaces equations and symbols in the examples. Chapter 4. Presence of the author 121 (16) D’un point de vue catégoriel, on peut isoler 2 groupes pathologiques distincts. (frmed13) ‘… one can isolate 2 distinct pathological groups …’ (17) On pourrait améliorer cet estimateur en changeant la fonction objectif […]. (frecon40) ‘One could improve this estimator by changing the objective function …’ All of these examples contain discipline-specific expressions; the verb in (15) takes the present tense (the general sense is supported by the adverb généralement) and the verbs in (16) and (17) are modified by the modal pouvoir. Below is a final example: (18) De toutes ces prépositions, seules près de et hors de n’ont pas de correspondant nominal (leur origine est comme on le sait adverbiale). (frling14) ‘… (their origin is as one knows adverbial).’ The inserted comme on le sait resembles the comme on l’a vu typical of ON2; however, the verbs and the tense are different: voir in PC tense in ON2 and savoir in PR tense in ON3. The “translation” of the value in ON2 could be “as I/we and you the readers of this article have seen” while the translation for ON3 could be “as I/we and you my/our colleagues know”. ON4 – referring to the author(s) and a non-limited community The ON4 value is not easily distinguishable from ON3. The following traits can often be used to distinguish between them: The verb in ON4 is not of the research type, and there is no specialised vocabulary in the immediate cotext (no vocabulary that cannot be understood by non-experts of the field). The other criteria are the same as for ON3, i.e. PR for verb tense, or main verb preceded by a form of pouvoir. A model example could be as simple as the following: (19) On fait / On peut faire … ‘One does / One can/may do …’ The occurrences which we have interpreted as belonging to ON4 are normally found in contexts referring to activities not related to research (and therefore there is no specialised vocabulary). On the contrary, the activities referred to are in most cases activities that “everybody” can undertake, such as in the following example: (20) […] ; sans cette confiance qui caractérisait autrefois les relations qu’on entretenait avec son médecin de famille (et qu’on entretient peut-être encore) et que la promotion du médecin référent cherche à institutionnaliser, il est à craindre que […]. (frecon04) ‘… the relations that one had with one’s family doctor (and that one still has perhaps) …’ 122 Academic Voices In linguistics articles, there are often discussions about what one can say and what one cannot say in a language. This is an activity in which every speaking subject of the relevant language can participate, everybody is “qualified” for the discussion (in these contexts, the “non-limited’ community is, of course, limited to those who speak the language in question): (21) On peut dire tout contre mais pas *tout sur, *tout jusqu’à, […]. (frling16) ‘One can say tout contre but not *tout sur, *tout jusqu’à …’ We will now turn to the last two values we have identified in our analysis of on occurrences: ON5 and ON6. Both are more personal than indefinite, in the sense we use these terms here, and as we will see below, they are not very frequent in our corpus. ON5 – referring to the reader(s) The criteria we have identified in this case are the following: presence of a metatextual element, FUT as verb tense and verbs of the cognitive or perception type. A model example could be: (22) On trouvera dans le tableau 5 … ‘One will find in table 5 …’ The ON5 value manifests itself in contexts containing a metatextual reference. The FUT tense takes on an instructive value by which the author indicates to the readers what they should do in order to follow the presentation in the article. This is a trait which distinguishes ON5 from ON2. Let us look at some examples: (23) On trouvera dans le Tableau 1 ci-après un échantillon représentatif des prépositions spatiales du français. (frling14) ‘One finds in Table 1 below …’ In example (24), on is part of the more or less lexicalised construction si l’on veut (‘if one likes’): (24) Implicitement, je considère des entreprises ayant déjà réalisé ces investissements initiaux (ou si l’on veut : ayant déjà payé les coûts fixes). (frecon07) ‘(… or if one likes …)’ This seems to be a special case of ON5 which can be translated into si vous voulez (‘if you like’). The author proposes new expressions to the readers in order to replace what he or she has already said – new expressions which might be considered as better (by others, and therefore also by the readers) than the first ones. Chapter 4. Presence of the author 123 ON6 – referring to the other(s) For the interpretation of ON6, i.e. the pronoun on referring to other individuals, more or less specific, and different from both author and reader, we search for a bibliographical reference (name or name + year of publication) in the immediate cotext. A model example could be the following: (25) Dans Duval 1980, on dit … ‘In Duval 1980, one says …’ Instead of referring directly by il(s)/elle(s) (‘he, she/they’) to the persons or studies that are introduced, the author uses the fuzzy pronoun on: (26) Ce qui se dégage de cette sorte de brassage ”pluridisciplinaire” (Kleiber 1982: 3b), c’est que l’attrait pour la sémiotique de Peirce et celle de Morris (où on employait le mot pragmatique sans nécessairement amener la chose jusqu’à ses conséquences extrêmes) et pour la philosophie analytique d’Austin et de Searle (où on appliquait la chose pragmatique sans nécessairement la nommer) semble imposer son sort actuel à la problématique énonciative: elle est désignée ”pragmatique” mais, surtout, elle est analysée comme un pragmatisme. (frling40) ‘… where one used the word pragmatics … where one applied the thing pragmatics …’ In the following example there is in fact a double reference: (27) En outre, dans la littérature, on ne sait prendre en compte l’absence d’exogénéité stricte [6] que lorsque la variable est dichotomique, ce qui n’est pas le cas ici. (frecon01) ‘… in the literature one does not know how to take into account …’ First there is the vague expression dans la littérature and then note 6, referring to a specific publication. At the end of this passage, by the proposition ce qui n’est pas le cas ici (‘which is not the case here’), the author indicates explicitly that this on does not include himself; he is referring to other researchers. Here is a final example taken from a medical article: (28) On a récemment observé une telle baisse en Suède [12]. (frmed02). ‘One has recently observed this kind of decline in Sweden [12].’ The great majority of the references in medical articles are only represented by a number in the body text of the article, as here by [12] (see section 6.3). The note number refers to a bibliographical list. Thus the pronoun on in (28) refers to the authors of the publication indicated by [12]. 124 Academic Voices Summing up In the presentation above we have considered examples which are more or less easy to interpret. There are, of course, numerous occurrences of the pronoun on that have been difficult to classify as one of the six proposed values. However, the criteria that we have identified have proven to be useful. Many of these criteria are genre-specific. This confirms our hypothesis that the genre in which on manifests itself may explain the kind of heterogeneity the pronoun displays. We have seen that the use of on may bring along a range of different values, involving different voices. We argue that the genre of the research article to a large extent is “responsible” for this voice complexity. 4.4.4 Distribution of on-values Table 4.4-2 represents our classification of the 1079 on-occurrences found in 180 of the 450 articles constituting the KIAP Corpus; we have used articles 01–20 in each subcorpus. Table 4.4-2. Distribution of values of on in different disciplines Discipline Total ON1 ON2 ON3 ON4 ON5 ON6 frecon frling frmed 456 486 137 29.6 8.4 37.2 12.7 9.7 4.4 52.2 70.6 46.7 3.1 9.9 6.6 0.7 1.0 0.0 1.8 0.4 5.1 Total 1079 21.0 10.3 59.8 6.6 0.7 1.6 ON1 = je/nous; ON2 = je/nous + vous; ON3 and ON4 = je/nous + community; ON5 = vous; ON6 = il(s)/elle(s). ON3, referring to the author(s) + a limited discourse community (self- & otherdimension), is the dominating value (almost 60 % of the total). Thus we can conclude that the indefinite perspective wins over the personal. However, the other indefinite value, ON4, corresponding to ‘everybody’, is only represented to a limited extent (6.6 %). This finding should not come as a surprise: the topic of a research article is related to the world of specialisation and does not commonly offer activities or facts concerning the non-scientific world. Even if the indefinite values are in the majority, the frequency of the personal values should not be underestimated. All in all they constitute about a third of all the occurrences (33.6 %). This supports the conception of academic discourse as including personal traces. It is particularly interesting to observe that ON1, referring to the author(s), is the most frequent; in fact, it represents 21 % of all the oc- Chapter 4. Presence of the author 125 currences. Thus, the pronoun on seems an important tool to avoid the use of the pronouns je/nous. We also note that the value ON2, corresponding to the author and the reader, is quite frequent (10.3 %). This result indicates that the author, without directly addressing the reader, employs on in order to create or encourage common participation in the activities and reasoning presented. Finally, the last two personal values, ON5 (corresponding to vous) and ON6 (corresponding to il(s)/elle(s)), are very rare. This shows that on is not commonly used to refer to the reader alone (moreover, direct address of the reader made explicit by the pronoun vous, for example, is almost absent; see, however, section 5.3) and that on is not used to refer to other specific researchers. To conclude the general discussion of the personal values attributed to on, we may say that, in the materials studied here, the on corresponding to je/nous or to je/nous+vous wins over the on corresponding to vous or to il(s)/elle(s). In other words, the self-perspective wins over the other-perspective. We will now take a quick look at the disciplinary differences. It is particularly interesting to observe the strong presence of ON1 in economics and medicine compared to linguistics. This finding is surprising if we take into account the traditional conception of academic discourse, according to which especially the hard sciences are characterised by an absence of personal constructions. However, these results should be seen in relation to the results presented in sections 4.1 and 4.2. The relatively weak presence of ON1 in linguistics is clearly modified by the relatively strong presence of the pronouns je and nous. It seems that linguist authors do not have to use ON1 since they use je or nous. On the other hand, ON3 is by far the most frequent in linguistics articles. This value is also frequent in the other two disciplines. In general terms, this finding indicates that the researchers prefer a presentation form potentially including the relevant discourse community. However, with the pronoun on, this inclusion remains indefinite and rather fuzzy. An interesting question in this context is to what extent the first person pronoun nous carries a less indefinite and more specific and personal reference. 4.4.5 Final remarks The results we have presented above indicate that the pronoun on has a clear personal potential, but also that its indefinite dimension is strong. We emphasise that the criteria we have found may be further developed and refined and that the six proposed values by no means are absolute. The criteria we have used are only 126 Academic Voices “helpers” in the interpretation process related to the disambiguation of on.27 There are no clear dividing lines between the different values, and whatever seems to be the strongest dimension on the indefinite–personal scale, the pronoun on remains personal (or human) in its reference but, at the same time, retains its inherent semantic trait of indefiniteness (see Rabatel 2001 for a similar view). Thus, in our view, there is no clear distinction between personal and non-personal values. As regards the characterisation of the French research articles, the strong presence of on is important in itself. Within a conception of academic discourse as being non-personal, the pronoun on seems very suitable to the genre we are studying. Its remarkably flexible nature makes it an efficient tool for the authors, enabling them to balance between a personal presence coloured by the indefinite and an indefinite presence coloured by the personal. There may be different explanations for the use of each value (Fløttum et al. forthcoming); however, for each of these the pronoun on represents a possibility for the authors to refer both to themselves and to others in an indirect and non-explicit way. The academic authors often try to hide behind various formulations, and the on-construction presents a series of possibilities which they can choose from.28 In this sense our hypothesis is confirmed: The genre is an explanatory factor of the kind of heterogeneity displayed by this pronominal practice. 4.5 Author roles and evaluation in abstracts 4.5.1 Introduction In the present study our main focus is on the actual article, but as we have also stored the abstracts as part of our electronic corpus, this allows us to focus briefly on how the presence of the author is manifested in these short but complex texts. Abstracts are complex in the sense that they may be read as independent texts representing a genre of their own (e.g. when they appear in abstracts databases), but still they are never completely independent since their relationship with the text they ”belong” to is always present in some sense, whether we read them as 27. Atlani (1984: 21) argues that in the end, it is the receiver who has to choose which interpretation is most relevant. 28. There are a number of questions which deserve further discussion concerning the role of on, particularly its interaction with other personal pronouns in a text and its role in (co-)referential chains (cf. 4.6.1). Another interesting question is how the transition between the indefinite and the personal perspectives is realised, and whether this can be explained, to some extent, by formulating hypotheses related to the presence of semantic isotopies (see Fløttum et al. forthcoming). Chapter 4. Presence of the author 127 discipline professionals or study them as text researchers. They are also complex in the sense that they may serve several communicative purposes. Their overall function is that of a decision tool, helping the reader to decide whether it is worth reading the whole article. If the reader does not go on to read the full text, the abstract becomes a replacement for the whole text; if the reader is led on to the article, the abstract has served the purpose of relevance indicator. A somewhat different aspect is that of promotional value. In today’s competitive research world, the researcher must make great efforts to stand out in the crowd. The abstract as a promotional tool becomes an important device in that context, an issue taken up in studies by e.g. Berkenkotter & Huckin (1995), Melander, Swales & Fredrickson (1997) and Lindeberg (1998, 2004). There is by now quite a comprehensive literature on abstracts (cf. e.g. Dahl 2000; Hyland 2000). In the present context we are concerned with the issue of author roles (cf. section 4.5.2), since this has been discussed for the main text (4.2). As abstracts are quite short and therefore more manageable texts than whole articles when it comes to qualitative text analysis, we have here included both first person singular and plural pronouns in our discussion (cf. 4.2 and 4.3). The same applies to another aspect of author manifestation, viz. the use of linguistic signals of a clearly evaluative nature. In order to address the promotional function of abstracts, we briefly discuss the use of such signals in the abstracts (4.5.3). Finally, we attempt to sum up by pointing to characteristic features of our abstracts from three disciplines and three languages that have emerged from the discussion (4.5.4). Our investigation is based on 40 abstracts for all language/discipline combinations, apart from French linguistics. The reason why not 50 abstracts were included in each subcorpus is that some articles lacked abstracts, and 40 turned out to be the highest common number available. As for French linguistics, one of the journals in the corpus (Revue de Sémantique et Pragmatique) did not have abstracts; in addition, one other journal (Langue Française) only had a few articles with abstracts in French (but quite a few articles with abstracts in English). The total number of French linguistics abstracts included in this study is therefore only 27. 4.5.2 Author roles The three main roles are, as stated in section 4.2, the writer, the researcher and the arguer.29 In contrast to the discussion of author roles in the main text, we have, as already stated, for the abstracts recorded examples with both singular and plural first person pronouns. In addition, we have for the French texts included instances 29. The evaluator role turned out to be of little significance in the abstracts and has not been included in the discussion. 128 Academic Voices of on when the reference is clearly personal (cf. section 4.4). The following three examples are cases in point: (1) On utilise l’enquête sur la Formation et la Qualification Professionnelle (FQP) réalisée en 1993. (abstract frecon21) ‘We use the survey …’ (2) On étudie, notamment, un équilibre de court terme (le cas d’une ville fermée) et un autre de moyen terme (le cas d’une ville ouverte où l’offre de logements est fixe et les travailleurs libres d’entrer, ou non, sur le marché). (abstract frecon37) ‘We study especially a short-term equilibrium …’ (3) On opposera à ceux-ci l’approche interne, d’inspiration plus résolument linguistique, dont les principaux représentants sont Jakubinskij et Jakobson. (abstract frling24) ‘We contrast to these the internal approach …’ As stated in section 4.2, the academic author switches back and forth between these three roles. The researcher role may perhaps be said to be underpinning academic work. For rhetorical purposes, all three roles move in and out of focus. As is the case for the main text, in the abstracts, too, there is no perfect correspondence of verbs and rhetorical role. In many cases we need to take elements in the cotext into consideration before a role may be assigned. The cotext may swing the interpretation in one or the other direction, or even result in two roles being simultaneously present. Here is an example that illustrates such a dual role, in this case researcher-arguer: (4) I critically evaluate this new work and suggest that it does not contribute sufficient evidence against the direct access view. (abstract engling22) However, in the majority of the cases one rhetorical role is clearly assumed by the author. In the relatively few cases in the abstract corpus where a dual role is present, we have chosen to assign the example to the category that was seen as the most dominant one in each case. The example above was classified as an instance of the researcher role. The following abstract illustrates how the author switches back and forth between the three rhetorical roles:30 (5) Quantification and the nature of crosslinguistic variation The standard analysis of quantification says that determiner quantifiers (such as every) take an NP predicate and create a generalized quantifier. The goal 30. For convenience, when longer stretches of text are discussed, English examples are most often used. Chapter 4. Presence of the author 129 of this paper is to subject these beliefs to crosslinguistic scrutiny. I begin by [writer] showing that in St’at’imcets (Lillooet Salish), quantifiers always require sisters of argumental type, and the creation of a generalized quantifier from an NP predicate always proceeds in two steps rather than one. I then explicitly adopt [researcher] the strong null hypothesis that the denotations of quantifiers should be crosslinguistically uniform. Since the Salish data cannot be captured by the usual analysis of English, I pursue [researcher] the idea that English is reducible to the Salish pattern. Reanalysis of many English constructions is required. I argue that [arguer] the reanalysis has advantages over the standard analysis for partitives, as well as for non-partitive all- and mostphrases, which I analyze as containing bare plurals of argumental type. Even where the new analysis faces some challenges (for example, with every), the attempt still leads to fruitful results. It forces us to view familiar constructions in a new light, and to redefine, I believe [arguer] correctly, which quantificational constructions are ‘basic’ and which stand in need of further explanation. (abstract engling45) Our investigation revealed that quite a few abstracts within each subcorpus did not contain instances of first person pronouns at all. The figures for how many abstracts did have such pronouns are provided in Tables 4.5.1–3. With one exception, abstract length is the only restriction the journals represented in our corpus have in their author instructions. (For the economics abstracts the requirement is typically 100 words, while within linguistics and medicine up to 200 words may be allowed.) The exception is one of the two Norwegian linguistics journals, Maal og Minne, which specifically prohibits the use of first person pronouns in the abstract. The six abstracts from that journal have still been included in order to study their use of evaluative elements.31 What we very often see in abstracts (both with and without first person pronouns), however, is that the inanimate noun paper/article is used with active verbs, as in the following examples: (6) This paper explores social norms as a mechanism of how neighborhood characteristics can affect individual behavior. (abstract engecon19) (7) The paper argues that, on the other hand, Praguian functional syntax has a great deal in common with more ‘formal’ functionalist approaches and with much work in formal semantics. (abstract engling04) (8) Cet article examine comment une baisse des cotisations sociales employeurs sur le travail non qualifié peut être financée par des hausses d’autres taxes ou parataxes, et quelles sont les conséquences pour l’économie. (abstract frecon13) 31. Of the 44 articles in the noling subcorpus from the other journal, Norsk Lingvistisk Tidsskrift, eight lacked an abstract. 130 Academic Voices ‘This paper examines how …’ (9) Cet article souhaite contribuer à une théorie du marché du logement locatif où les frictions de recherche sont rendues endogènes par une fonction d’appariement entre propriétaires et locataires potentiels. (abstract frecon37) ‘This paper wants to contribute to …’ (10) Artikkelen studerer virkninger av ansettelses- og oppsigelseskostnader for arbeidsmarkedets funksjonsmåte og effektivitet. (abstract noecon06) ‘The paper studies …’ (11) Artikkelen diskuterer en type dobbelt bestemte nominalfraser som hyppig forekommer i muntlig norsk. (abstract noling09) ‘The paper discusses …’ Such usage has been shown to be a typical feature of scientific language (Prelli 1989; Master 2001). The academic author hence has a choice between stronger textual presence through a pronoun (‘I/We examine and present’) or weaker presence through personification of inanimate nouns (‘The paper examines and presents’). In the present corpus, nearly all the abstracts in English and Norwegian economics and linguistics, and to some extent the French economics abstracts, with no first person pronoun used ‘paper/article’ in this way. Tables 4.5.1–3 provide figures for the distribution of the examples over the three posited author roles for the three disciplines and the three languages. The number of abstracts with occurrences of first person pronouns is also given for each subcorpus. Table 4.5-1. Author roles in economics abstracts English (20 abstracts) French (29 abstracts) Norwegian (19 abstracts) Writer Researcher Arguer 3 36 7 15 23 17 10 19 7 Total no. of occurrences Average per abstract 46 2.3 55 1.9 36 1.9 Chapter 4. Presence of the author Table 4.5-2. Author roles in linguistics abstracts English (17 abstracts) French (9 abstracts)* Norwegian (10 abstracts) Writer Researcher Arguer 6 19 25 4 6 6 6 5 4 Total no. of occurrences Average per abstract 50 2.9 16 1.8 15 1.5 English (12 abstracts) French (16 abstracts) Norwegian (17 abstracts) Writer Researcher Arguer – 19 2 3 18 1 7 10 2 Total no. of occurrences Average per abstract 21 1.8 22 1.4 19 1.1 * Out of a total of 27 abstracts. Table 4.5-3. Author roles in medical abstracts We will now comment on the results for the three disciplines one by one, before comparing disciplines and languages. Economics As can be seen from Table 4.5-1, half of the 40 English and 40 Norwegian abstracts in this discipline contained overt traces of the author in the form of a personal pronoun, while for French, close to three quarters did. In terms of the average number of occurrences in the abstracts with pronouns, we see that the English abstracts have more occurrences (2.3) than the Norwegian and the French, which are identical in this respect (1.9) As regards the difference in distribution over author roles, we see that the researcher role is the dominant one in all three languages, and for English it is overwhelmingly so. However, in Norwegian and French, the author also assumes the writer role, and in French, the difference between the arguer role and the researcher role is not as prominent as in English. 131 132 Academic Voices Linguistics Table 4.5-2 shows that for English, roughly 40 % of the linguistics abstracts contain at least one personal pronoun, while the figure for Norwegian is only 25 % (of course keeping in mind here that six of the abstracts come from the journal that prohibits the use of such pronouns). For French, the subcorpus comprises only 27 abstracts; hence, the percentage here is 33. In terms of average per abstract, English has the highest number of occurrences with 2.9, while French has 1.8 and Norwegian 1.5. As for roles, author behaviour varies greatly between the three languages. In English, the arguer role is very much in focus, with the researcher in second place and the writer as a modest number three. For French and Norwegian, the numbers are so small that little can be deduced from them. Medicine In Table 4.5-3, we see that 30 % of the English abstracts display author presence through a first person pronoun, while the percentage for both Norwegian and French is about 40 %. As regards the average number of occurrences per abstract, English has 1.8, while French has 1.4 and Norwegian 1.1. Concerning author roles, the researcher role is the dominant one in all three languages, and very clearly so in English and French. In Norwegian the writer role is also important, while the arguer role is negligible in all three languages. Comparisons As regards the percentage of abstracts that contain a personal pronoun indicating author presence, the results show that economics is the discipline which has the highest overall figure, with medicine in second place and linguistics in third place. No clear language pattern can be discerned across the disciplines. We see that for economics, French has the highest percentage with 75 %, while for linguistics it is English (40 %) and for medicine Norwegian and French (40 %). In terms of the ”strength” of the presence, we see that English across all three disciplines has the highest average number of occurrences per abstract, with French in second place and Norwegian in third (tied with French in economics). When it comes to the issue of what role(s) the author assumes in the abstract, we have seen that there is some variation both in terms of language and in terms of discipline. The only general statement we may make is that the researcher role is the dominant one across disciplines and languages (the only exception being Norwegian linguistics where in fact the writer role has one more recorded occurrence). As for English, each discipline has a clearly favoured role, viz. the researcher in economics and medicine and the arguer in linguistics. For the other two languages the picture is more blurred. In Norwegian, the economist is mainly present in the Chapter 4. Presence of the author 133 abstract as researcher, but the other two roles are also in evidence; in linguistics there is little presence overall, but the few occurrences divide fairly evenly over the three roles; in medicine the researcher and the writer roles are both exploited. In French, the situation for economics and linguistics is a distribution across the three roles, while for medicine the researcher role is again clearly the favoured one. We stated in the introduction to this section that we would compare our findings regarding author roles for the abstracts with what we found for the articles (section 4.2). The comparison can only provide us with an impression of this relationship, since for the article our investigation is limited to occurrences of first person singular pronouns, while for the abstracts the plural forms are included as well. In addition, since the number of single-author articles is so small in some language/discipline combinations (all medical texts, as well as French economics), these were excluded as well. These limitations apart, what is clearly seen when we compare author roles in the two text genres is that in both genres the researcher role is the dominant one. For the medical texts in the abstract corpus, this is the only role that matters (Table 4.5-3). However, there are also differences in behaviour between the two kinds of text. In the articles, the writer role is the second most important one, while we for the abstracts see that the arguer role holds this position in several of the subcorpora, notably French economics and English linguistics (Tables 4.5-2 and 4.5-3). The fact that the arguer role seems to be more important in the abstracts than in the articles may perhaps be explained by the different functions of the two genres. The promotional function of the abstracts is emphasised by the author through the presence of a persona who more openly promotes research ideas and findings to attract the reader. Let us now take a closer look at some of the figures given above. In Norwegian linguistics, only one quarter of the abstracts display author presence through personal pronoun use at all. Of the 30 abstracts that do not contain such pronouns, 6 are from the journal Maal og Minne which, as stated above, explicitly prohibits them. This still leaves us with 24 abstracts from the other Norwegian linguistics journal (Norsk Lingvistisk Tidsskrift), which does not explicitly prohibit their use. Hence, we must conclude that Norwegian linguists prefer the impersonal abstract to a greater extent than their English and French language colleagues. The Norwegian linguists also differ from their fellow countrymen the economists in this respect. In order to check whether this feature is linked to certain authors or to the abstract as genre within Norwegian linguistics, we compared the use of first person pronouns in the Norwegian linguistics articles (i.e. the main text) and the use in the abstracts. We found that in the cases where the abstracts are impersonal, the accompanying main text does use first person pronouns roughly to the same extent as in the articles where the abstracts do have such personal pronouns. Hence, at this point we cannot offer any explanation for this observation other than stating that it seems to be a genre practice that is 134 Academic Voices specific to this language/discipline combination. The Norwegian linguists are perhaps closer to the prevailing norm for abstracts as portrayed in textbook discussions of this genre than their colleagues writing in the other two languages. 4.5.3 Evaluative elements The investigation of evaluative elements in the abstracts relates to our third research question, viz. how the author’s attitudes are expressed through the presentation and promotion of his or her own research (see section 1.1). We have limited our search for evaluative elements to what Lindeberg (2004), in her interesting crossdisciplinary study of promotion and politeness in research articles, calls boosts, defined as ”positive assessment of contribution” (pp. 40−41) and other evaluative elements linked to the results obtained. Even the handling of such a seemingly simple category is not always straightforward, and the topic deserves a much more thorough treatment than what we have had the opportunity to undertake here. Lindeberg discusses the difficulties text researchers may experience when trying to assess how rhetoric works within a discipline where he or she is not an expert. Her solution to this problem has been to focus on linguistic items that are easily identifiable, while acknowledging the fact that […] for the subject expert there are large numbers of signals that only they understand the significance of. Thus it can be assumed that linguistic signals of evaluation in fact form a continuum: at one end are items that are undisputably evaluative (e.g. good/bad, important/unimportant) and at the other end are items that are only contextually evaluative. (Lindeberg 2004: 60) Let us now present some impressions from our corpus, illustrated by a few examples. In general, we find that for this category there is very little use of linguistic signals in the abstracts which may be described as ”undisputably evaluative” in Lindeberg’s words. On the other hand, we do find relevant examples in all nine subcorpora. What is also clear, however, is that in six of the nine, only a couple of abstracts have such elements. The three subcorpora with most overt evaluation of results are English linguistics (8 out of 50 abstracts), and Norwegian and French medicine (with 9 and 10 out of 50 respectively). The subcorpus with the lowest occurrence is Norwegian linguistics (1 abstract). As shown in Table 4.5-2, the Norwegian linguistics abstracts also have the lowest number of occurrences of first person pronouns. Chapter 4. Presence of the author 135 Here is a selection of examples from all nine subcorpora: Linguistics (12) […] thus providing a more comprehensive framework for analysing […]. (abstract engling23) (13) [ …] the attempt still leads to fruitful results. (abstract engling45) (14) We conclude that computational corpus methods provide an important check on […]. (abstract engling21) (15) We also demonstrate that modelling this interaction allows us to achieve a more refined interpretation than […]. (abstract engling09) (16) Des statistiques complètent cet article sur des emplois de plus de dix mille verbes […]. (abstract frling03) ‘… more than ten thousand verbs…’ (17) La deuxième partie de l’article développe la théorie B, plus solide, à savoir la théorie de la pertinence de Sperber et Wilson. (abstract frling11) ‘… more solid …’ (18) Dans la deuxième partie de notre travail, nous présenterons deux nouveaux traits pour la préposition […]. (abstract frling16) ‘… two new features …’ (19) Artikkelen kan likevel gi et bidrag til ytterligere forståelse og kunnskap innen disse feltene […]. (abstract noling48) ‘… may still contribute to increased understanding and knowledge …’ Economics (20) Also, contrary to conventional wisdom, the differences in gains from the two approaches do not arise from treating stock returns as exogenous rather than endogenous. (abstract engecon06) (21) […] ceci permet de fournir une base analytique intéressante dans la tentative de définir une consommation soutenable. (abstract frecon02) ‘… to provide an interesting analytical base …’ (22) […] nous permet d’obtenir des résultats pertinents. (abstract frecon36) ‘… allows us to obtain relevant results …’ (23) En viktig konklusjon fra den empiriske delen er at bruttonasjonalprodukt i faste priser går noe ned ved en overgang fra dagens avgiftssystem. (abstract noecon43) ‘An important conclusion …’ 136 Academic Voices Medicine (24) This is the first time that histochemical lectin staining has been correlated with biochemical mapping of oligosaccharides. (abstract engmed08) (25) Because BP1 is expressed abnormally in breast tumors, it could provide a useful target for therapy, particularly in patients with ER-negative tumors. (abstract engmed28) (26) suggesting NQO1 may be important in chemosensitivity as well as the pathogenesis of lung cancer and NQO1 genotyping may be a useful component of pharmacogenetic strategies for the treatment of NSCLC. (abstract engmed41) (27) Comme les données obtenues à partir de MED-ÉCHO couvrent pratiquement l’ensemble des naissances québécoises, […] elles permettent de fournir un portrait plus précis des anomalies congénitales au Québec. (abstract frmed01) ‘… to give a more accurate picture …’ (28) Notre étude est un état des lieux utile pour mieux définir les conditions d’accueil et d’accompagnement des toxicomanes aux Urgences. (abstract frmed30) ‘Our study is a useful point of departure to better define …’ (29) Nos 3 observations illustrent bien les particularités de cette association morbide. (abstract frmed34) ‘Our 3 observations provide a good illustration of …’ (30) Il nous semble donc utile de les proposer à tout patient porteur d’une DMLA et se plaignant de difficultés à la lecture. (abstract frmed40) ‘It seems useful to …’ (31) La lentille non pliable en PMMA donne de relativement bons résultats […]. (abstract frmed44) ‘… gives relatively good results …’ (32) Le laser excimer InPro-Gauss donne des résultats réfractifs très satisfaisants. (abstract frmed47) ‘… gives very good results …’ (33) Våre resultater er meget gode […]. (abstract nomed01) ‘Our results are very good …’ (34) Risperidon virker derfor lovende som et hjelpemiddel ved behandling av vanskelig kontrollbar aggresjon […]. (abstract nomed04) ‘Risperidon therefore seems promising …’ Chapter 4. Presence of the author 137 (35) Korttidsprognosen var god, og i vår serie langt bedre enn det norske data for trombolysebehandlede pasienter har vist tidligere. (abstract nomed21) ‘… in our series far better than …’ (36) BFM-regimet gir gode resultater som primærbehandling ved Burkitts lymfom både hos barn og voksne […]. (abstract nomed35) ‘… gives good results …’ (37) Ved vanskelig pankreatikobiliær diagnostikk synes derfor S-MRCP å være et nyttig og komplikasjonsfritt supplement til eksisterende diagnostiske hjelpemidler. (abstract nomed41) ‘… seems to be a useful supplement without complications …’ As for the grammatical nature of the evaluative items, we see from the examples that the majority are evaluative adjectives like new, important and useful. There is also an instance of a quantifier expressing positive amount (example (16): plus de), a prepositional phrase implying novelty (example (20): contrary to conventional wisdom), a temporal noun phrase implying novelty (example (24): the first time) and an adjective with discipline-specific positive meaning (example (37): komplikasjonsfritt). 4.5.4 Summing up Our primary concern in this section has been author presence in the form of a first person pronoun. We have seen that, with the exception of subcorpus frecon, the majority of the abstracts do not have any occurrences of such pronouns. The economics abstracts in general are in fact the ones with most author presence in this form. In terms of what we have called the ”strength” of the presence, i.e. the number of pronouns per abstract, the English abstracts have the strongest presence in all three disciplines and the Norwegian ones have the weakest. As regards author roles, manifested in pronoun + verb-combinations, we see that for economics and medicine the researcher role is the dominant one, while for linguistics the arguer role is even more important. We have also looked briefly into another clear manifestation of author presence, viz. the use of evaluative elements in the abstracts, and find that there is little overt evaluation in terms of lexical signals to promote own results (see section 5.4). However, English linguists as well as French and Norwegian medical authors are somewhat more willing to promote their findings in this way than authors in the other language/discipline combinations. Our investigation has shown that within all three languages and disciplines studied here, the author has a choice whether to be visible or invisible in the abstract. What we have also seen in our corpus is that if an author chooses a persona 138 Academic Voices that is overtly present in the abstract, he or she is also more likely to make use of overt evaluation of own results than authors that take on a persona that is less visible. Whether there is a link between author presence in the form of first person pronouns and such promotional elements in the research articles as well perhaps deserves further treatment. 4.6 Case studies 4.6.1 Pronoun use in individual articles This subsection contains three studies related to pronominal use. In the first one, we look at two French linguistics articles in order to see to what extent different pronouns (and to a certain extent different voices) may complement each other, as regards reference and author roles. In the second case we look at two French linguistics articles produced in similar contexts but displaying different pronominal uses. In this case we are particularly interested in author roles in relation to rhetorical strategies. The third case focuses on medical writing practices. We have selected one article from each of the three languages in order to study personal versus indefinite perspectives related to the use of personal and indefinite pronouns. In all three studies, we use the classification of author roles established in section 4.2 (i.e. the three main roles: writer, researcher and arguer). We will also refer to the classification of the French indefinite pronoun on from section 4.4, where we listed six reference values which this pronoun can assume in research articles. Even if the nature and frequency of indefinite pronouns are different in the three languages, we argue that these six values can be posited as general potential values of the indefinite pronoun, including English one and Norwegian man, en/ein. We repeat the six values here for convenience: • • • • • • ON1 referring to the author(s) ON2 referring to the author(s) + reader ON3 referring to the author(s) + the relevant discourse community ON4 referring to people in general ON5 referring to the reader only ON6 referring to other researchers First case Different authors mark or colour their texts by their individual style by means of exploiting the semantic-referential potential of pronouns and by combining them with specific verb types. We will now look at two French linguistics articles in or- Chapter 4. Presence of the author 139 der to see to what extent different pronouns may complement each other. The two articles display the distribution of pronouns shown in Table 4.6-1:32 Table 4.6-1. Pronoun use in two French linguistics articles Body frling13 frling14 je nous on words N R.f. N R.f. N R.f. 4,951 3,364 27 1 5.5 0.3 3 7 0.6 2.1 58 38 11.7 11.3 R.f. = relative frequency per thousand. We see that frling13 contains relatively many occurrences of je. They realise in fact all the three main author roles; writer in (1), researcher in (2) and arguer in (3): (1) Je commencerai par noter que […]. (frling13) ‘I start by noting that …’ (2) […] j’utiliserai le corpus de […]. (frling13) ‘I will use the corpus …’ (3) Cette solution fera appel à des notions que j’ai utilisées dans la théorie des stéréotypes que je défends depuis 1990. (frling13) ‘… which I have defended since 1990.’ The use of the first person plural pronoun nous seems to be limited to the inclusive type, referring to author + reader (see section 4.3): (4) Mais nous avons également vu que les essentielles sont représentées par des phrases génériques admettant des exceptions. (frling13) ‘But we have also seen that …’ Finally, the use of the pronoun on in this text seems to be primarily indefinite; this pronoun appears with the values of ON3 referring to the author + the relevant discourse community of linguists, as in example (5), and ON4 referring to people in general (in this context to people speaking French) as in example (6): (5) Dès lors qu’on ne parle plus de propriétés intrinsèques, la combinaison redevient possible. […]. (frling13) ‘From the moment that one does not talk about intrinsic characteristics any more …’ (6) En effet, on peut très bien dire […]. (frling13) 32. As mentioned in Chapter 3, there are no clear differences in the KIAP material related to gender differences. Note that frling13 has a male author and frling14 a female. 140 Academic Voices ‘In fact, one may very well say …’ To sum up, this article contains a large number of first person je, manifesting itself in three different roles. Nous is not used very much and manifests mostly only one value. Finally, the pronoun on is frequent, but manifests itself mainly in two indefinite and not personal values. Let us now compare frling13 with frling14, containing one je, 7 nous and 38 on. The most striking difference is that frling14 contains only one je, which manifests a dual writer-researcher role (the writer or text organiser role is marked in the metatextual sequence Pour en donner un exemple concret and the researcher in the verb isoler): (7) Pour en donner un exemple concret, je voudrais isoler une catégorie particulière de prépositions, […]. (frling14) ‘In order to give a concrete example, I would like to isolate …’ This very limited use of je explains why the plural pronoun nous is used, in this article, with reference to the author (“nous de modestie”; cf. Loffler-Laurian 1980), either as researcher or as writer, like in dans le Tableau 1 nous ne faisons figurer que (‘… in Table 1, we only represent …’). So far, this gives a homogeneous and simple picture of an author only referring to herself. However, when looking at the numerous occurrences of on, we discover a more heterogeneous picture. This pronoun is in fact used with at least four values – ON1 referring to the author in (8), ON2 referring to the author + reader in (9), ON3 referring to the author + the relevant discourse community of linguists in (10) and ON5 referring to the reader only in (11): (8) On peut signaler en passant que dedans, dessus peuvent fonctionner lorsque […]. (frling14) ‘One can indicate …’ (9) Comme on va le voir, le remplacement du syntagme prépositionnel […]. (frling14) ‘As one will see, …’ (10) On sait que des Prep simples comme chez, parmi, jusque, etc. sont incapables de fonctionner sans nom régime. (frling14) ‘One knows that …’ (11) On trouvera dans le Tableau 1 ci-après un échantillon représentatif […]. (frling14) ‘One will find in Table 1 …’ Chapter 4. Presence of the author 141 To sum up, frling14 contains only one occurrence of je (and thus only one role). Nous is more frequent, but displays mostly one value, viz. referring to the author alone. Finally, on is frequent and appears with at least four different types of reference. A comparison of the two articles offers an interesting picture of how the use of pronouns may form different patterns in a text. Frling13 contains many occurrences of je, also assuming various roles, and may thus limit itself to the inclusive value of nous. In order to open up the perspective from the personal (je and je + vous (the reader)) to the more indefinite ”we, the linguists” or ”all of us” (meaning here people who speak French), on is used. Through different reference but with relatively clear values, the three pronouns complement each other. As regards frling14, the author uses je only once and thus has to fall back on nous in order to refer to herself. This makes it necessary to use on when widening the perspective. The author attributes, in fact, several different values to on, probably because je and nous are used in few cases and with few values. The pronouns complement each other here too, but the inherent vagueness of on has the effect of a less clear author manifestation than in frling13. For these two articles we can conclude that extensive and varied use of je leads to few and more easily definable values of the poly-referential on. On the other hand, modest use of je leads to many values of on, which are not so easily definable. These phenomena deserve further study. For example, it would be interesting to investigate to what extent it is possible to predict the distribution of referential values, relative to the distribution of different pronouns. It would also be interesting to study whether the pronominal distribution may have an effect on text structuring.33 Second case In this case, we also study two French linguistics articles, frling20 (2,376 words in the body part) and frling32 (2,629 words), but in a somewhat different and more rhetorically oriented analysis. These single-author articles are produced in similar contexts. The two authors – we call them “author 20” and “author 32”, respectively – are both fairly young female linguists, with university positions. Thus, some of the factors which could have explained differences between the articles are eliminated (same discipline, same language, same sex and similar age). Rhetorically, the articles are quite similar too. Even if their issues and strategies are different,34 they are both clearly marked by the prominent wish of all rhetorical texts, viz. to be persuasive. Both authors seem to want to induce coop33. For an elaboration of these questions, see Fløttum (2004d). 34. For further elaboration of the analysis of these two articles, see Fløttum (2005a). For the rhetorical perspective, see Prelli (1989) and section 2.1. 142 Academic Voices erative acts and attitudes at the same time as they want to position themselves in relation to the discourse community they belong (or want to belong) to. In other words, the rhetorical factors do not indicate that we should anticipate great differences between the two articles. However, there are clear differences. Let us take a look at how their linguistic choices are different and to what extent these support the rhetorical balance between inducing cooperation and claiming positions (a balance which in our view is not sufficiently discussed in Prelli 1989). Our hypothesis is that the choice of pronoun may indicate different balancing. (However, as shown above, the verb combined with the pronoun (i.e. the immediate cotext of the pronoun) constitutes an important corrective to possible unidimensional interpretations of the use of pronouns.) Article frling32 contains 12 je, 4 nous and 14 on. Since all the three pronouns are used, we might think that they complement each other, more or less as in frling13, analysed in the first case above. However, in frling13, we found clear cases of the arguer role in the use of je, while in frling32, je is typically used in the researcher or the writer role, as in (12), taken from the Introduction section: (12) Mais avant de passer à l’analyse proprement dite de ces constructions, je vais décrire brièvement les conditions matérielles dans lesquelles cet échange s’est produit […]. (frling32) ‘… I will describe …’ The arguer role is only modestly present in one sequence: je propose des hypothèses … (‘I propose some hypotheses …’). As regards the use of the other two pronouns, the few occurrences of nous are used with inclusive reference (referring to the author–reader dyad, see 4.3 and Kinn 2005a), in constructions like nous verrons que (‘we will see that’). The 14 on occurrences are also used mainly in this inclusive manner, in constructions like on observe (‘one observes’) and on a vu que (‘one has seen that’), corresponding to the value ON2, typically with cognitive verbs, and typically occurring in the middle sections of the articles. We conclude that the pronoun/verb use in frling32 is balanced between a moderate je-positioning and a rather strong cooperative line as manifested by the inclusive use of nous and on. Article frling20 contains 27 nous and 15 on. Since author 20 does not use je, it is reasonable to expect at least some of the 27 occurrences of nous to represent the authorial nous. This nous is exclusive in the sense that it does not include the reader.35 In fact most of the nous occurrences in this article are of the authorial type, but the author assumes different roles – the writer role as in Nous ne revenons 35. However, frequently in the writer and researcher roles, it can be difficult to distinguish between exclusive and inclusive use. (See sections 4.3 and 5.3.) Chapter 4. Presence of the author 143 pas sur … (‘We will not come back to …’) and the researcher role as in nous n’avons relevé aucun emploi … (‘… we have not found …’). However, what is perhaps most noteworthy is the clear presence of the author as arguer, in combination with nous, as in the following examples: (13) […] nous postulons que, dans ce cas, il s’agit de préposition. (frling20) ‘… we postulate …’ (14) […] nous avons soutenu que des constructions attestées à l’écrit illustrent un emploi prépositionnel de genre. (frling20) ‘… we have supported/defended …’ Because of the meaning of the verb, it is more natural to interpret the pronoun nous as authorial in examples (13)–(14). However, the multifunctional nous is also used with a reference clearly including the reader, as in nous allons voir maintenant (‘… we are now going to see …’) with the deictic adverb maintenant ‘now’ and typically with the verb voir ‘see’. Further, the pronoun on is also used with different reference potentials in this article, mostly as ON3, referring to the author + the relevant linguistic discourse community. We conclude that the pronoun/verb use in frling20 is balanced between the absence of the first person je and a full exploitation of the reference potential of the pronouns nous and on – using both positioning and cooperating constructions. The cooperation strategy, related to a clear problem–solution argumentation line, is in addition clearly manifested by numerous questions addressed directly to the reader throughout the text, as in Comment analyser … (‘How to analyse …’). The analysis of these two articles has shown that individual authors may assume particular discourse identities by choosing different linguistic expressions. However, it might seem that the two authors arrive at more or less the same effects by exploiting pronominal constructions in quite different ways. It is also worthwhile to note that the first impression or tone given by the actual pronominal use – isolated from other linguistic choices – can be deceptive. The use of first person pronouns, like je in French, is not necessarily self-promoting, and the use of first person plural, like nous in French, is not necessarily only inclusive and cooperative. (Another point of interest, discussed in Kinn (2005a), is the imposing effect the first person plural form may have; see also 5.3.) By taking a closer look at the immediate cotext where the pronouns appear, we have seen that the authors can construct their own subtle rhetorical strategy in the balancing between self and others, between cooperation with the reader (and the relevant research community) and self-positioning in relation to one or more research communities. In an e-mail correspondence (October 31, 2004), author 20 points to tradition as an important factor for using nous. She also points to the use of first person plural 144 Academic Voices pronouns as a means of assuming the personality of the researcher as a member of a community. Author 32 (e-mail of November 10, 2004) points to the possibility of taking a personal position that the use of je offers. As regards the use of nous, she explains it as a way of including the virtual interlocutor. Third case In section 4.1, we saw that our results correspond well to the general conception of medical researchers as “non-personal” authors in the sense that they use first person and indefinite pronouns much less frequently than their linguist and economist colleagues. However, as regards which pronouns they use when they choose to express themselves in personal terms, our corpus also shows that there are clear differences between the three languages: Norwegian medical authors use pronouns the most, both ‘we’ and ‘one’; French medical authors are positioned in the middle, also using both ‘we’ and ‘one’; their English colleagues use only ‘we’,36 more than the French, but less than the Norwegians. We will now take a closer look at how these pronouns are used in three medical multi-author articles, focusing on reference and author role: engmed31 (6,054 words in the body part), frmed22 (3,997 words) and nomed39 (1,491 words). Article engmed31 contains 15 we and 2 one. The main question we ask here is to what extent the 15 we are used with a personal reference. Given the traditional conception of medical discourse as “non-personal”, one might expect we to be used with a more or less indefinite reference. However, the 15 occurrences of we in engmed31 are in fact clearly personal and specific, referring to the authors of the article. This interpretation is justified by the immediate cotext in which they occur: We is regularly combined with a research verb referring to the activities undertaken throughout the project which is reported, as in the sequences we computed frequencies, we did not conduct proxy interviews taken from the “Data analysis methods” section. The majority of the 15 we pronouns occur in the Discussion section, and three of these are combined with the verb find. Thus, the authors of this article do not hesitate to manifest themselves as researchers carrying out their research as well as obtaining results. The homogeneity is striking in that the instances of the pronoun we refer to the authors alone and are combined with verbs indicating that the authors assume the researcher role in the text. As regards the verbs, one exception should be mentioned. There is one occurrence of we combined with the discourse verb focus on which manifests the writer role: In this article we have focused on … As shown in section 5.1, metatextual expressions are generally almost non-existent in medical articles. Finally, we note that there is no explicit and overt argumentation manifested by rhetorical verbs like argue and 36. There are only 4 occurrences of the pronoun ‘one’ in the whole engmed subcorpus. Chapter 4. Presence of the author 145 claim, verbs that are very frequent in English linguistics articles. The argumentation in this article is realised by the fact-oriented presentation of the research process and findings. As regards the two occurrences of one, both modified by modal auxiliaries, they open up for a wider reference group (corresponding to ON3; see the introduction to this section) including an indefinite community of medical researchers. Here is one of the occurrences: (15) It is also possible that inability to lactate or suppressing lactation after giving birth might have a deleterious effect on breast physiology [20], but we did not request this information from subjects. Given the relatively late ages of first birth in this population, one might not expect to see a protective effect of having ever given birth, […]. (engmed31) Even if one in the sequence one might not expect to see … may refer to a wider group than the authors alone, it is also possible to interpret this pronoun as referring to the authors only. The reason is that the sequence is closely related to a discussion linked to their own specific project in the preceding sentence. The same uncertainty with regard to interpretation may be attributed to the other occurrence of one: (16) Although it was not the purpose of this study to explain the high rates of breast cancer in Marin County, one hypothesis of the study was that if exposures specific to Marin County were to some degree responsible for the high rates there, one would expect women with breast cancer to have lived longer in Marin County than control women […]. (engmed31) This kind of interpretation uncertainty shows us that the author exploits the vague reference inherent to the pronoun. Since the French and Norwegian medical articles of the KIAP Corpus display frequent use of indefinite pronouns, we have selected two articles, frmed22 and nomed39, containing only indefinite pronouns (4 on and 11 ein respectively) in order to study to what extent they may take on personal reference values. We have already seen that French medical authors use on to refer to themselves to a relatively large extent (see section 4.4.4). Frmed22 contains 4 occurrences of on and no nous (‘we’) in subject position. Only one of these seems to refer clearly to the authors only: (17) Chaque médecin généraliste devait recruter les 10 premiers patients auxquels il prescrivait un traitement de substitution par buprénorphine haut dosage. On définit 3 sous-groupes […]. (frmed22) ‘One defines 3 subgroups …’ 146 Academic Voices However, even here we may ask whether this on includes a larger group than the authors of the article. In the present case, a relevant question is whether the generalists referred to in the previous sentence are included in on. We often encounter this kind of interpretation uncertainty in medical articles. Indefinite pronouns (as well as ‘we’) may refer to the authors + an unspecified number of other researchers or hospital personnel included in some way or another in the research project in question. We propose to call this value ON1+ (see also example (2) in 4.3.1 and section 4.6.2). The other occurrences of on in this article seem to be of the ON3 type, including the relevant but indefinite discipline community, i.e. medical researchers who take an interest in the reported project, as in the following example: (18) Ces recommandations ont d’autant plus d’intérêt si on s’attache aux propos de Greenfield [14]. Ce dernier précise que, […]. (frmed22) ‘These recommendations are even more interesting if one accepts what Greenfield [14] says …’ We may conclude that the authors of frmed22 manage well without using personal expressions like personal pronouns or indefinite pronouns with a clear personal reference. However, as emphasised many times throughout this book, the individual variation is considerable. By taking a quick look at another French medical article, frmed19, we see a quite different kind of manifestation. This article contains 5 nous (‘we’), all clearly referring to the authors of the article, mostly combined with research verbs, displaying the researcher role. Like engmed31 (see above), frmed19 also contains one example where the author assumes the writer role: nous allons passer en revue quelques-unes des hypothèses … (‘we will list some of the hypotheses’). As regards the occurrences of the indefinite on in this article, they display a more heterogeneous picture. The 12 on pronouns seem to be used in the following way: 2 ON1 referring to the author(s), 2 ON2 referring to the authors + the reader(s), 7 ON3 referring to the authors + the relevant indefinite discourse community and 1 ON4 referring to people (here: the French) in general. Even if the indefinite perspective is important, we see that the personal perspective is admitted too. The ON2 occurrences are of special interest since they generally are very rare in medical articles. Here is an example where the reader seems to be included in the reference of on and directly invited to “conclude” preliminarily: (19) On peut donc provisoirement énoncer de ce qui précède que si la peur du SIDA est un déterminant de la réduction des SD et des autres phénomènes étudiés dans notre pays, elle a eu un ”catalyseur” chez les injecteurs de drogues, […]. (frmed19) ‘One may thus preliminarily state from what precedes that if ...’ Chapter 4. Presence of the author 147 Let us now look at the Norwegian article, nomed39 (written in Nynorsk), containing no vi/me (‘we’) but 11 ein (‘one’). The question we ask is the same as the one asked in relation to frmed22: To what extent are these pronouns used with personal reference values? From another perspective we may reformulate the question as follows: To what degree do medical authors manage without using personal expressions? In nomed39, the authors allow the indefinite pronouns to assume personal values. In fact 7 of the 11 occurrences are of the ON1 type. However, in many of these cases it may be that it is not the pure ON1 value that is used, but rather the ON1+, including an unspecified number of other researchers, hospital personnel or generalists working outside the hospital: (20) Spontan perforasjon av oesophagus (Boerhaaves syndrom), var utvilsamt ikkje det første ein tenkte på, men samstundes er sjukehistoria nokså typisk for denne tilstanden […]. (nomed39) ‘… was not the first thing one thought about …’ Interestingly, in addition to a couple of ON3 values, we also find two ON values, referring to other researchers and excluding the authors. Here is one of the occurrences: (21) I ein studie med seks pasientar med oesophagusperforasjon (fem med Boerhaaves syndrom), der fem av lesjonane var eldre enn 24 timar, behandla ein med debridement og skylling og deretter primær sutur, som vart forsterka med ein velvaskularisert stilka omentlapp. Alle desse pasientane vart utskrivne innan 15 dagar (9). (nomed39) ‘ In a study … one treated …’ The reference to the other researchers is clear since a specific study is mentioned and referred to by the number (9). We see that nomed39 displays a less homogeneous picture as regards the opposition indefinite–personal. The personal perspective (both self and other) is clearly present even if there are no personal pronouns.37 The article contains other expressions manifesting personal presence. These will not be commented on here, but in the next section we provide another analysis of a medical article. 4.6.2 Implicit and explicit references to ‘we’ in a Norwegian medical article In sections 4.3–4, we looked at how first person plural pronouns (‘we’) and indefinite pronouns (‘one’) are used as grammatical subjects in research articles, and 4.2 introduced a set of roles that single authors assign to themselves in connec37. Further comparisons of French and Norwegian usage with regard to indefinite pronouns are needed. 148 Academic Voices tion with the use of first person singular pronouns (‘I’) – writer, researcher, arguer and evaluator. This system can to some extent also be applied to the use of ‘we’ in articles written by several authors, although the reference of first person plurals is much more varied than that of the first person singular (cf. 4.3). In 4.4, we discussed a number of possible referential values for indefinite pronouns. Both author roles and the reference of first person plural and indefinite pronouns will be at issue in the present case study. As shown in 4.1, multi-author medical articles have less frequent use of ‘we’ than articles from economics. In English and French, there is also less use of the indefinite ‘one’ in (single- plus multi-author) medical articles than in economics and linguistics, but the disciplinary differences in Norwegian are not significant. It is common knowledge that academic discourse tends to use more passives, nominalisations and various other constructions that allow the agent of reported actions to be left implicit, sometimes giving the texts an impersonal character. Kinn (2004, 2005b), in a study of the presence of cognitive research agents in connection with a selection of verbs in 60 Norwegian research articles from the KIAP Corpus, shows that the ratio of passive to active clauses with such verbs is clearly greater in medicine than in economics and (in particular) linguistics, and that, for the active, there is also more use of ‘one’ in medicine. In the present section, we examine one multi-author Norwegian medical article, viz. nomed43. This article has 11 occurrences of vi (‘we’) and 6 of man (‘one’). We will focus, above all, on how the authors describe processes where they themselves (or a group of people that they belong to) are participants, i.e. participants that can be referred to by an exclusive vi (‘we’). The processes in question are mainly parts of the research process, but some have to do with their textual and medical-advisory relation to the readership. We will look at the sections of the article in the sequence that they appear in: (an untitled) Introduction, Material/Method, Results, Discussion and (a very short) Conclusion. The Introduction can be analysed as having three parts: 1) definition and subdivision of the disorder in question (hydrocephalus) as well as current treatment options (two paragraphs), 2) treatment history (two paragraphs) and 3) introduction of the present study/article (one paragraph). The agents of the first part are the medical expert community; these are never explicitly referred to. The example in (22) is typical of this text part. (22) Hydrocephalus behandles enten ved å eliminere tilgrunnliggende årsak slik at hjernevæskesirkulasjon gjenopprettes, eller ved kirurgisk etablering av permanent alternativ drenasjevei for cerebrospinalvæsken. ‘Hydrocephalus is treated either by eliminating … so that circulation … is reestablished, or by the surgical establishing of …’ Chapter 4. Presence of the author 149 Three agent-suppressing construction types are employed: the passive (twice: behandles, gjenopprettes), an infinitival phrase (å eliminere …) and a nominalisation (etablering). The agents in the historical part are mostly medical writers and practitioners of the past, several of whom are mentioned by name and with bibliographical references. The presentation deals with two alternative procedure types and reaches the present time twice. In both cases, the agent is generalised to man (‘one’), referring to the international community of surgical experts. The examples are given in (23) and (24). (23) Fra slutten av 1970-årene har man foretrukket å shunte cerebrospinalvæsken til bukhulen pga. faren for alvorlige komplikasjoner ved å ha drenet liggende i blodbanen (6, 7). ‘Since the end of the 1970s, one has preferred to shunt … (6, 7).’ (24) I de etterfølgende år skjedde det en revolusjon innen endoskopisk teknikk, og etter hvert skiftet man fra ventrikkelstomi med stereotaktisk teknikk til endoskopisk teknikk som nå er blitt et etablert behandlingsalternativ ved hydrocephalus […]. ‘In the following years …, and gradually one changed techniques …’ Due to the difference in grammatical tense in the immediate cotext (present perfect in (23), past in (24)), the first man more clearly includes the authors themselves than the second. That is, the reference is to ON3, but bordering on ON6 in (24) (cf. 4.4). When, in the last paragraph of the introduction, the authors address their own study and article, they do refer to themselves by vi (‘we’) in an active sentence; (25) is the entire paragraph. This is an example of vi with a writer role. Note that there is a cohesive link between ‘the Neurosurgical unit’ in the first sentence and ‘we’ in the second; they are approximately the same referent. (25) Nevrokirurgisk avdeling, Rikshospitalet anskaffet for noen år siden utstyr for endoskopisk tredjeventrikkelstomi. Vi presenterer i denne artikkelen våre resultater ved behandling av hydrocephalus med denne metoden i perioden 1.1. 1999–31.12. 2000. ‘The Neurosurgical unit … some years ago acquired the equipment … We present in this article our results of the treatment …’ The Material and Method section describes 1) the patients and the treatment procedures and 2) the registration of data and statistical methods, i.e. two fairly separate research stages. The agents here are the medical staff of the surgical unit (a group that presumably includes the authors and some others) and the authors, respectively. There is reference to a fairly large number of treatment, registration 150 Academic Voices and calculation acts, and in all instances but one, passives, nominalisations and other agent-suppressing devices are used. A typical example is given in (26). (26) Det ble i denne perioden foretatt 136 prosedyrer på 120 pasienter, […]. 14 pasienter gjennomgikk to prosedyrer og en pasient tre. […] Figur 1 viser aldersfordelingen, og tabell 1 viser årsaken til hydrocephalus. ‘In this period, 136 procedures were performed on 120 patients … 14 patients underwent two procedures, and one patient, three. … Figure 1 shows the age distribution, and table 1 shows the cause of hydrocephalus.’ Here we have a passive (ble … foretatt), a morphologically active verb with a patient-role38 subject (gjennomgikk), two nominalisations (prosedyrer in both cases) and two personifications (of a figure and a table). Most of the implicit references to ‘we’ concern the researcher role, but the personifications serve as substitutes for ‘we’ with a writer role. The single appearance of an explicit ‘we’ in this part of the article is shown in its cotext in (27). This is an instance of vi with a researcher role. (27) Ikke vellykket behandling ble definert som persisterende symptomer på forhøyet intrakranialt trykk og/eller ytterligere utvikling av patologisk hodeomkrets. Hos pasientene med ikke-vellykket behandling la vi inn shunt eller gjentok endoskopiprosedyren. Alle pasientdata er oppdatert t.o.m. 30.6. 2001, slik at oppfølgingstiden er 6–30 måneder etter ventrikkelstomien. ‘Not successful treatment was defined as … For patients with a non-successful treatment, we inserted a shunt or repeated the endoscopy procedure. All patient data are updated up to June 30, 2001, so that the follow-up time is 6 to 30 months after the ventriculostomy.’ This is from the part dealing with registration procedures, formulated mostly in the passive, but the middle sentence interrupts this with additional treatment information. The deviating use of the active and the personal pronoun in la vi inn … eller gjentok (‘we inserted … or repeated’) functions well as a formal marking of a thematic sidetrack. The Results section is almost complectely devoid of agents, being similarly characterised by many passives and nominalisations. The beginning of (28) is typical, but the subordinate clause at the end presents an interesting departure from the rest of the text. (28) I fire tilfeller ble prosedyren avbrutt fordi det ikke var mulig å oppnå fenestrasjon av gulvet i tredje hjerneventrikkel. […] I det fjerde tilfellet kollab- 38. The pun is hard to avoid. Chapter 4. Presence of the author erte ventrikkelsystemet hos et prematurt barn under prosedyren slik at man mistet oversikten over de anatomiske landemerker. ‘In four cases the procedure was interrupted because it was not possible to achieve fenestration … In the fourth case, the ventricular system in a premature child collapsed during the procedure so that one lost view of the anatomical landmarks.’ It is difficult to tell to what extent the referents of man (‘one’) here overlap with the author group, i.e. whether it would have been an alternative for the authors to use vi (‘we’) in connection with this reported treatment failure. It appears, though, to be a special case of ON1. Of course, the use of ‘it was not possible’ without any direct reference to those who failed to achieve fenestration is equally inexplicit. We hasten to add that their reports of treatment successes, too, are agentless. The authors are far more visible in the Discussion, although there are agentless expressions here, too, especially nominalisations. There are a few references to the community of medical experts, where the indefinite man (ON3) is used a few times, e.g. as in (29). (29) Endoskopisk tredjeventrikkelstomi har i de senere år i økende grad blitt tatt i bruk som et alternativ til shunting. […] Man håper at endoskopibehandlingen hos utvalgte pasienter skal gi et like godt eller bedre funksjonelt resultat, […]. ‘In the last years, endoscopic third ventriculostomy has to an increasing extent been put to use as an alternative to shunting. … One hopes that endoscopy treatment for selected patients will give an equally good or better functional result …’ In (30), man presumably refers to the community of experts (ON3), although the authors of the publications referred to are prominent and do not include the authors of nomed43; i.e. the reference has a flavour of ON6. (30) Men kun hos et fåtall av pasientene som er vellykket behandlet på denne måten, finner man normalisering av ventrikkelstørrelsen, og hos noen pasienter forblir ventriklene uendret forstørret selv om behandlingen åpenbart har effekt (15–18). ‘But only for a minority of the patients successfully treated in this way does one find normalisation … (15–18).’ We note that the authors use vi (‘we’) when referring to decisions about treatment policies at the surgical unit (special cases of the researcher role). An example is given in (31), where their policy of the period in question is motivated with reference to a 151 152 Academic Voices previous study, and a revised policy is introduced for the future because of reported low shares of treatment success for a specific patient group in their own study. (31) På bakgrunn av den positive rapporten fra Cinalli og medarbeidere valgte vi å tilby endoskopisk behandling til alle aldersgrupper. Ved gjennomgang av vårt materiale fant vi imidlertid en meget lav andel vellykket behandlede […]. For fremtiden vil vi derfor fortrinnsvis tilby endoskopisk tredjeventrikkelstomi til pasienter over seks måneder. ‘On the basis of the positive report from Cinalli and collaborators, we chose to offer … But in the examination of our material, we found a very low share … In the future, we will therefore primarily offer …’ Towards the end of the Discussion, the authors use vi in connection with expressions of belief and opinion as well as recommendations directed at the presumed primary readership, i.e. the community of neurosurgeons. Such cases of vi with an evaluator and arguer role are illustrated in (32). (32) Vi har fått stor tro på endoskopisk tredjeventrikkelstomi og anbefaler at metoden også prøves som første behandlingsalternativ hos pasienter over seks måneder med kommuniserende hydrocephalus. Unntaket er etter vår mening pasienter med tydelig ekstern supratentorial hydrocephalus. Vi mener at det per i dag ikke foreligger sikre hydromekaniske tester som kan predikere hvem som vil ha nytte av metoden. ‘We have developed great belief in endoscopic third ventriculostomy and recommend that the method should be attempted … The exception, in our view, is patients with … We believe that there are currently no …’ The entire Conclusion is quoted in (33). Here the authors do not refer explicitly to themselves, but are implicitly present as evaluators in both sentences, e.g. in the epistemic verb synes (‘appears’; cf. Vold 2005) and in the positive adjectives godt (‘good’) and oppmuntrende (‘encouraging’). (33) Endoskopisk tredjeventrikkelstomi synes å være et godt behandlingsalternativ til pasienter eldre enn seks måneder med behandlingstrengende ikke-kommuniserende hydrocephalus. Resultatene av prosedyren hos pasienter over seks måneder med ikke-kommuniserende hydrocephalus er oppmuntrende. ‘Endoscopic third ventriculostomy appears to be a good treatment alternative … The results of the procedure … are encouraging.’ To sum up, the authors of nomed43 mainly report treatment and research procedures without making explicit who the agents are. This is achieved by, inter alia, passives, nominalisations and non-finite verbal constructions. In most cases, there is little doubt as to who the agents are, viz. the authors themselves or a collec- Chapter 4. Presence of the author 153 tive that they are central members of, but the pronoun vi (‘we’) is not often used. In some cases, e.g. the event reported in (28) above, it appears likely that only some of the authors (if any) are involved, but exactly who this is is admittedly not important for the readers, and it would have been strange to use a more specifically referring expression than man (‘one’). It is interesting to observe in what contexts the authors choose to use vi, viz. primarily in the Discussion and notably in reports on decisions and in recommendations. They do not hesitate to enter the stage, so to speak, when defending their views, but otherwise they do so only rarely. 4.6.3 A study of two English abstracts In this case study of abstracts we have selected two texts from the English subcorpus. The contrasting variable is discipline, with one abstract from economics and one from linguistics. Both texts are rendered in full below. These two particular texts have been chosen because they enable us to illustrate the issues that are dealt with in our discussion of abstracts (section 4.5), and because each is a fairly typical example of an abstract within the discipline they belong to in our corpus. We start with the economics abstract, engecon04, which is written by a single female author. Author roles have been added and will be referred to when we comment on these issues below. Economics (34) How do foreign patent rights affect U.S. exports, affiliate sales, and licenses? This paper analyzes how foreign patent rights (FPRs) affect US exports, affiliate sales, and licenses. Our approach is distinctive in three ways. We apply [researcher] ownership, location, and internalization concepts to link FPRs with servicing decisions. We account for [researcher] the simultaneity of servicing decisions. We estimate [researcher] the relative effects of FPRs on exports, affiliate sales, and licenses. Empirical findings show strong FPRs increase US affiliate sales and licenses, particularly across countries with strong imitative abilities. Further, FPRs have a larger effect on US knowledge transferred outside the country and firm, relative to knowledge located inside the country and internalized inside the firm. (abstract engecon04) As stated in section 4.5.2, one of the very few comments regarding languagerelated issues which journals tend to mention in their instructions to authors is abstract length. In economics journals, 100 words is in most cases the required 154 Academic Voices number.39 The text we are discussing here matches this almost perfectly: the abstract is 101 words, and hence must in this respect be said to be a typical instance of an economics abstract. As regards author roles, the first thing to note is that the author is overtly present in the abstract through the use of first person pronouns. As this is a singleauthor text, the author has a choice whether to use the singular or the plural form. The plural has been chosen, which must be considered the default choice in this particular subcorpus40 (see the discussion of authorial ‘we’ in 4.3). As can be seen from our labelling in the abstract, the author is visible as a researcher in all three instances. (This is also the dominant role in the economics abstracts corpus as a whole; cf. Table 4.5-1 in section 4.5.2.) In addition, she is present through the use of the possessive our in sentence 2.41 We also see that the inanimate noun paper is used with an animate verb, analyze, making the noun take on a personalised meaning which has been shown to be typical for scientific language (Prelli 1989; Master 2001). With three instances of a first person pronoun, author presence in this abstract is stronger than the average for this subcorpus, which is 2.3 occurrences (Table 4.5-1). Let us then take a look at how the author makes use of evaluative elements in the abstract to persuade potential readers that it is worth taking the trouble to read the accompanying full article. In our discussion of the abstract corpus in section 4.5, we focused only on evaluative elements linked to findings. In this section we comment on promotion in a slightly wider sense. This particular abstract has one clearly promotional element, viz. the whole of sentence 2: Our approach is distinctive in three ways. This sentence has an interpersonal metadiscourse function, intended to persuade the reader of the original nature this research contribution represents. The use of the ”undisputably evaluative” (Lindeberg 2004) adjective distinctive makes this clear not only to the discipline professional, but also to the uninitiated reader of this text. Next, we turn to the linguistics abstract, engling17, which is written by two authors. Linguistics (35) Reconsidering prepositional polysemy networks: the case of over 39. A well-known Norwegian economics professor once said in a discussion with us about academic discourse that when writing an abstract, he always makes a point of making sure that it ends up at exactly 100 words (Agnar Sandmo, personal communication.) 40. Three instances of the singular form I from three different abstracts are found in the abstract subcorpus of 40 texts. Two of these are written by a female author. 41. Possessives are not included in our discussion in section 4.5, and do not affect the figures (cf. 4.1.1). Chapter 4. Presence of the author 155 This article explores lexical polysemy through an in-depth examination of the English preposition over. Working within a cognitive linguistic framework, the present study illustrates the nonarbitrary quality of the mental lexicon and the highly creative nature of the human conceptual system. The analysis takes the following as basic: (1) human conceptualization is the product of embodied experience, that is, the kinds of bodies and neural architecture humans have, in conjunction with the nature of the spatio-physical world humans inhabit, determine human conceptual structure, and (2) semantic structure derives from and reflects conceptual structure. As humans interact with the world, they perceive recurring spatial configurations that become represented in memory as abstract, imagistic conceptualizations. We posit that [arguer] each preposition is represented by a primary meaning, which we term [researcher] a PROTOSCENE. The protoscene, in turn, interacts with a highly constrained set of cognitive principles to derive a set of additional distinct senses, forming a motivated semantic network. Previous accounts have failed to develop adequate criteria to distinguish between coding in formal linguistic expression and the nature of conceptualization, which integrates linguistic prompts in a way that is maximally coherent with and contingent upon sentential context and real-world knowledge. To this end, we put forward [researcher] a methodology for identifying the protoscene and for distinguishing among distinct senses. (abstract engling17) This abstract has 214 words distributed over 8 sentences. Instructions to authors in English linguistics journals often indicate that abstracts ought to be between 100 and 200 words, and the abstracts in our linguistics subcorpus generally adhere to this norm. Hence, this text is somewhat longer than what is typically the case. It is, however, not the longest one in the English linguistics subcorpus; the engling24 abstract contains 294 words, while the engling23 abstract has as many as 336.42 The authors are present through a first person pronoun in three instances, which in terms of the strength of the presence is practically identical with the average of 2.9 for this subcorpus (Table 4.5-2). As regards author roles, our labels show that in the first occurrence the author takes on the arguer role (We posit that), while the other two are instances of the researcher role (we term, we put forward). That both the arguer and the researcher roles are present also corresponds well with our expectations for such texts (Table 4.5-2). As was the case in the economics abstract above, here, too, we find a personalised use of article.43 Another thing 42. These three longest ones are from three different journals. 43. As regards the variation between article and paper in English, our studies of metatext in the articles show that the economists almost exclusively use paper, while the linguists occasionally use article, even though they, too, show a very clear preference for paper. 156 Academic Voices to note in this abstract is the overt distinction between the research project and the textual realisation of it, visible through the references to [t]his article (sentence 1) and the present study (sentence 2).44 As the present abstract is quite long, the potential for finding traces of promotional elements is higher than for shorter texts. In fact, an evaluative element is found in the first sentence, viz. ”an in-depth examination”. Since a thorough analysis is positive in all kinds of research, no discipline-specific knowledge is required to recognise the value of this modifier. A clearly promotional effect is also created in the following text passage from the second half of the abstract: (36) Previous accounts have failed to develop adequate criteria to distinguish between [….]. To this end, we put forward a methodology for identifying the protoscene and for distinguishing among distinct senses. Here the authors are performing the rhetorical moves of establishing a niche and then occupying the niche (Swales 1990). The positive evaluative effect is created through the contrast between the knowledge level of the field before and after the research reported on in the abstract is taken into account. 4.7 Concluding remarks In this chapter, we have been concerned primarily with the textual presence of authors as manifested in the use of first person pronouns as well as indefinite pronouns meaning ‘one’. Taking into consideration the great referential flexibility of both ‘we’ and ‘one’, we have also addressed the inclusion of reader and third persons and various rhetorical functions of such pronoun uses. Thus, although reader/writer interaction and the presence of others are the foci of attention in the next two chapters, it will be evident that the various aspects of person manifestation cannot be kept entirely separate. As indicated already in Chapter 3 (see Table 3.2-1), both the discipline and the language factor are co-determinants of the frequency of use of both first person (‘I’ and ‘we’) and indefinite (‘one’) subject pronouns. For the former, discipline is somewhat more important than language, while for the latter, language has a much stronger effect. First person is further the feature where individual variation is greatest, 73 % of the variance being unaccounted for by reference to effects of discipline and language differences. 44. As will be seen in our discussion of metatext in Chapter 5, medical articles give first and foremost the impression of being accounts of a research project, rather than texts in their own right (cf. section 5.2). Chapter 4. Presence of the author 157 As expected, medicine has less use of the first person than the other two disciplines, which are not very different in this respect, although linguists do use ‘I’ more than economists. Overall, linguists also use indefinite pronouns more than economists, and economists more than medical writers, but here there are clear differences between the different language sublevels. It seems to be clear that there is a weaker pronominal manifestation of the first person in medicine than in economics and linguistics, while the difference between those two disciplines is smaller than we had expected. As regards the language factor, French has the least frequent use of the first person, whereas English and Norwegian are fairly similar, with Norwegian tending to range the highest. As expected, English has far less use of ‘one ‘than the other languages, while the relation between French and Norwegian varies depending on the discipline. The complex relation between the usages of these two languages indicates possible interaction with the use and non-use of the first person. Our discussion in 4.2 of author roles posited four central types, viz. the author as writer, researcher, arguer and evaluator, and it was shown that there are clear differences between subcorpora in the distribution of these roles for ‘I’, and especially between the disciplines. Turning to ‘we’ and ‘one’, in 4.3 and 4.4 we looked at a number of (in part very similar) referential possibilities that both of these pronouns open up for, and we discussed a number of functions that they have in research articles. In section 4.3, some aspects of the polyphonic properties of ‘we’ were also briefly discussed. Section 4.5 addressed author manifestation in abstracts, an important genre outside of the research article body, which is our primary focus of attention in this book, while several case studies of person manifestation were performed in 4.6. Pronoun use has a central place in the rhetoric of the research article, as in many – probably most – other genres. Our study of pronouns has mostly had its focus on low-level phenomena: reference, author roles, verbs and metatextual expressions. Many other researchers, although also providing quantitative data (cf. references in 4.0), have been more overtly concerned with rhetorical functions than we have here. However, combining detailed studies of particular expression types with large-scale quantitative analyses, we think that our perspective complements those previous studies in important ways and contributes significantly to our collective understanding of pronoun use in academic discourse. chapter 5 Reader/writer interaction 5.0 Introduction Having dealt primarily with the presence of the author(s) in the previous chapter, we now turn to aspects of texts that are more closely connected to the interaction between authors and readers, the interplay between self and other. We address the third main question: How do the authors present and promote their own research? Specifically, we look at metatextual expressions (such as ‘article’ and ‘below’; details about the items we have included in this investigation are given in section 5.2) and expressions of the type ‘let us’ (and ‘let me’), as well as the overt textual presentation of ‘results’ and ‘conclusions’. Hence, we discuss linguistic phenomena which in different ways address the issue of reader/writer interaction. One of the most classical instances of such interaction is metadiscourse. For reasons which will be given below, we have in this study chosen to focus not on metadiscourse as such, but (primarily) on the use of metatext. Metadiscourse is a wider concept which is often discussed with a point of departure in Vande Kopple’s rather vague definition of it as “discourse about discourse or communication about communication” (1985: 83). His somewhat tentative classification system developed in the same work, as well as further developments in studies involving Crismore (Crismore 1989; Crismore & Farnsworth 1990; Crismore, Markkanen & Steffensen 1993) are early well-known contributions to the field. The concept of metadiscourse is clearly a relevant one in discussions of academic text,1 a fact reflected by the many studies devoted to it (see below). Such studies very often take a contrastive angle, focusing on either language or discipline. English is commonly used as a point of reference, bearing witness to the importance of English as a lingua franca in the global education and research community. Many of these studies have a pedagogical purpose as the most prominent one, often stressing that the findings may be used to help non-native speakers of English in their publishing efforts. Interesting studies of this kind are e.g. Mauranen (1993b), Valero-Garcés (1996) and Bunton (1999), all on written discourse, and Mauranen (2002) and Thompson (2003), on spoken discourse. 1. However, other genres and settings have been studied as well (e.g. Fuertes-Olivera et al. 2001). 160 Academic Voices As witnessed by Vande Kopple’s definition rendered above, metadiscourse is a concept which is difficult to delimit. It may be realised by various linguistic forms and may fulfil a number of pragmatic functions in the text. Many metadiscourse studies make use of the Hallidayan distinction between the textual and interpersonal macrofunctions of language (Halliday 1973), most of them with their own modifications of Vande Kopple’s classification system. Textual metadiscourse, according to Vande Kopple, refers to devices which primarily play the role of organising the text for the reader, while interpersonal metadiscourse is mainly used to interact with the reader about the propositional content. This division of metadiscourse into two categories has given rise to the term metatext, used in studies of textual metadiscourse (Mauranen 1993b; Valero-Garcés 1996; Moreno 1997; Bunton 1999), while the term metadiscourse tends to be used in studies discussing textual as well as interpersonal functions (Crismore 1989; Crismore & Farnsworth 1990; Hyland 1998b, 1999). We may in a somewhat loose way say that metadiscourse represents overt expressions of the writer’s acknowledgement of the reader. As indicated above, the concept is a multifunctional one and may be realised through many different linguistic forms. In this book, several phenomena are investigated which could be classified as metadiscourse. Cases in point are first person pronouns and evaluative expressions (both instances of interpersonal metadiscourse in the Crismore framework, which is used in many studies on metadiscourse, e.g. Hyland 1998b, 1999) as well as references (textual metadiscourse subclassified as evidentials in Hyland 1998b, 1999). We have decided to keep these phenomena apart, since we find it important to study the different kinds of presence they manifest. We do, however, here deal with ‘let us’-constructions, which are typically included in studies of metadiscourse (e.g. Swales et al. 1998 and Hyland 2002b; references to other studies of this construction will be given in section 5.3). As stated above, we in this chapter also discuss lexical realisations of ‘results’ and ‘conclusions’, a topic which to our knowledge has not been dealt with in a cross-linguistic or cross-disciplinary context before (an exception in the latter category is Grinde 2003; other relevant studies will be referred to in the discussion in 5.4). Based on previous studies of metadiscourse, our main hypothesis related to language in this chapter was that reader/writer interaction would be more visible in English (cf. e.g. Mauranen 1993b) than in French (cf. Valero-Garcés 1996, comparing English and Spanish, another Romance language; Moreno 1997, however, a study of causal metatext, finds more similarities than differences between English and Spanish from a quantitative point of view). For Norwegian, no previous studies exist, but our tentative feelings as native speakers were that Norwegian authors are somewhat less visible in the text than their English-writing colleagues. As for the discipline variable, Hyland (1998b) includes (applied) linguistics among the Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 161 four disciplines investigated (the other three being microbiology, astrophysics and marketing). In that study, linguistics is ranked last in terms of textual metadiscourse markers (1998b: 447), the category that comes closest to our metatext study. Our pilot study (Breivega et al. 2002) did not yield clear indications of disciplinary differences. However, we assumed metatext to be more prevalent in linguistics and economics than in medicine, based on the fact that medical writers in general seemed to be less visible in their texts than writers from the other two disciplines (ibid.). In the study of reader/writer interaction, a lot of implicit polyphony may take place. However, what we focus on here is the explicit signalling undertaken by the author(s) in order to bring the reader into the text. This, as already indicated, can be done in many ways, for example by guiding the reader through the text by means of metatextual expressions (section 5.2) or by calling directly on the reader by ‘let us’-constructions (5.3). In a Bakhtinian dialogical perspective, this has to do with the interlocutive influence the meaning of an utterance may undergo (see Bres 1999). The locutor sets up the play in a way that anticipates the interaction of a potential interlocutor or reader. The chapter is organised as follows: after the presentation of quantitative and qualitative results in section 5.1, we discuss metatext in section 5.2, ‘let us’-constructions in 5.3, while our discussion of ‘results’ and ‘conclusions’ takes place in section 5.4. In section 5.5 we present three case studies, the first on metatext in three English economics articles (5.5.1), the second on ‘let’-imperatives in one Norwegian economics article (5.5.2), while the third deals with metatext and author manifestation in a French medical article (5.5.3). The chapter ends with a concluding section summing up the main findings relating to reader/writer interaction (5.6). 5.1 Quantitative and comparative results This section presents the results of our third main quantitative investigation, viz. that of a selection of metatextual expression types. Statistical details can be found in Appendix B. We emphasise that what we have studied is a selection, and this is discussed in 5.2. The data are presented in Table 5.1-1. As we saw in 3.2, a very large share of the variance in the relative frequency of metatext, 52 %, is due to differences between disciplines. Another 12 % is contributed by language differences, and 2 % to the interaction of the discipline and language factors. Hence, about 34 % of the variance is left unaccounted for. 162 Academic Voices Table 5.1-1. The use of metatext Corpus No. of articles No. of tokens Mean rel. fr. Median rel. fr. Standard deviation Quartile deviation engecon engling engmed frecon frling frmed noecon noling nomed 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 976 1230 47 474 187 8 697 432 9 0.327 0.279 0.027 0.149 0.076 0.007 0.223 0.161 0.009 0.314 0.256 0.008 0.126 0.054 0.000 0.209 0.139 0.000 0.140 0.143 0.041 0.123 0.082 0.017 0.107 0.129 0.024 0.088 0.125 0.022 0.065 0.056 0.000 0.059 0.084 0.000 econall lingall medall 150 150 150 2147 1849 64 0.233 0.172 0.014 0.213 0.138 0.000 0.143 0.146 0.030 0.086 0.096 0.010 engall frall noall 150 150 150 2253 669 1138 0.211 0.077 0.131 0.199 0.039 0.108 0.177 0.103 0.133 0.151 0.060 0.113 KIAP 450 4060 0.140 0.095 0.151 0.115 Relative frequencies and deviations in %. The discipline factor. In general, metatext is used more in economics than in linguistics, and more in linguistics than in medicine. The differences between economics and linguistics, respectively, as well as the differences between linguistics and medicine, are significant at the superlevel and at the sublevel (in each language) – except that the difference between economics and linguistics at the English sublevel is not significant.2 The language factor. Metatext is more frequent in English articles than in Norwegian ones, and more frequent in Norwegian than in French. These differences – between English and French, between English and Norwegian, and between French and Norwegian – are significant both at the superlevel and at the sublevel (in each discipline), the only exception being the difference between French and Norwegian at the medical sublevel, which is not significant. The gender factor. In some of the subcorpora, male authors use metatext more than do female authors. The differences are significant in French economics and Norwegian economics, and there is also a significant difference in French when 2. The terms superlevel and sublevel are explained in 2.2.5. Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 163 economics and linguistics are considered together.3 (Recall that the few medical articles with one author are not included in our gender studies.) 5.2 Metatext We will in this section discuss meta-elements which have a primarily textual function. An earlier study of metatext in roughly half the KIAP Corpus discussed a much wider selection of items (Dahl 2004c). Many of these occurred only sporadically. Based on those findings we in this study have narrowed our list of search items to those that turned out to be the most common ones in our texts.4 Table 5.2 presents the items that have been included in the present analysis. Table 5.2-1. Metatextual search items in all three languages English French Norwegian article, paper (sub)section above now below article, papier (sous-)section ci-dessus, plus haut maintenant, à présent ci-dessous, plus bas artikkel avsnitt ovenfor/ova(n)for, over nå nedenfor/neda(n)for These metatextual items are of two kinds. Items in the first group refer to the text and specific parts of it by the use of ‘article’/’paper’ and ‘(sub)section’, while those in the second express basic spatial relations within the text, pointing backwards (so-called reviews), forwards (so-called previews) and to current point, through the use of ‘above’, ‘below’ and ‘now’ (the latter of course also has a temporal aspect). The main function of such meta-elements (apart from ‘article’/’paper’) is to help the reader navigate the text. The category corresponds quite closely to what Hyland (1998b, 1999), in his broader metadiscourse studies requiring a more fine-grained classification, calls endophoric markers. Hyland’s studies do not explicitly mention elements which refer to the text itself. In addition, we have, as already noted, in- 3. Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test, α = 0.05; see section 2.2.5. 4. In this earlier study (Dahl 2004c) we also looked at so-called discourse verbs (e.g. ‘describe’, ‘emphasise’, ‘summarise’ and ‘conclude’), which were classified as rhetorical metatext, while the kind of metatext discussed here was termed locational metatext. These verbs are in the present study discussed in connection with author roles in section 4.2. 164 Academic Voices cluded ‘now’, which Hyland (1998b) classifies as a topic shift indicator, a subclass of his frame marker category. Here are some typical examples from our material: (1) The present paper studies a quantitative dynamic-optimizing business cycle model of a small open economy in which nominal prices and wages are sticky. (engecon01) (2) Cet article propose une analyse théorique de ces politiques en considérant que chaque hôpital peut agir sur son coût de production par un effort de réduction du coût et par un effort d’accroissement de la qualité. (frecon35) ‘This article proposes a theoretical analysis …’ (3) I denne artikkelen vil vi presentere eksperimentelle resultater fra preteritumsbøyning i norsk, fra barn i alderen 4-8 år og fra voksne. (noling07) ‘In this article, we will present experimental results …’ (4) Although this complication has not been observed in most of the clinical reports cited above (also reviewed by Holland and Schwartz24), a recent report of three cases did show that the donor eye developed pseudopterygium. (engmed32) (5) Une borne inférieure est obtenue avec une stratégie de tarif binôme comme décrite ci-dessus. (frecon24) ‘… as described above.’ (6) Effekten av markedsstørrelse som ble drøftet ovenfor kombineres ofte med diskusjoner av andre typer koblinger mellom bedriftene. (noecon03) ‘… that was discussed above …’ (7) The specimen was routinely fixed in formalin, processed to paraffin-wax blocks and tested for its HPA-binding pattern according to the method shown below. (engmed08) (8) Le raisonnement ”par défaut” ci-dessous ne peut en conséquence avoir valeur de preuve définitive. (frmed19) ‘The reasoning ”by default” below …’ (9) I setningen nedenfor regner vi med at jenta har blitt flyttet fra objektsposisjonen etter verbet ‘kysse’ og frem på subjektsplass, og et spor (t) står i objektsposisjonen: […]. (noling11) ‘In the sentence below, …’ (10) The analysis now turns to the optimal production policy of a regulated incumbent threatened with entry. (engecon13) (11) Je vais maintenant appliquer ce type d’explication à quelques uns des cas évoqués par D.L. (frling13) ‘I will now apply this type of explication …’ Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 165 (12) Nå vil vi på mer allment grunnlag undersøke om den er riktig. (noling06) ‘Now we will … investigate whether …’ In addition to leaving out metatextual elements that our preliminary study showed to be relatively rare in our material, such as e.g. ‘chapter’, ‘part’, ‘previously’, ‘so far’ and ‘already’ (Dahl 2004c), we also decided to exclude the potentially metatextual ‘here’ from the analysis. This word is − at least in English and Norwegian5 − chameleon-like in nature, displaying, inter alia, locational, temporal and anaphoric characteristics. Here are a few English examples illustrating this: (13) The data presented here support Prince’s (1984, 1997) postulation of a distinction between LD1 and LD2. (engling21) (interpretation: ‘in this article’) (14) Here is a speculation about what might actually be going on. (engling46) (interpretation: ‘now follows’) (15) The important example here is (93), where the infinitive is controlled by the subject of the sentence. (engling47) (interpretation: ‘in this case’?) (16) But he offers only one really strong argument in favor of not leaving copies with A- movement, and that is the one which will concern us here. (engling49) (interpretation: ‘in this article’?; ‘at this point’?) The difficulties experienced in classifying each instance led to the decision of leaving out ‘here’ altogether. We also decided to exclude the items ‘figure’, ‘table’, ‘equation’ and ‘example’ from our investigation. These words refer to phenomena which are an integral part of academic presentation and the discussion of claims and results. The first two can be found in all our three disciplines, while the third belongs to economics and the fourth (primarily) to linguistics.6 In our view, these words are not typical indicators of writer/reader interaction, since it is the subject material which typically decides whether they are used or not. We will now take a closer look behind the figures for metatext given in Table 5.1-1. As regards the use of ‘article’, the English texts have more occurrences than the Norwegian (second in all three disciplines) and the French ones (third in all 5. The Norwegian texts contain 963 occurrences of her, the English texts 670 here, while the French texts have 432 occurrences of ici. 6. In Dahl (2004c), involving roughly half the KIAP Corpus, only one occurrence of example was recorded in the English medical texts. In the economics texts, 27 occurrences were found, while in the linguistics texts as many as 261 occurrences of example were recorded (two English linguistics articles alone contained 61 and 41 occurrences of example respectively). The same trend was seen for French and Norwegian. 166 Academic Voices three disciplines). As regards the discipline variable, the economists refer to the whole text more often than the linguists, while in medicine there are hardly any such references at all. As for ‘section’, this is used only in economics and linguistics. In the medical texts (all three languages) there are no relevant hits.7 In economics (all three languages) and in English linguistics, ‘section’ is much more frequent than ‘article’. The economists in all three languages make use of the almost uniform pattern of article structure presentation towards the end of the Introduction section of the text. Swales (2004: 232) describes this as providing a roadmap of the structure of the paper, and states that ”the occurrence of this step seems to be inversely related to whether the disciplinary field has an established IMRD-like sectional arrangement” (ibid.). This pattern greatly contributes to the high number of occurrences in the economics subcorpus: (17) The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 briefly describes […]. We present our model of information sharing in Section 3, where we show that […]. Section 4 describes some of the central bank’s activities that are […]. Section 5 concludes and suggests avenues for further investigation. (engecon03) (18) La section 2 est consacrée à la présentation du modèle […]. Dans la troisième section, nous étudions la transition vers un système par capitalisation en […]. La quatrième section conclut l’article. (frecon09) ‘Section 2 is devoted to … In the third section, we study … The fourth section concludes the paper.’ (19) Artikkelen er delt inn som følger. Avsnitt 2 presenterer modellen og gir […]. I avsnitt 3 benytter vi modellen til å analysere […]. Avsnitt 4 drøfter mulige tiltak for å […]. Avsnitt 5 konkluderer. (noecon05) ‘… Section 2 presents the model … In section 3, we employ the model … Section 4 discusses … Section 5 concludes.’ This feature is, however, much less universally present in the linguistics articles, even though these to an even lesser degree than the economics articles are IMRAD-structured. 7. The search in the English medical corpus returned many hits for section, but they are all references to Caesarean section! Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 167 As for the category of items specifying spatial relations within the text, it turns out that reviews (i.e. ‘above’) are far more common than previews (‘below’). This trend is valid for all the subcorpora, independently of language and discipline.8 The last three examples given above illustrate another phenomenon of metatext/metadiscourse, viz. clustering (cf. e.g. Mauranen 1993b). Sentences containing a meta-element are in fact very likely also to comprise other elements indicating author presence. The following example from one of the Norwegian economics articles may serve as an additional illustration of this point: (20) Vi vil komme tilbake til dette punktet senere i kapittel 3 i denne artikkelen, der vi ser på modellen til Greenwald og Stiglitz (1990). (noecon09) ‘We will get back to this point later in section 3 of this article, where we look at …’ As indicated in section 5.1, metatext is a feature that is highly sensitive to the discipline factor. Economists use significantly more metatext (at least of the kind we focus on here) than the linguists, and authors in both these two disciplines use much more of it than the medical authors. That the medical texts turn out to be very different from the texts in the other two disciplines is not very surprising. Our pilot study showed the same trend (Breivega et al. 2002). In fact, the impression one gets from reading the medical texts is that the authors do not seem to focus on them as texts in the same way as the economists and linguists do. This is for instance reflected in practically a complete absence of references to the articles themselves, as already mentioned. In the medical articles, ‘study’ is frequently used, a word which we have not included in our selection of metatextual search items, as it in our view primarily refers to the (physical) research project rather than the textual account of it. As stated in section 4.5, medical reporting tends to be formally organised through the IMRAD format. Hence, the content presented is forced into information categories in a given sequence, and no extra processing effort is needed by the expert reader in orienting him- or herself within the text. This explains the complete lack of references to parts of the article (by means of the word ‘section’), a word which we saw above occurs frequently in the other two disciplines. The same applies to the use of reviews and previews. They are not needed, because the reader already knows where in the text the information is to be found. It is in fact a point for the medical writer to make sure that information belonging to the various article sections is kept apart. As has been shown in a study of argumentation 8. Pisanski Peterlin (2005), in a study of previews and reviews in 32 English and Slovene research articles from mathematics and archaeology, finds that in her corpus previews are twice as common as reviews. One explanation given for this finding is that the articles are quite short and hence reviews may seem unnecessary. The articles in the present corpus tend to be longer, which may explain why our data yield the opposite result. 168 Academic Voices strategies in Norwegian research articles (Breivega 2003), the strategy in medical articles is not to create a high degree of functional connection in the text, but rather to maintain a sharp distinction between research data and the interpretation of these. In contrast to the medical writers, neither economists nor linguists have a standardised text format to rely on (cf. section 4.5). The consequence is that articles within these two disciplines have a more heterogeneous organisation. This in turn has implications for how information can be tracked in the text. Metatext thus becomes a very useful tool in offering assistance to the reader in the text navigation process. The finding that economists use significantly more metatext than linguists is valid for French and Norwegian, but not for English (cf. sections 3.3 and 5.1). However, there are statistically significant differences in frequency between the languages, with most frequent use in English in all three disciplines. The Norwegian authors in all three disciplines in turn use more metatext than the French.9 How can this be explained? Within the Anglo-American world, particularly the US, much focus is placed on teaching students at various levels to write effectively. This is witnessed by compulsory college composition classes. Emphasis is put on communication with a reader, hence making this an explicit factor in the writing process. The fact that this is taught explicitly in the educational system most likely reflects a similar ideal prevalent in this society in general. In our discussion of national identity (section 1.3), we quoted from Mauranen’s (1993b) study of metatext in English economics texts written by native speakers and Finns respectively. As this quote is very relevant for our discussion here, it is repeated: The careful and explicit guidance practised by Anglo-American writers, together with frequent signalling of the personal presence of the author […] conveys the impression that the reader is invited to take a tour of the text together with the author, who acts as a guide. (Mauranen 1993b: 16) Norway has less of a tradition in this matter. However, throughout the school system today there is in general increased focus on writing as a process and on argumentation, both orally and in writing. At university level there is also an increase in courses and seminars on academic writing. It seems likely that this trend will favour the role of the writer as someone who is clearly present in his or her texts (Stålhammar 2002 reports a similar trend for Swedish). And as the results from our investigation show, Norwegian authors within the disciplines of linguistics and economics, too, clearly exploit metatext as a tool in helping their readers process the text. On the basis of these results, we may claim that both English and 9. However, in medicine the difference between French and Norwegian is negligible. Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 169 Norwegian are representatives of so-called reader-oriented, or from another angle, writer responsible, cultures. Hinds, in a paper discussing reader versus writer responsibility, states that English clearly belongs in the second category: “English speakers, by and large, charge the writer, or speaker, with the responsibility to make clear and well-organized statements” (Hinds 1987: 143). Norwegian has here been shown to belong to the same category. The following example from our Norwegian economics subcorpus may serve as a good illustration of this: (21) La meg derfor bare gi et lite hint om sammenhengen nå, og invitere leseren til å lese seg videre ned gjennom artikkelen for å få med seg detaljene. (noecon07) ‘Let me therefore just hint at the connection now, and invite the reader to read on through the article to pick up the details.’ It is of course quite possible that academic writing traditions in Norway over time have been influenced by the Anglo-American tradition. To us as native speakers of Norwegian it is, however, somewhat unexpected that Norwegian academic writers are so similar to their English-speaking colleagues in this respect. French writers, on the other hand, must according to our findings for metatext be classified as belonging to the reader responsible cultures, in the company of e.g. Finnish and Polish (Mauranen 1993b; Duszak 1994). Hall and Hall (1990), discussing cultural differences between various national cultures including, inter alia, the French, Americans and Scandinavians, introduce the concepts of high context (HC) and low context (LC) communication. They describe the French as representatives of a HC culture, stating that “most of the information is already in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicit, transmitted message” (ibid.: 6), while Americans and Scandinavians are said to be representatives of LC cultures, implying that “the mass of information is vested in the explicit code” (ibid.). Our findings here fit well with their description of these cultures. We do, however, realise that as our analysis is based on form rather than function, the inclusion of other metatextual elements specific to French might have yielded a somewhat different picture (cf. Moreno 1998). As will become clear in 5.3, the French are more active users of ‘let us’-imperatives than their Englishand Norwegian-writing colleagues, a fact that serves to modify our findings for metatext. 5.3 ‘Let us’-imperatives Text features related to the interaction between writer and reader and their interaction with the text have received markedly more attention in research on aca- 170 Academic Voices demic discourse since the 1990s. The author wishes to create a convincing text and to gain acceptance for his or her research and for him- or herself as a researcher. Hence, there is a need to develop a suitable relation with the readers and let the text address their expectations (see Bazerman 1988; Swales 1990; Hyland 2000, 2001a, 2002b). In this picture, features such as author presence and metatext become important. Among the most explicitly interpersonal and textual features used in this connection are ‘let us’-imperatives and other imperatives (including others with ‘let’). Overt references to the reader by use of second person pronouns or expressions like the reader are rather uncommon (although they do occur, pace Swales (1990: 137); see example (21) in section 5.2). Hence, ‘let us’-imperatives are in many cases the closest we get to overt addressivity.10 5.3.1 Types of ‘let’-imperatives In English, there are several formal types of let-imperative (see Collins 2004 for various classifications). We will simply distinguish between three types based on the grammatical object of let (which is also the implicit subject of the following infinitive). The first type is let us-imperatives, of which there are two subtypes, viz. exclusive and inclusive let us-imperative, corresponding to exclusive and inclusive we (see 4.3). The difference is whether the addressee is included or not, as illustrated in (1) and (2) below. The contracted form let’s is only used for the inclusive type, as a slightly informal alternative to let us. The second type is let me-imperatives, as illustrated in (3). The third type is let-imperatives with a third person object of let, as illustrated in (4). (1) Kim and I want to go to the park alone. Please, let us go! (2) Why don’t you and I go to the park? Come on, let us (let’s) go! (3) I want to go to the park. Please, let me go! (4) Kim and Sam want to go to the park. Just let them go! Let us-imperatives, let me-imperatives and let-imperatives with third person objects are all employed in English academic discourse. Typical examples are given in (5)–(7). (5) Having accounted for basic reconstruction effects with A-movement, let us now go back to the data that motivated Chomsky’s and Lasnik’s conclusion that there are no reconstruction effects with A-movement. (engling49) 10. We have not systematically investigated the frequency of ordinary imperatives. The main reason is that they are not formally recognisable by any inflectional suffix or the like in English or Norwegian and therefore not possible to search for automatically. Hence, a systematic investigation would have meant reading all the corpus articles in order to excerpt the imperatives. Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 171 (6) Let me summarize this section with a succinct statement by Joseph and Janda on why we must abandon any appeal to ‘panchrony’ in linguistic explanation: […]. (engling33) (7) To formalize this, let Tp, Te, and Ts denote the finite sets of distinct preferences, expectations, and socially relevant attributes found in the population. (engecon30) Our main focus will be on let us-imperatives and their closest correspondences in Norwegian and French. Norwegian ‘let us’-imperatives are formally quite similar to English ones, using the imperative la (‘let’) (or, less commonly in Nynorsk, lat), the pronoun oss (‘us’) and an infinitival verb phrase whose implicit subject is coreferential with oss. Having no distinction like English let us vs. let’s, Norwegian la oss-imperatives are basically ambiguous between an exclusive and an inclusive reading. An example is given in (8). (8) La oss så sjå på dømet lysbrytar, eit tilfelle av type c. i Kristoffersens typologi: […]. (noling32) ‘Let us then look at the example …’ No attempt will be made to distinguish between exclusive and inclusive ‘let us’imperatives in English or Norwegian (but it would seem that there are few, if any, clearly exclusive examples). French ‘let us’-imperatives are formally different and are only inclusive (at least when used literally). French employs a special first person plural imperative verb form in -ons, which is in most, but not all, cases identical with the first person plural present indicative. The forms are nevertheless easily distinguished, since the imperative does not have an overt subject, whereas nous (‘we’) is used with the present indicative. An example is given in (9). (9) Considérons à présent le problème du monopole à la date t = 0. (frecon23) ‘Let us now consider the problem of monopoly …’ We will study how ‘let us’-imperatives are used in research articles. In particular, we ask what ”actions” the writer invites the reader to participate in, and we discuss the functions of ‘let us’-imperatives from a pragmatic perspective as well as the perspectives of text composition and rhetoric. From a Searlean speech act perspective, we will regard most of them as being typically combined directives (that they “are attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to do something” (Levinson 1983: 240)) and commissives (that they “commit the speaker to some future course of action” (ibid.)). This is in line with Schiffrin (1994: 73). Collins (2004: 304) observes that they are “associated with a range of illocutionary forces”. According to Kuo (1999: 134), the most impor- 172 Academic Voices tant function of let us-imperatives is to seek agreement or cooperation. Hyland (2002b) classifies them as directives. Swales et al. (1998: 107) state that in the academic texts that they have looked at, ordinary imperatives function as commands or requests. Let us-imperatives, on the other hand, issue invitations. Some cases that might be classified as declarations rather than directives or commissives are discussed in 5.3.5. In our corpus, there are 562 examples of ‘let us’-imperatives (see Table 5.3-1). They are clearly most frequent in French, with 389 examples. There are 67 examples in English and 106 in Norwegian (counted as instances of let and la/lat, respectively; the number of infinitives is slightly higher because of a few examples of coordination). They are primarily used in economics and linguistics, with 284 and 267 examples, respectively. There are no examples in English or Norwegian medicine, but 11 in French medicine. Table 5.3-1. ’Let us’-imperatives Economics Linguistics Medicine All disciplines English French Norwegian 6 238 40 61 140 66 0 11 0 67 389 106 All languages 284 267 11 562 English: let us / let’s V; French: V-ons; Norwegian: la(t) oss V. We have analysed this material statistically.11 We present the results of the analyses here, but do not include the numerical details, since ‘let us’-imperatives are not one of the main linguistic features investigated in our study (see 1.1 and Chapter 3). The differences in relative frequency between economics and medicine and between linguistics and medicine are significant both at the superlevel and at the sublevel (in each of the languages).12 In addition, English linguistics has more frequent use of this feature than English economics. The differences between economics and linguistics are not significant at the superlevel or at the French and Norwegian sublevel. (This is especially noteworthy in the case of the great difference in absolute frequency between French economics and linguistics.) The differences in relative frequency between French and English and between French and Norwegian are significant both at the superlevel and at the sublevel (in each of the disciplines). In addition, the difference at the sublevel between Norwegian and English economics is significant (the former having more frequent use). 11. Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test, α = 0.05; cf. 2.2.5. 12. For the terms superlevel and sublevel, see 2.2.5. Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 173 The rather large difference in absolute frequency that can be observed between English and Norwegian at the superlevel is not significant. Neither is there any significant difference at the sublevel between English and Norwegian linguistics, nor (of course!) between English and Norwegian medicine. 5.3.2 A classificatory overview of different uses We will now try to draw a picture of how these imperatives are used. The examples in the corpus involve at least 125 different verbs in the three languages. They do form some rather evident clusters, but – needless to say – a clear and exhaustive classification of examples is hardly feasible. It might be more useful to think of the groups as clusters of varying coherence, with outliers and connections to other clusters. In spite of the classificatory difficulties, we posit eight functional types for which we use the terms structuring, awareness, scope, analysis, manipulation, definition, imagination and demonstration. This taxonomy builds on, extends and modifies the one in Kinn (2005c), which is a study of all three kinds of ‘let’-imperatives in Norwegian, based on 60 KIAP Corpus articles. Below we will deal with the eight functional types in turn. Hyland (2002b) distinguishes between three main types of directive speech acts in written texts based on the types of actions that they are intended to induce: textual ones, which guide the reader through the text or direct him or her to other texts, physical ones, which demand bodily action, and cognitive ones, which guide the thinking of the reader. As will become evident from the examples below, the first and the third type dominate among the ‘let us’-imperatives of research articles. Structuring This type directs attention to the formal structure of the text itself as well as the relation of formal structure to thematic structure. Above all, the expressions refer to where writer and reader are in the text and where they are going. This kind of metatext makes the structure of the text clearer to the reader and involves expressions of beginning, going on and concluding, as well as stopping, returning etc. Examples (10)–(12) are of this type. (10) Commençons par illustrer la question en parlant d’exemples non prépositionnels. (frling45) ‘Let us begin by illustrating the issue …’ (11) Men la oss gå tilbake til MÅ igjen. (noling36) ‘But let us return to MÅ (‘must’) again.’ 174 Academic Voices (12) Let us conclude this section with a general observation about the methodological consequences of the fact that unidirectionality is not true across the board. (engling33) This type normally involves verbs that Bunton (1999) classifies as text act markers (for further references to similar concepts, see his article). Awareness This type serves to direct the attention of the reader to information that the author wants him or her to have in mind. It includes expressions of mentioning, noticing and keeping in mind. Thus, some of the verbs in this cluster refer to enunciative acts, while others refer to sensory or mental observations. This kind of imperative is especially common in French, where notons (‘let us note’) is the most frequent verb; rappelons (‘let us remind’), remarquons (‘let us remark’) and citons (‘let us mention (quote)’) are also among the more commonly employed French verbs. Some examples are provided in (13)–(15). (13) Notons enfin que les distorsions entre prix et coût marginal sont d’autant plus importantes que la demande est inélastique [...]. (frecon24) ‘Let us finally note …’ (14) Signalons enfin que, dans les deux méthodes, les paramètres λij sont estimés en premier, […]. (frecon40) ‘Let us finally point out that, …’ (15) Enfin, la dernière explication considère la concurrence spatiale avec interactions stratégiques entre les entreprises (n’oublions pas qu’en concurrence monopolistique, les interactions stratégiques sont inexistantes). (frecon36) ‘… (let us not forget that …).’ Scope This type serves to fix, narrow or broaden the focus of the ongoing discussion. It is related to the preceding type, but whereas awareness is primarily about calling something to the attention of the reader, the scope type has to do with delimitation of the focus of attention. The affinities between the types pertain especially to visual verbs, where the distinction between awareness and scope is hard to draw. This type is common in all three languages, with verbal expressions like consider, take, see, look at, concentrate on and focus on (and the corresponding French and Norwegian ones). Some illustrations are given in (16)–(18). (16) Let us focus on how universal quantifiers can scope under negation when they are ‘clause-mates’ […]. (engling49) Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 175 (17) À titre d’exemple, intéressons-nous plus particulièrement au cas des modèles incorporant l’hypothèse d’un processus d’appariement entre des chômeurs et des emplois vacants […]. (frecon26) ‘As an example, let us take specific interest in the case …’ (18) La oss se på ett eksempel til. (noling36) ‘Let us look at one more example.’ Analysis This type comprises various kinds of expressions that refer to cognitive operations and their verbal expression, especially the analysis of data. While the preceding scope type has to do with what should be attended to, the present type includes expressions that refer to attempts at gaining an understanding of the matter. The analysis type includes verbs like study (bordering on the scope type), analyse, compare and discuss, as well as more specific ones. Some examples are provided in (19)–(21). (19) Let us examine (108). (engling46) (20) Étudions donc séparément les sous-cas de type a […] et ceux de type b […]. (frecon10) ‘Let us therefore study separately the subcases …’ (21) La oss sammenlikne verbene dette og rette: […]. (noling05) ‘Let us compare the verbs …’ Manipulation This type is related to the preceding category, but comprises expressions that refer to more specific actions dealing with the thematic matter. The type includes references to methodological acts, which tend to be rather discipline-specific. (The term manipulation should not be understood in its negative sense, but rather in the direction of ‘handling, changing’.) Some illustrations are given in (22)–(24). (22) Calculons tout d’abord la stratégie de prix optimale en l’absence de toute coalition. (frecon24) ‘Let us first calculate the strategy …’ (23) La oss for klarhets skyld sette opp paradigmene for de personlige pronomenene i entall: […]. (noling01) ‘Let us, for the sake of clarity, establish the paradigms …’ (24) Choisissons A = n(1 – ε)μ et utilisons l’inégalité de Bienayme-Chebyshev pour obtenir la majoration : […]. (frecon24) ‘Let us choose A = n(1 – ε)μ and use the inequation …’ 176 Academic Voices Definition This type has to do with decisions on how the subject matter should be categorised and talked about. In particular, it includes references to terminological acts, theoretical assumptions and the creation of analytic models; the latter subtype is, of course, closely related to the methodological acts of the previous type (manipulation). Examples (25)–(27) illustrate this. (25) Let us call such a type of phenomenon a ‘distinct process’. (engling33) (26) Posons de plus que c est nul. (frecon23) ‘Let us further assume that c is zero.’ (‘Let c = 0.’)13 (27) La oss anta at den enkelte konsument betrakter funksjonen for miljøkvalitet i likning (2) som gitt. (noecon34) ‘Let us assume that …’ Imagination This type, illustrated in (28) and (29), has to do with the mental creation of imaginary states of affairs. It is related to those varieties of the manipulation type that have to do with establishing models. (28) La oss som et eksempel tenke oss at vi har modellert etterspørsel etter en vare betinget med hensyn på prisen. (noecon40) ‘Let us, as an example, imagine that …’ (29) Imaginons, pour commencer, que la gravité de la catastrophe augmente. (frecon31) ‘Let us, to begin with, imagine that …’ Demonstration This type is about showing how things are and about illustrating certain phenomena. It is related to both awareness (noticing how things are) and analysis (finding out how things are). The type is found primarily in French; two examples are given in (30) and (31). (30) Montrons, maintenant, que la situation où tous les individus choisissent la stratégie π = 1 correspond également à un équilibre de Nash. (frecon34) ‘Let us now show that …’ (31) Illustrons cette analyse sur l’exemple: […]. (frling13) ‘Let us illustrate this analysis with the example: …’ 13. See the discussion of declarations in 5.3.5. Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 177 5.3.3 Functions of text composition The classification of ‘let us’-imperatives into eight usage types above is based on the verbs and verbal constructions, that is, on the authors’ explicit invitations. But at a different level, these directives-cum-commissives all appear to have one common function: By using them, the authors seek to make the reader aware of how the text will be developing. This function is inherent to the imperatives themselves (and hence cannot serve as the basis for subclasses): An utterance that presents the receiver with an offer or a demand claims his or her attention, since he or she needs to accept the offer or comply with the demand. This can only take place after the actual utterance, and in academic texts, this future-directedness orients the reader towards the development of the text. In Kinn (2005c) it is shown that there is a striking degree of co-occurrence between ‘let us/me’-imperatives and metatextual expressions; 53.9 % of the imperative sentences contain metatextual adverbials. (Only constituents with an adverbial function were counted.) These metatextual elements were found to be of two types: locational metatext, which refers to a part of the text or to text sequencing (e.g. ‘in this section’, ‘first’; cf. 5.2) and motivational metatext, which provides a reason for the act proposed by means of the imperative (e.g. ‘for the sake of clarity’). (These types overlap to a considerable extent with Hyland’s (1998b, 1999) categories of logical connectives, frame markers and endophoric markers, but his categories are more diverse in terms of grammatical status.) Several of the examples in 5.3.1–2 contain locational metatext (e.g. now in (5), tout d’abord (‘first’) in (22) and så (‘then, further’) in (8)). Examples of motivational metatext are for klarhets skyld (‘for the sake of clarity’) in (23) and perhaps à titre d’exemple (‘as (to give) an example’) in (17). Kinn (2005c) also showed there to be a high degree of co-occurrence between ‘let us/me’-imperatives and (in particular) beginnings and ends of paragraphs (first and last sentences), as well as a certain tendency for the imperatives to appear in the first or last paragraph of a section. Thus, there is an evident connection between the use of such imperatives and textual transitions, something which is also indicated by the functions noted by Swales et al. (1998: 107). This, of course, ties up with the fact that the imperatives direct the reader to what follows, either internally in the paragraphs or sections where they occur or in the immediately following ones. Such textual means are useful above all when the text assumes a new direction, and to signal thematic changes is also the function of textual transitions between paragraphs or sections (although, naturally, there is not always a nice and tidy fit between the thematic and the formal structure of texts). We return to these matters in the case study on ‘let’-imperatives in 5.5.2. 178 Academic Voices 5.3.4 Rhetorical functions The author and the reader of a research article perform different actions in relation to the text. The author has done research that he or she tries to write a comprehensible and convincing article about. Presumably, the article is typically read because the reader wants to gain insight into the research and the author’s mediation of it, out of interest and expected gain. Normally, the author and the reader will be members of a common disciplinary community, but not necessarily any more closely connected than that – socially, temporally or spatially. However, the author can make use of linguistic means that establish a dialogue across time and space, for instance by addressing the reader directly. ‘Let us’-imperatives (as well as ‘let me’-imperatives) are excellent examples of such means. The use of ‘let us’-imperatives not only implies directly addressing the reader, thus establishing a dialogue: The author constructs, at least in the case of the inclusive type, an author–reader togetherness and creates a kind of solidarity between the two (see Myers 1989). They become, so to speak, collaborators in the structuring of text and in mental activities, and when we are talking about research articles, these mental activities may be part of the research itself. By using the inclusive ‘we’ and inclusive ‘let us’-imperative, the author draws the reader closer and partly erases the author–reader asymmetry. From the perspective of politeness, this can be seen as an attempt to give the reader a feeling that the author shares his or her knowledge, opinions, aims etc. This is positive politeness (see Brown & Levinson 1987). The argumentative function is evident, because, given that they view things in similar ways, the author can more easily convince the reader. In addition, the author brings the reader along in the construction of an understanding of the data and in the production of research results: When the reader has contributed in the intersubjective construction of a piece of knowledge, he or she will more easily accept it as true knowledge. ‘Let us’-imperatives both direct the reader and invites him or her into a common space, and this combination potentially has a strong rhetorical effect (see Mühlhäusler & Harré 1990: 174), directing text reading as well as understanding. Such rhetorical functions are important, not least in education, and some of the examples of ‘let us’-imperative are reminiscent of usage associated with pedagogical genres such as the textbook and the lecture (see Wales 1996: 65–66). These imperatives aid the reader. But the principal rhetorical aim of the author in using them is, no doubt, to convince. The reader is to become interested in the subject, accept the author’s treatment of it and acknowledge the author and his or her research and texts. Whether these aims are always achieved is, of course, a different matter. Some readers probably experience inclusive ‘we’ and imperatives Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 179 as impositions, especially if they do not agree with the author. Whether such reactions are common is harder to estimate. We will take a closer look at the use made of ‘let’-imperatives in the case study in 5.5.2. 5.3.5 Variation between disciplines, languages and individual authors The quantitative data in Table 5.3-1 above reveal clear differences between economics and linguistics on the one hand and medicine on the other. There are very few examples of ‘let us’-imperatives in medicine, and they are all from the French subcorpus. This finding is in line with the general tendency for medical authors to use overtly personal expressions less frequently than economists and linguists. It also fits well with our impression from 4.3 (which we have not tested quantitatively) that the ratio of inclusive to exclusive ^[we^] is smaller in medicine than in the other disciplines. The (near-) absence of ‘let us’-imperatives in medical articles is discussed in section 7.1. As noted, there are 11 instances of ‘let us’-imperatives in the French medical articles. It is interesting to note that all of these actually belong to the awareness type posited above, a type that is virtually absent in English and Norwegian. The verbs that are used are notons (‘let us note’; 3 examples), rappelons (‘let us remind (ourselves)’; 3), soulignons (‘let us underline/emphasise’; 2), citons (‘let us mention’), remarquons (‘let us remark’) and signalons (‘let us point out’). These are all used to call attention to or stress some piece of information which the authors treat as a fact. The imperatives are not limited to this type in French economics and linguistics. In addition to differences between the disciplines, there are also considerable differences between the languages: French uses ‘let us’-imperatives more frequently than English and Norwegian. This is also true for medicine, where only the French subcorpus has any examples. As already noted, some of the eight types above are used primarily in French, or more in French than in the other languages. The differences between the languages are greatest in economics. In addition to ‘let us’imperatives, Norwegian economists use inclusive ‘we see’ more than their Englishwriting colleagues; both of these features contribute to a relatively reader-oriented style in the Norwegian economics texts. The high frequency of ‘let us’-imperatives in French economics (when compared to the other languages) is partly due to the fact that they are sometimes used in French where ‘let’ plus a third person object is used in English and Norwegian, as in (7) above. A French example is given in (32), where English could have used let plus the equation. (32) Posons w( x ) = x /(1 − x ) − (1 − Fz A (g + ( x ))) /(1 − Fz B (g − ( x ))) (frecon45) 180 Academic Voices As noted by Kinn (2005c), in terms of speech act theory, such utterances are often best classified as declarations rather than directives or commissives, since they “effect immediate changes in the institutional state of affairs” (Levinson 1983: 240).14 For instance, by uttering (32) the author establishes a state of affairs in his mathematical model. Such expressions are characteristic of academic texts from fields that employ mathematical or logical modelling (see also Swales et al. 1998). For ‘let us’-imperatives, as for the other linguistic features that we look at, there is much variation from article to article within each of the language–discipline subcorpora (except for English medicine and Norwegian medicine, where the articles uniformly lack such imperatives). A total of 313 out of 450 articles have no examples of this feature, i.e. 69.6 %. 43 articles have one example, 26 have two, and so on. The frequency curve falls fairly evenly down to one article that has 20 examples – and then there is one article (frecon24) with the rather extreme frequency of 38 examples (a relative frequency of 0.32 %). That is, most articles lack this feature, some have a few scattered tokens, and a limited number of articles have many examples. The use of the feature thus appears to be a personal style trait that many authors do without, but which some find useful. It is possible that frequency covaries with text type – e.g. it may be that ‘let us’-imperatives are more common in argumentative text. Also, the history of the individual text may be important. For instance, it could be the case that the feature is more frequent in texts that have been developed from an oral genre, e.g. a conference paper. These are questions that would deserve looking into, but which we will not go deeper into here. We do, however, return to the subject of ‘let’-imperatives in 5.5.2, where we study their use in one particular Norwegian economics article. 5.4 Presentation of “results” 5.4.1 Introduction The study undertaken in this section relates to our third research question, concerning the author’s presentation and promotion of own research in research articles (see section 1.1). The entire research process on which an article is based is normally of interest to colleagues working on related phenomena. However, it is the results which are often asked for first. In fact, the presentation of results 14. Other ways of expressing such declarations are also found, like ordinary indicatives (e.g. English we let) and, in French, the subjunctive soit (‘(it) be’). It could also be argued that utterances with English let us assume and the (roughly) equivalent Norwegian la oss anta belong in the category of declarations. Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 181 constitutes a central element in the interaction with the readers, expert as well as non-expert.15 In today’s competitive research communities, there is a constant demand for results, preferably results which are original, important and far-reaching. The demands come from different contexts: the researchers’ academic institutions, their “home field”, media and journals. Generally speaking, research constitutes an activity which, by definition, involves formulating questions and finding answers to these questions, i.e. searching for results. However, the nature of the results is different given different fields and different research designs (see section 3.1). This self-evident fact allows us to present the hypothesis that there will also be differences in the verbal presentation of research findings. From the perspective of the rhetoric of science, we propose that different styles are chosen “because of their presumed persuasiveness” (Prelli 1989: 104). The differences may relate to many factors; in this section we will focus on the degree of explicitness and on lexical choice. Let us first look at the following, constructed, utterances: (1) The results indicate that Norway is a rich country. (2) It seems possible to conclude that Norway is a rich country. (3) I argue that Norway is a rich country. (4) Norway is a rich country. The claim which is presented is the same (‘Norway is a rich country’), but the presentation forms are quite different. We may find all four types in any research article, but our knowledge about different research and writing traditions would probably influence us in the interpretation of their origin. However, one might ask which utterance will have the best effect, i.e. which one will contribute most directly in the process of persuading the reader?16 Which one will win, (1), (2), (3) or (4)? This is an interesting question, but one which goes beyond the purpose of this section. Our primary aim is not to evaluate the effects of scientific discourse, but to find out more about the creative or inventive side of this specific kind of rhetorical discourse (see Prelli 1989). 15. To a non-expert journalist, for example, a clear and explicit communication of research results is essential. At a seminar on scientific writing traditions held at the University of Bergen in April 2003, the journalist Normann Kirkeeide (from the local newspaper Bergens Tidende) said that even though research texts are admittedly heterogeneous and differ according to the field they belong to, journalists expect to find a conclusion where one has been announced. See Kirkeeide (2003). 16. See Flyum (2004). 182 Academic Voices In the present section, we want to investigate how researchers cope linguistically with this pressure. This particular study contains a quantitative part based on the whole corpus consisting of 450 research articles, a lexical-semantic part based on the English subcorpus (150 articles), and a qualitative part, based on a selection of three linguistics articles, one English, one French and one Norwegian. The investigation itself will adopt two approaches: quantitative and qualitative. In section 5.4.2 we will first show that there are quantitative differences between languages, as well as between disciplines in the use of the word family RESULT (including verb, noun and their derivatives and corresponding expressions in the other languages; in the following, RESULT implies the word families in the three languages). Next, we will focus on the ways of expressing “final results” in English-language articles. Some comments on evaluative expressions will also be given. Section 5.4.3 is a discussion based on the quantitative investigation, and we suggest there that it is necessary to undertake qualitative analyses in order to get a better picture of how researchers express their results. This will be illustrated by an analysis of three linguistics research articles written in English, French and Norwegian, respectively (section 5.4.4). The texts are analysed with a view to find out more about the rhetorical and argumentative strategies and styles that the authors have chosen. To our knowledge, there are no previous studies focusing particularly on the use of RESULT in research articles. Swales (1990: 173) said in his presentation of the Discussion section of the research article (where results are usually discussed) that “we know little about disciplinary variation and little about the linguistic exponents of the moves [of the discussion]”. Since then, the number of studies in this field has increased (see Ruiying and Allison 2003 for a useful review of relevant literature).17 Most of the studies, however, are related to organisational patterns of the research article structure, and most often to the moves within relevant sections like Results, Discussion and Conclusion, i.e. sections of the IMRAD structure.18 Questions related more specifically to lexical choice or to the linguistic realisation of presenting results are less studied than the organisational patterns. In this context, however, we would like to mention the semantic study undertaken by Cavalla & Grossmann (2005), even if it does not concern RESULT. They focus on “scientific nouns” used in French research articles (their corpus also includes the KIAP articles), like hypothèse, postulat, thèse and théorie; some of their findings indicate sizable differences between disciplines in the use of these nouns. Grinde (2003), in her master’s thesis related to 17. See also Brett (1994) and Lindeberg (1994, 2004); for evaluative aspects, see Hunston (1993), Stotesbury (2003) and Koutsantoni (2004). 18. It is surprising that so little has been done on articles that do not follow the IMRAD structure, but instead display the classic structure of Introduction, thematic middle sections and Conclusion (in one form or another), typically used in non-“hard” disciplines. Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 183 the KIAP project, studied some of these and similar “keywords” in 10 articles from each of the three fields studied in KIAP: hypothèse, modèle, méthode, résultat and théorie. She found that economists often used modèle, the linguists hypothèse (but not résultat), and the medical researchers often used both méthode and résultat. The noun théorie is very little used, except for one single linguistics article which traces the history of a specific theory. Grinde’s observations are interesting and reflect some of the particularities of the research processes characterising these fields. 5.4.2 Quantitative analysis of RESULT Introduction The first step of our study is related to the degree of explicitness, aiming at answering the question of how results are expressed in scientific discourse. It is a quantitative analysis of the frequency of the group of lexemes result (noun), result (verb) and various adjectives like resulting, resultant, resultative and their corresponding forms in French (noun: résultat) and Norwegian (noun: resultat).19 As mentioned above, all of these lexemes will be referred to as RESULT. Although limited in scope, our investigation will show that the study of the presence of RESULT can tell us quite a lot about explicitness. Moreover, the fact that RESULT appears in a number of different contexts also provides relevant information on the nature of the research article. Even more interesting is perhaps the fact that there are considerable differences between languages, disciplines and individual articles. The use of RESULT depends, of course, on the type of research presented in the article at hand. In one perspective, research can vary from nomothetic (relating to or involving the search for abstract universal principles) to idiographic (relating to or involving the study of individual phenomena). Another perspective is the issue of theoretical versus empirical research. Further, there are important distinctions to be made between, for example, quantitative and qualitative and between experimental and non-experimental research. These distinctions, and others, which can be combined in different ways, are relevant to our investigation. Generally, one can say that research based on quantitative methods will bring about findings which are naturally expressed by RESULT. This will apply to most of the articles in the medical subcorpus. As regards the economics subcorpus, there are many articles presenting research involving equations, calculations and data subject to quantitative methods. In linguistics, there is great variation. There is, of course, not only qualitative research there, but also research based on quantitative and experimental methods. Most of the articles selected for our linguistics subcorpus do not 19. We have also looked at the frequency of the word finding; see below. 184 Academic Voices deal with general linguistics, but with questions related to the national language in which they are written. This may give the articles a more idiographic character than articles in general linguistics. Given our knowledge of the corpus, we would expect the following ranking: RESULT will be more frequent in the medical and the economics articles than in the linguistics articles. As regards possible language differences, it is more difficult to posit a hypothesis. In general, there is little research on this issue; however, if we look at previous studies based on the KIAP Corpus, some indications may be found. Our studies on the use of personal pronouns and metatext, for example,20 suggest that English researchers are the most explicit; close behind are the Norwegians, while the French are the least explicit. To the extent that RESULT can be considered as a mark of explicitness, we would expect English to use it most frequently and French to use it least frequently. Quantitative results The suggestions above are to a large extent confirmed by the findings provided by the automatic search for RESULT (result.* in English and Norwegian and résult.* in French), as shown in Tables 5.4.1–3.21 A general summary of Tables 5.4-1–3 can be formulated as follows: For the language dimension, English has the highest frequency (0.20 %), Norwegian is second and French third. For the discipline dimension, economics has the highest frequency (when all the articles are taken together, this gives a total of 0.25 %), medicine is second (0.14 %) and linguistics is third (0.09 %). When language and discipline are considered together, English economics ranks as number one (0.32 %) and French linguistics is ranked the lowest, as number nine (0.04 %). Table 5.4-1. Frequency of RESULT in English subcorpus Subcorpus engecon engling engmed Total N % 957 0.32 494 313 0.11 0.19 1,764 0.20 Search string: result.* 20. See Fløttum (2003b); Kinn (2005a); Dahl (2004c); Chapter 4 and sections 5.1–2. above. 21. The percentages have been calculated on the basis of whole subcorpora, rather than as the means for individual articles. The two articles engling18 and frling13 are not included in the tables. They contain 233 and 19 RESULT occurrences respectively, which are mostly used as metalinguistic terms. Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 185 Table 5.4-2. Frequency of RESULT in French subcorpus Subcorpus N % frecon frling frmed 612 92 89 0.21 0.04 0.06 Total 793 0.12 Search string: résult.* Table 5.4-3. Frequency of RESULT in Norwegian subcorpus Subcorpus N noecon noling nomed 657 224 161 0.21 0.08 0.16 1,042 0.15 Total % Search string: result.* For English, a search for the commonly used noun finding (including plural forms) was also undertaken to ensure a more correct picture of the situation.22 The total number of hits was 362. Medicine was the discipline which used finding most frequently (viz. 0.08 %; in economics: 0.04 %; linguistics: 0.03 %). Since we are especially interested in what may be termed final (or major and general) results, i.e. the main point(s) or result(s) of the research presented in the article, a search for the word conclusion (and derivatives and corresponding forms)23 was also undertaken. The search revealed that conclusion is much less used; while the total number of occurrences of RESULT is 3,599, the corresponding number for conclusion is only 888. What is more interesting is that the average use is the same within the three languages taken as a whole (around 0.04 %); the differences between disciplines are great, however. Economics has the highest frequency (0.05 %) here too, but linguistics is close behind (0.04 %), while medicine, a discipline which frequently uses finding, has the lowest frequency (0.02 %). There are also interesting observations as regards the distribution of RESULT in the text. Concerning the preferences for placing RESULT either at the begin- 22. The verb find has not been taken into consideration here. 23. The search was made by the search string concl.* for English and French and by konkl.* for Norwegian. 186 Academic Voices ning or at the end of the article, there are no clear language distinctions.24 As for discipline differences, one can say that economists use RESULT more in the Introduction section than in the Conclusion section; the medical researchers do it the other way round: RESULT is generally used more in the Discussion and the Conclusion part than in the Introduction. The linguists do not use RESULT very much in either Introductions or Conclusions; when they use it, it is in the middle of the text, reporting the research process. In addition to the findings reported above, a last point, perhaps the most important one, has to be noted: The individual differences are clearly visible. Cases in point are articles engecon11 with 45 occurrences of RESULT and engecon14 with none. Observed categories of RESULT In the second step of our investigation, we focus on the ways of using RESULT, and particularly for expressing “final results” in the English articles. Some comments on evaluative expressions will also be given. The observations will form the basis for the claim that it is necessary to undertake a qualitative analysis in order to get a good picture of how researchers express their results. The 3,599 occurrences of RESULT represent a very heterogeneous sample,25 and all the examples are not equally interesting for our purposes. The main categories are as follows: RESULT used in a general meaning, RESULT used as a technical linguistic term, RESULT related to research. The last category is further divided into three subtypes: metatextual reference, process results and final results. 1) RESULT used in a general meaning There are many examples of RESULT used with a more or less general meaning, i.e. they have nothing to do with results coming from a specific research project. They are simply used to denote something that happens or exists because of something else that happened or existed (often situated outside the research world presented in the article). Here are some examples: (1) Matches that would have resulted in illegitimate births still form; now they are marriages, but marriages that immediately dissolve. (engecon18) (2) Patients incur extra costs, however, as a result of surgery, and hospitals can be expected to benefit from these, as well as from the higher bed occupancy rates that result from programming. (engmed04) 24. See Mauranen’s study on cultural differences in academic rhetoric (Mauranen 1993a). She indicates that Anglo-Americans prefer to start with their main point(s), while the Finns seem to prefer the end for their main point(s). 25. For practical reasons we give only examples of noun and verb variants here – result(s) and to result; only English examples are given. Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 187 2) RESULT used as a technical linguistic term This is a use which typically occurs in linguistics, where RESULT can denote a semantic and pragmatic or a text-structural category in different contexts: (3) However, Grimshaw (1990: section 3.5.1) argues that nouns such as announcement, statement, observation, etc. with propositional CP complements are never argument-taking, but show all the characteristics of ‘result’ or ‘simple event’ nominals with the single referent argument (c)R(tm), […]. (engling10) (4) The topic-based format is, however, of a very different kind with only one of the theses in the collection having what might be considered a materials and methods type section and none of them having separate results and discussion sections. (engling11) 3) RESULT related to research For present purposes, we have established the following three subcategories: 3A) Metatextual reference In this category, we find occurrences of RESULT in a metatextual context. The word is used only to indicate in which part of the article the results are to be found: (5) This paper’s primary results are in Section 4, which takes the model to the data and confirms its main predictions. (engecon40) (6) The results of the experiment are presented in Table 1. (engling19) (7) Figure 2 shows the result of dot-blot analysis, identifying the presence of HPA-binding glycoproteins after HPA affinity chromatography of cell line preparations. (engmed08) 3B) Process results These are part results which it is important for the researchers to report before arriving at their final results and conclusion. The context is typically the description of some step in the analysis, in an experiment, etc.: (8) Throughout, estimation results were obtained by maintaining the adding up, homogeneity, and symmetry restrictions, and by deleting the chicken equation. (engecon33) (9) The intonational devices that give rise to the structures in (1) cannot be used to induce the intonational structures indicated in (2) without absurd results […]. (engling16) (10) We obtained results on 398 specimens distributed 105, 130, 85, and 78 by the 4 time periods, of which 74.6% were HIV-uninfected. (engmed17) 188 Academic Voices 3C) Final results By final results we mean the major outcome of the total research process reported in the article: what the author of the article ends up with when summing up, concluding and evaluating his or her research, and what can be important for the promotion of the work carried out.26 The following is an example taken from the Conclusion of an economics article: (11) Our results imply that discriminatory trade barriers may be the preferred instrument of enforcement in those agreements that are susceptible to the problems of renegotiation. (engecon38) These are the RESULT occurrences which we will look at in the following. Final results Since final results, for obvious reasons, are typically expressed in the Introduction and/or in the Discussion and Conclusion sections,27 we restrict our analysis to these sections.28 Two main categories are proposed: accounting for results and qualifying results. This dichotomy represents an attempt to generalise the observed occurrences; for a more detailed classification, see Ruiying & Allison (2003). Final results 1: accounting for results RESULT is used to report in one way or another the final outcome of the article;29 a model example could be: My/our results show x. The verb show is used here in order to generalise over the meanings communicated by various verbs. The actual verbs of this type may be more or less specific, but the aim of the author is in all cases to account for the outcome of his or her research. Here are some examples: (12) We have developed a two-country two-sector model of the business cycle. Our results show that such a model is capable of generating a positive international transmission of the business cycle, […]. (engecon31) 26. The term final result corresponds more or less to the term bottom-line result used, for example, by Berkenkotter and Huckin (1995: 35). 27. See Berkenkotter and Huckin (1995: 30–39) who point to the tendency to place the most important points in the abstract, the title and the Introduction (in a study based on articles in biology and physics). 28. One reason why we do not include the Result section is that one finds most typically “process results” (see above) in this section. Moreover, it is mostly the medical articles which contain a Result section. The other disciplines typically use other headings, but most of them have a section called conclusion, concluding remarks, summing up, and the like. 29. RESULT can, of course, be used to refer to own findings as well as findings reported by others; we only look at own results here. Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 189 (13) Our results indicate that hematospermia occurs in 15 % of all patients and may persist in approximately 6 %. (engmed06) (14) The three main theoretical results of the paper are that increasing the average return to ”mainstream” behavior in the community non-linearly decreases the percentage of ”deviants” in the community; decreasing the variance of returns to ”mainstream” behavior in the community also non-linearly reduces deviance. Finally, if the upper bound on the distribution of these returns for the community is below some threshold value then there is stable equilibrium where all individuals will want to be ”deviant”. (engecon19) (15) Our results suggest that the down-regulatory effect of CRH and ACTH is exerted not at a transcriptional level, as evidenced by a lack of change in 11ßHSD-1 mRNA, but rather by […]. (engmed47) (16) Our results may suggest avenues for future research. First, our results establish that particular directions of quota reform are strict Pareto improving when […]. (engecon07) (17) These results inform us significantly about various natural typological arrangements cross-linguistically and about certain kinds of recurrent changes. (engling31) Final results 2: qualifying results In this category, the outcome reported by RESULT is qualified or evaluated in one way or another; a model example could be: My/our results are useful. While the first category of RESULT aims at accounting for results in an apparently objective way, the second type constitutes a sort of self-evaluation.30 In today’s competitive research society, it is reasonable to expect such qualifications to be added to the results. Generally, however, their presence seems to depend on individual factors and style. Since we only consider the qualifications of the authors’ own results here, they are generally positive. (There are, however, more negative or “neutral” qualifications too, but they will not be considered here.) The results can be qualified as original, solid or useful, as illustrated in (18)–(19), (20)–(22) and (23)–(26), respectively. (18) The preliminary results discussed above are an initial step in investigating the determinants of countries’ external wealth. (engecon02) (19) To my knowledge, the results are the first to link FPRs with simultaneous servicing decisions via the ownership, location, and internalization concepts of the multinational literature. (engecon04) 30. For finer categories, see Hunston (1993) and Stotesbury (2003). 190 Academic Voices (20) The results are robust with respect to the grouping of countries by imitative ability and the delineation of these groups. (engecon04) (21) Finally, we note that our results are consistent with, and tend to confirm, those reported in the recent work of Engel and Hakkio (1996). (engecon08) (22) The experimental results reported here provide positive support for the nominalization analysis of children’s errors in interpreting adjunct PRO constructions. (engling19) (23) Therefore, these results should be useful for future research on measuring international risk-sharing gains. (engecon06) (24) Our results may suggest avenues for future research. (engecon07) (25) These results have some interesting implications for fiscal policy in the European Union, particularly as the EU continues to evolve. (engecon11) (26) The results of our study provide a means for distinguishing between distinct senses and the process of on-line meaning construction, which is primarily conceptual in nature. (engling17) Having given examples of two main categories of final result presentation, let us now focus on the frequency of these in all three languages, within the maze of RESULT use in the research articles. For this part, we limit the analysis to 180 articles of the corpus (the 01–20 articles of each subcorpus). There are 1220 occurrences of RESULT in total in this sample; 306 of them are found in the Introduction and Discussion/Conclusion sections (175 English, 68 French and 63 Norwegian). Among these there are only 102 which qualify as “final result” examples (21 in the Introduction sections and 81 in the Discussion and Conclusion); there is a fairly even distribution between the accounting type and the qualifying type. In short, RESULT is not much used in presenting final results. The relation between languages and disciplines is the same as for RESULT in general: English is ranked first, then Norwegian and French; economics is ranked first, then medicine and linguistics. To sum up the quantitative investigation of the use of RESULT in general terms:31 • • English researchers use RESULT more frequently than Norwegian and French researchers. Economists use it more often than medical researchers and linguists. 31. We have not studied systematically the distribution of RESULT between presentations of own results and of others’ results. However, the tendency seems clear: RESULT is more often used to present own results than others’ results. Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 191 • • The most frequent use of RESULT turned out to be in articles presenting some statistical/numerical or experimental research (economics and medicine). When RESULT is used to present final results, it seems that the type “accounting for results” is as important as “qualifying results”. 5.4.3 Discussion The semantic content ‘result’ can, of course, be expressed in many ways. Thus, the quantitative results given above can only be indicative. They should be extended through the analysis of other lexical expressions and more qualitative analyses of entire articles. This is particularly important for the expression of final results. However, some interesting tendencies have been observed. As we have shown, our corpus indicates that as regards RESULT, English researchers, especially English economists, are the most explicit, while French researchers, and particularly French linguists, are the least explicit. Norwegian is situated between the other two languages. The explanation for the differences between disciplines seems to be differences in type of research and research design. The economists and to a larger extent the medical researchers obtain results which can be referred to by result (or finding), while linguists (at least in our corpus) often obtain results which are more appropriately referred to by nouns like solution, interpretation, etc. As regards language differences, our observations point to cultural differences between English and French as explicit and non-explicit, respectively (also observed by for example Vassileva 2000). However, as regards Norwegian, the indications differ somewhat from the trends seen in some of our other investigations. Generally, in the KIAP studies, the English articles are more explicit than the others; the Norwegian articles are quite close to English. We tend to explain this by English influence on Norwegian. Geographically, historically and politically, Norway and Great Britain are close. Norwegian researchers see the contact with the Anglo-American world as important; this is not necessarily so in all French scientific communities. In addition, Norwegians use English a lot in various professional settings and may therefore be influenced by the English language. However, in the present study, the difference between English and Norwegian is notable, and we have to look for other explanations. It does not seem that the tradition of English-speaking researchers to be direct and explicit in their article writing has influenced Norwegian researchers in all matters. The study undertaken here suggests that Norwegian researchers are more modest and careful than English-speaking researchers are, possibly because of the smaller discourse community. 192 Academic Voices As for the discipline dimension, there is also an important difference to note when compared to other KIAP investigations, i.e. the ranking of the three disciplines studied. Our initial working hypothesis suggested that economics is situated between medicine and linguistics as regards explicitness and author manifestation (Breivega et al. 2002). This had to be revised because several of our studies tend to situate economics close to linguistics, i.e. closer to so-called soft disciplines than to hard ones. Thus, rather than pointing to three distinct author profiles, we could instead study two (in very general terms). The reason is that the profiles of the economist and the linguist appear to be quite similar, while the profile of the medical author seems to take a clearly different shape. In the present analysis, however, economics seems to be closer to medicine. As already indicated, this probably has to do with the research processes and methods and the object of investigation, factors which should be integrated in all studies of scientific discourse (see section 7.1). However, all in all, the most important observation is perhaps the one indicating clear and considerable individual variations, which to a certain extent override both language and discipline variables. The quantitative outcome of the present study might lead to the conclusion that Norwegian and French researchers are less explicit and direct, and perhaps more careful, than their English-speaking colleagues when presenting results. But the low number of occurrences of RESULT used to present final results (especially in linguistics) as well as our knowledge about scientific writing in general point to the necessity of applying other methods in order to get a more complete picture. To complement our quantitative investigation, we have analysed three linguistics articles with respect to lexical choices pertaining to results. These analyses are presented in 5.4.4. 5.4.4 Analysis of three linguistics articles In the analysis of the three selected texts, we will change the perspective to some extent and look for other lexical means of expressing RESULT or notions that are close to it. Since we are mainly interested in final results, we will focus on the Introduction and Conclusion sections of engling01, frling01, and noling01.32 The three articles all investigate a particular aspect of the three languages: the gerundive relative clause in English, so-called eclipse prepositions in French and the demonstrative pronoun denne (‘this’) in Norwegian, but take different theoretical perspectives. They are single-author articles written by female researchers. Prelli’s theory of the rhetoric of science (Prelli 1989) provides us with the following points as a basis for formulating a hypothesis regarding the expressing of 32. A possible approach for the analysis of whole texts could be to study semantic isotopies (see Rastier 1987), i.e. chains of recurrent semes or semantic traits realising RESULT chains. Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 193 result in these articles. Scientific discourse is rhetorical in the following sense: “it involves selective use of symbols to induce cooperative actions and attitudes regarding particular orientations for attaching meanings to situations” (Prelli 1989: 87). This means that a scientific rhetor has to select one or several suitable ends, to locate a relevant problem or issue and to choose an appropriate argumentative strategy. There is no reason that our three articles should not be considered rhetorical in this sense. In fact they have all chosen some kind of argumentative problem–solution strategy, and of course they try their best to find a solution to the problem presented, i.e. they search for a valid result of their research. We will now see to what extent they fulfil the rhetorical ideal by selecting appropriate linguistic expressions, to induce cooperation and to persuade the readers that their research should be given an appropriate place in the discipline’s literature. Engling01 There are five occurrences of RESULT in this article, but they are found in the middle part of the text and are of the types “process result” and “general result”, as in the following example: (27) Given that the Event and Speech time readings are the result of the linking of different times in tense structure, the syntactic issue is how these readings are represented in the sentence structure. Thus, these occurrences are not interesting to us from the perspective taken here. So, how are final results or findings expressed? If we go to the abstract first, it clearly formulates a main claim as well as a claim related to the empirical phenomenon studied (expressions which seem relevant for the present discussion appear in bold): (28) [abstract] This article explores the interface between the syntactic and semantic representation of natural language with respect to the interpretation of time. The main claim of the paper is that the semantic relationship of temporal dependency requires syntactic locality at LF. Based on this claim, I explore the syntax and semantics of gerundive relative clauses. I argue that since gerundive relatives are temporally dependent on the tense of the main clause, they need to be local with a temporal element of the main clause at LF. I show that gerundive relatives receive different temporal interpretations depending on their syntactic position at LF. This analysis sheds light on the behavior of gerundive relatives in constructions involving coordination, existential there, scope of quantifiational and cardinality adverbials, extraposition, presuppositionality effects and binding-theoretic reconstruction effects. 194 Academic Voices These claims are repeated in the Introduction section, introduced by formulations including the verb argue. Other manifestations of the results of this study are indicated by expressions like I claim and I show:33 (29) 1. Introduction [455 words] Recent work on the syntax of tense shows that there is a principled relationship between the meaning and the phrase structure representation of temporal information […]. [first claim:] I contribute to this discussion here by arguing that syntactic locality constrains the interpretation of temporal relations; […]. I adopt the semantic analysis of Reichenbach (1947) […], and I claim that […]. Based on this syntax and the claim […], I present an analysis of the syntax and semantics of gerundive relative clauses. [second claim:] I argue that gerundive relatives are temporally dependent on the main clause tense and thus are required to be local with a matrix time at LF. This analysis of gerundive relatives has implications for […]. […]. This paper is organized as follows: in section 2, I outline […]. In section 3, I show that […]. […], I claim that […], in section 4. Section 5 argues that […]. Evidence for the proposal is discussed […] in section 6. Section 7 discusses […] and section 8 presents a discussion […]. I argue that […]. The two main claims are repeated in the conclusion: (30) 9. Conclusion [247 words] [first claim:] In this paper, I have shown that the LF syntax of subjects provides evidence for the structure of tense proposed here. [second claim:] Gerundive relatives in subject position are temporally dependent on the matrix Event or Speech time, and the Event time is represented in VP. […] The content of the first claim is said to have been shown, while the second claim is presented without any introductory phrase. This “objective” presentation, not related to any person, is the most categorical way of expressing a result. It presents something as a self-evident fact with no reservation or limitation (hedging) whatsoever. The author implicitly expresses that this “fact” has been proven and should be taken as true in all contexts; there is no need to use an expression like for instance I argue. 33. Another interesting point, also mentioned in our discussion of author roles in abstracts (4.5.2), is the personification of the inanimate subject that we find in utterances like Section 5 argues that … (see also Master 2001). Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 195 In the seven middle sections, there is continuous argumentation related to specific linguistic examples, as well as to the theoretical discussion. There are expressions of the type This explanation provides evidence and the present analysis correctly predicts that, not referring directly to the author, as well as personalised expressions like I assume, I propose, I present evidence and I claim. Sometimes the reader is included as a witness of the results: In this section, we have seen … To sum up, the major or final results are in fact reported three times, in the Abstract, in the Introduction and in the Conclusion. The Introduction seems to be the section in which they are presented in the most complete way. Formulations like I contribute … by arguing, I argue and I claim make the presentation explicit and direct. The presence of an author who wants to position herself is clear. Except for the example from the Conclusion mentioned above, the results are not presented as self-evident but as part of an explicit argumentative strategy for which the author is responsible. This is supported by frequent use of the negation not, often polemic (see 6.4 and Fløttum 2004f, 2005c), accompanied by the contrastive and concessive connective but, as here in the last part of the Conclusion: (31) Full relatives avoid reconstruction effects by adjoining directly to the wh-element in Spec, CP, but this adjunction is not permitted with gerundive relatives, since in Spec, CP, they are not in a local relation with either the Speech or Event time, and hence cannot receive a temporal interpretation. In conclusion, this is an author with a manifest wish to “win”, on her own, in the struggle for a position within her preferred community, a wish that is manifested by an explicit, direct and argumentative presentation of final results. Frling01 Frling01 contains no occurrences of RESULT. As stated above, the article presents a study of so-called eclipse prepositions in French. In the English abstract, the subject topic is introduced as follows: (32) [abstract] In French as in English, ”weak prepositions” à, de, en, cannot precede a QUE, whether it be a conjunction or a relative pronoun. [...] Two grammatical solutions can be used, a ”poor one”, zeroing the preposition, […], and a ”rich one”, adding a demonstrative CE between the preposition and QUE, […]. […] Both solutions, in both cases, cannot be predicted by regular rules. The choice depends on variable usages and no diachronic ordering can be stated. 196 Academic Voices From both Abstract and Introduction (see below), it is clear what the author is going to study, but there is no explicit presentation of what will be her main claim or final outcome: (33) [Introduction. 615 words] Les prépositions spécifiques des valences verbales sont généralement considérées comme indispensables [...]. […] Cette particularité est mentionnée depuis longtemps par les grammairiens français […] Il me semble que cette interprétation est fondée sur des bases peu solides et qu’on doit accepter l’idée que les trois tournures coexistent actuellement, et qu’elles ont sans doute coexisté à d’autres époques. Dans cette perspective, il faudrait admettre que ce phénomène de ”préposition à éclipses” n’est pas un accident de l’évolution mais qu’il fait partie de la grammaire. Comme d’autres langues semblent présenter des faits analogues (Dixon 1991: 14, 48, 66, 68, 281–286), on peut être tenté d’y voir un phénomène plus général, qui ne serait pas spécifiquement français. Je propose de rappeler les principales circonstances dans lesquelles s’observe ce phénomène de la “préposition à éclipses”, et d’en envisager quelques interprétations1. ‘The specific prepositions of verbal valence are generally considered as indispensable ... This particularity has been mentioned for a long time by French grammarians … It seems to me that this interpretation is founded on not very solid bases and that one must accept the idea that three expression types coexist at present, and that they have no doubt coexisted in other periods. In this perspective, one must admit that this phenomenon of ”eclipse preposition” is not an accident of evolution, but that it is part of grammar. Since other languages seem to exhibit analogous data (Dixon 1991: 14, 48, 66, 68, 281–286), one may be tempted to see in this a more general phenomenon that is not specific to French. I propose (intend) to report the main circumstances in which this phenomenon of the “eclipse preposition” may be observed and to suggest some interpretations of it.’ Thus, after having offered a thorough presentation of the issue, she ends the Introduction with an explicitly formulated intention. In the preceding presentation, however, the author is very modestly manifesting herself, by modalised or hedged expressions like ‘it seems to me’, ‘one must accept’, ‘one must admit’, ‘one may be tempted to see’. This indirect style, characterised by the use of the indefinite pronoun on (see 4.4) or impersonal constructions accompanied by different hedging Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 197 devices, is also quite typical of the middle sections. There are, for example, only two occurrences of je, both in the first sentence after a subheading, combined with the verb s’intéresser à (‘be interested in’ in the sense ‘study’, ‘look at’) with a more or less metatextual function pointing to what is going to be studied in the section in question. There is also the expression On se donnera donc le droit de poser … (‘One will give oneself the right to postulate …’), where the verb clearly indicates that a claim is presented, but where it is difficult to relate the claim directly to the author because she uses the pronoun on. Let us now look at the Conclusion: (34) 4. Conclusion [559 words] La conclusion est provisoire. Elle porte à la fois sur les données et sur l’analyse. Pour les données, d’abord. La ”préposition à éclipse” n’a généralement pas reçu une bonne légitimation grammaticale, que ce soit chez les grammairiens classiques ou chez les linguistes contemporains. Ce n’est pas par hasard. Elle oblige à considérer deux situations désagréables. […] Pour l’analyse, la clef des embarras vient du statut grammatical à accorder à qu-. [...]. Berrendonner (1997), convaincu que ce sont des constructions distinctes, envisageait même que [...]. Je ferais plutôt l’hypothèse qu’il s’agit, dans les trois cas cités, d’une seule et même structure syntaxique clivée, quelle que soit la réalisation morphologique qui en est donnée, soit par des pronoms qui supportent les prépositions, soit par une conjonction qui les refuse. [...] […]. Ces linguistes [just referred to] fondaient leurs analyses essentiellement sur [...]. Je proposerai d’étendre l’analyse aux emplois prépositionnels manifestés dans les tournures syntaxiques focalisantes que je viens de citer. [...]. Cela reviendrait à dissocier, dans les deux cas, le niveau des structures syntaxiques et le niveau des réalisations morphologiques. ‘4. Conclusion The conclusion is provisional. It concerns at the same time the data and the analysis. First, as regards the data: The ”eclipse preposition” has generally not received a good grammatical justification, neither by classic grammarians nor by contemporary linguists. This is not accidental. It necessitates the consideration of two disagreeable situations. … As regards the analysis, the key to the embarrassment stems from the grammatical status of qu-. ... Berrendonner (1997), convinced that they are distinctive constructions, even imagined that ... I would rather propose the hypothesis that, in the three mentioned cases, it is a question of one and the same syntactic cleft structure, whatever the morphological realisation of it is, either by pronouns supporting the prepositions, or by a conjunction that prohibits them. ... 198 Academic Voices … These linguists founded their analyses mainly on ... I would propose to extend the analysis to prepositional uses manifested in the focalising syntactic constructions which I just mentioned. ... This implies a dissociation, in the two cases, of the level of syntactic structures and the level of morphological realisations.’ After having presented views that differ from her own (and with the manifestation of a polemic negation by the use of ne … pas (‘not’)), the author rejects their solutions, and then states that she will go further: ‘I would rather propose the hypothesis …’, ‘I would propose to extend the analysis ...’. Thus, at last, the reader is informed of what is really her final result or conclusion. The argumentation throughout the entire text is thorough and quite explicit, but the author chooses to wait until the very end before presenting her final result and main claim. However, the polemic of the article is clear from the beginning. After having referred to several grammarians and linguists, she says in the Introduction, cf. example (33) above: ‘It seems to me that this interpretation is founded on not very solid bases ...’ This rejection of others’ interpretations is also manifested in the Conclusion. Frling01 differs from engling01 in two ways. First, in engling01 the final results are presented both in the Introduction and in the Conclusion, but in a more direct and explicit form in the Introduction. Frling01 only indicates the final results in the Conclusion. Second, engling01 uses forms of expression which are more direct and more clearly position-taking. The author of frling01 does not position herself as clearly as the author of engling01 until the end of the article. The results are presented more as suggestions and propositions than as claims. In conclusion, this is an author who also wishes to “win” and who maintains a line of argumentation throughout the article. But this wish to “win” is manifested in a less explicit and less direct way than in engling01, through the presentation of final results. Noling01 Like frling01, noling01 contains no occurrence of RESULT. Noling01 presents a study of the Norwegian pronoun denne (‘this’). The Norwegian abstract is as follows: (35) [abstract] Artikkelen belyser de selvstendige, ikke-attributive pronomenene denne, dette og disse. Først og fremst undersøkes det deskriptivt hvilke bruksbetingelser pronomenene har i forhold til mulig antesedent. Det vises at de er gjenstand for en generell subjektsvegring. Både semantiske og pragmatiske betingelser undersøkes og forkastes. Deretter foreslås en syntaktisk analyse basert på bindingsteorien i Chomsky (1986) og på Hestviks (1992) analyse av anti-subjektsorientering. Den gjør rede for de setningsinterne begrensningene på koreferanse. ‘(abstract) The article studies the independent, non-attributive pronouns denne, dette og disse (‘this’, ‘these’). First and foremost usage restrictions related Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 199 to possible antecedents are investigated. It is shown that they are subject to a general anti-subject orientation. Both semantic and pragmatic conditions are investigated and rejected. Then a syntactic analysis based on the binding theory in Chomsky (1986) and on Hestvik’s (1992) analysis of anti-subject orientation is proposed. It explains the clause-internal restrictions on coreference.’ The main claim is that the use of the pronoun denne is syntactically rather than semantically or pragmatically constrained: ‘It is shown that they are subject …’ The proposal of a syntactic analysis of the phenomenon is also announced. The Introduction section, provided in (36), is a long and complex section consisting of three parts (limitation of the study, proposition of analysis and previous research); however, we find some indications of what the author’s claim is. After having made explicit what the subject matter of the article is, the author uses the introductory formulation ‘We shall see that …’ to announce her claim of anti-subject orientation. She also states clearly what kind of analysis she will propose for the explanation: ‘I will propose that…’. (36) 1. Innledning1 [1102 words] 1.1. Avgrensning I denne artikkelen skal jeg belyse flere sider ved pronomenet denne, med de alternative formene dette og disse. […] Det artikkelen skal handle om, er den anaforiske, selvstendige bruken av pronomenet. […] 1.2. Forslag til analyse […]. I denne artikkelen skal vi se på hvilke bruksbetingelser som finnes. Vi skal se at […].[…] Pronomenet er altså offer for subjektsvegring. […] Vi vil derfor ende opp med et større syntaktisk apparat, […]. Jeg skal foreslå at bruksbetingelsene til DENNE kan forklares ved […]. […] 1.3. Tidligere omtale i litteraturen […] ‘1. Introduction1 1.1. Delimitation In this article, I will study several aspects of the pronoun denne (‘this’) and its alternative forms forms dette and disse. … What the article will deal with is the anaphoric, independent use of the pronoun. … 1.2. Analysis proposal […]. In this article we will look at what the conditions of use are. We will see that … 200 Academic Voices The pronoun is thus subject to anti-subject orientation. … We will therefore end up with a larger syntactic apparatus, … I will propose that the conditions of use for DENNE can be explained by […]. 1.3. Treatment in previous literature …’ There is an interesting alternation of perspective in this introduction between jeg (‘I’) and vi (‘we’). In the rest of the article, the first person plural dominates (in all: 62 occurrences of vi and 3 of jeg). The use of vi, especially combined with a verb like se (‘see’), indicates a wish to include the reader. This invitation to participate in the interaction is continued throughout the article. Such author manifestations, with various uses of inclusive and exclusive we (see 4.3 and Kinn 2005a), constitute an important part of the argumentation; they switch from cooperating initiatives like Vi ser at (‘We see that’) to relatively firm and conclusive claims like Vi kan derfor konkludere at (‘We can therefore conclude that’) and Vi kan altså fastholde at (‘Thus we can maintain that’). These refer to what we have called process results above. As regards final results, we have shown that they are stated in the introduction. Let us now look at the conclusion. (37) 5. Sammenfatning [111 words] Vi har sett på ulike pragmatiske, semantiske og syntaktiske bruksbetingelser for pronomenet DENNE. Vi har sett at betingelsene er såpass komplekse at en syntaktisk forklaring har vært nødvendig, med bindingsteori og subjektsvegring som følge av LF-flytting: DENNE må være fritt for en subjektsantesedent, og dette gjelder for alle subjekter i helsetningen, uansett hvor mange trinn ned pronomenet befinner seg. Analysen tar for seg alle forekomster (så nær som én) av setningsinternt DENNE, men sier ikke noe om antesedens over helsetningsgrense. Det ser uansett ut til at subjektsvegringen er langt svakere setningseksternt, noe som tyder på at det der finnes andre betingelser – kanskje mer i tråd med logoforiske pronomener. ‘5. Summary We have looked at different pragmatic, semantic and syntactic conditions of use for the pronoun DENNE. We have seen that the conditions are so complex that a syntactic explanation has been necessary, with binding theory and anti-subject orientation as a result of LF-movement: DENNE must be free of a subject antecedent, and this holds for all subjects in the matrix clause, whatever the number of steps down the pronoun is. The analysis considers all occurrences (except one) of sentence-internal DENNE, but does not say anything about antecedence across sentence boundaries. In any case it appears that the anti-subject orientation is much Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 201 weaker sentence-externally, which indicates that there are other conditions – perhaps more in line with logophoric pronouns.’ Compared to the Conclusion in frling01, this one is very brief. However, the final result or main claim is stated, but in a complex and long formulation, in the sentence introduced by ‘we have seen that …’. To sum up, the final results are reported both in the Abstract, Introduction and Conclusion section. The we-author of noling01 is not as direct and explicit as the I-author in engling01, but more direct than the author of frling01 (who could almost be called an indefinite on-author because of the use of the pronoun on). As in the English article, the final results or claims of noling01 are reported in the most complete way in the introduction (different from frling01, which states and develops this in the Conclusion). The presence of an author who wants to position herself is not as clear as in engling01, because of the use of vi (‘we’), but clearer than in frling01. However, the argumentative strategy is clear throughout the article. As in the other two articles, this strategy is supported by a considerable use of the negation particle not. In conclusion, this is an author who first and foremost seems to want the participation of the reader and thereby of the scientific community she is, or wants to be, a part of. In addition, there is the wish to “win” in the position struggle. This wish is manifested by a frequent use of vi in expressions like vi kan fastslå (‘we can conclude’). The author presents her results in an explicit, but not always very direct way. The qualitative analysis has shown that these authors have chosen quite different styles to convey their message: From the English and most direct, I argue, via the Norwegian not so daring and direct but quite manifest, Vi fastslår (‘We conclude’), to the least direct and most modalised French, Je ferais plutôt l’hypothèse que (‘I would rather make the hypothesis that’). Summary With a point of departure in the theory of the rhetoric of science, we can characterise all three articles as exhibiting problem–solution strategies. From this it follows that one could expect explicit presentation of solutions of the problems functioning as the object of study. And the solutions were there. However, even if the authors have chosen similar argumentative strategies, they have opted for quite different styles to realise it. Three individual author profiles may hence be sketched: English. The author of engling01 expresses her results and solutions in a clear, explicit and direct way. Through the use of expressions like I argue, she seems to create a research space of her own, which marks a kind of independence with respect to the larger scientific community. 202 Academic Voices Norwegian. The author of noling01 expresses her results and solutions in a clear and relatively explicit way, but in a less direct manner than her English colleague. Through the extensive use of the pronoun vi in expressions like vi kan derfor konkludere at (‘we can therefore conclude that’), she seems to create a research space common to her and a larger scientific non-specified community. The linguistic expressions used in this article point to a careful author as well as an author who wants to be an integrated part of the research community that is established. French. The author of frling01 expresses her results and solutions in a less explicit and direct way than the other two. By the use of different kinds of hedges, impersonal constructions and the indefinite pronoun on (‘one’), she, in contrast to the English author, does not seem to create her own personal research space. On the contrary, she seems to create a distance between herself and the research community. By using expressions like On se donnera donc le droit de poser… (‘One will give oneself the right to postulate…’), she gives the impression of being careful and distant. However, this “impersonal” manner of expression may camouflage subtle argumentation which even rejects other researchers and their points, like in the following utterance taken from the Conclusion: Je ferais plutôt l’hypothèse qu[e] ... (‘I would rather propose the hypothesis that …’). Even if, on the basis of these three articles, we cannot point to profiles which clearly indicate different cultural identities, the variation that we have observed is considerable. However, there is one characteristic trait common to all three: They manifest a wish to “win”. But there is no straightforward answer to the question of who is most likely to be a winner. That depends to a large extent on the reader and the discourse community he or she belongs to. 5.5 Case studies 5.5.1 Metatext in three economics articles This case study will take a closer look at how metatext is used in three economics articles from our English subcorpus. The first article, engecon03, has been selected as a “typical” text, based on the fact that the relative frequency of metatext in this article is the same as the mean for the whole engecon subcorpus, viz. 0.33 %. As for the other two texts, engecon06 and engecon38, they are among the articles with the highest relative frequency for this feature, 0.61 %, as well as the highest number of occurrences (47 and 44 respectively, as against 15 in engecon03).34 As will be seen from the discussion below, the two texts which make frequent use 34. Article engecon25, a very short text of nine pages only, has an even higher frequency, 0.67 %. Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 203 of metatext do this in different ways. Engecon03, our so-called typical text, has two authors, as has engecon38, while engecon06 is written by a single, female, author. When it comes to the structure of the articles, all three texts follow a very typical pattern for economics texts with an Introduction, followed by several sections with subject-related headings (e.g. ”The channels of intervention”, ”The gain function”), constituting a so-called Middle part, and ending with a Conclusion (cf. section 1.2.4). Tables 5.5-1–3 below show the pattern of metatext in each of these three texts (see section 5.2. for a general discussion of metatext and the items included in our study). Table 5.5-1. The pattern of metatext in engecon03 article/paper section above now below Sum Introduction Middle Conclusion 2 2 3 4 3 – – 1 – – – – – – – 6 6 3 Total 7 7 1 0 0 15 Table 5.5-2. The pattern of metatext in engecon06 article/paper section above now below Sum Introduction Middle Conclusion 4 – 4 5 10 – – 5 – – 5 – 1 13 – 10 33 4 Total 8 15 5 5 14 47 Table 5.5-3. The pattern of metatext in engecon38 article/paper section above now below Sum Introduction Middle Conclusion 5 2 3 5 16 – – 11 – – 2 – – – – 10 31 3 Total 10 21 11 2 0 44 When comparing this with the other two texts with more frequent use of metatext (Tables 5.5-2 and 5.5-3), we see that the pattern of usage differs mainly in the use of previews (below) and reviews (above). In addition, there is more frequent reference to specific text parts through the use of section in the Middle part. In 204 Academic Voices both engecon06 and engecon38 the five instances of section in the Introduction are found in the road-mapping paragraph. As for the use of previews and reviews, we see from Table 5.5-2 that engecon06 mainly makes use of the former, with 13 instances of below, while Table 5.5-3 shows that engecon38 has no previews at all, but 11 instances of the review above. Engecon38, then, displays the most common pattern of previews/reviews found in the entire KIAP Corpus (section 5.2). We notice that most of the metatext is found in the Middle part of the two articles. Let us now take a closer look at the context for the various instances of above and below in engecon06 and engecon38. As already stated, engecon06 primarily makes use of the preview below, but there are also some instances of above. (3) Using utility functions similar to those used in the general equilibrium literature, I show below that this simple partial equilibrium framework implies welfare gains of at least 20% of permanent consumption and often-times near 100%. (engecon06) (4) This relationship will be determined endogenously below. (engecon06) (5) Below, I examine the equity-based and consumption-based literature on risksharing gains using the gain function Eq. (5). (engecon06) (6) Below, I begin by calculating the gain function for two benchmark cases assuming plausible preference parameters. (engecon06) (7) I follow this approach below although clearly this approach ignores the potential for estimation 12 risk to affect portfolio decisions. (engecon06) (8) I will return to this problem below. (engecon06) Examples (3)–(8) are all typical instances of preview use, preparing the reader for what will follow. They all seem good illustrations of the text navigation assistance we in section 5.2 claimed is the most prominent function of such meta-elements. We notice how, apart from example (4), all the cotexts contain the personal pronoun I. The author in question is hence clearly visible in these cases. When it comes to the use of the review above in this article, the cotexts tend to be less personal than those for below. Examples (9) and (10) are typical cases: (9) As noted above, these measures represent the lower bounds for the true gains since the feasible set of portfolios is restricted to linear combinations of the US stock market and a fixed mutual fund of foreign stocks. (engecon06) (10) As described above, low intertemporal substitution mitigates the gains from risk-sharing. (engecon06) Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 205 If we then turn to text engecon38, with no previews, but with 11 instances of above, it turns out that 10 of these occur as prenominal modifiers, as shown in examples (11)–(13): (11) The above two first-order conditions specify unilaterally optimal tariffs by country Y on imports from each country […] and reflect familiar terms-oftrade incentives in which countries impose a positive tariff on imports so as to lower the world price of the good. (engecon38) (12) In the following Lemma we establish that, as a result of the above incentives, tariffs will be complementary. (engecon38) (13) While the above qualification should be kept in mind and the limitations of the partial equilibrium model are acknowledged, nevertheless similar results are also present in general equilibrium models. (engecon38) The only instance of an adverbial use of above is the following example: (14) It should be apparent that the non-discriminatory punishment path specified above satisfies the first three properties. (engecon38) In all 11 instances, above points back to information found in the near vicinity. It is thus quite local in scope. In addition, as it is part of a noun phrase with exact reference, what it refers back to tends to be very precise and limited stretches of text. This is somewhat different from the use of below in text engecon06, which in most cases points to information found at some distance and with less specific reference. This case study has once again demonstrated individual variation in linguistic behaviour within the corpus. In this case engecon06 and engecon38 are numerically almost identical in their use of metatext. However, the ways the authors of the two texts exploit this pragmatic feature are somewhat less similar. When comparing metatext (and to some extent pronoun) use in the three articles, the author of engecon06 gives the impression of being the most personal and visible author, and can hence perhaps be described as the one closest to the personification of the typical English-speaking author who acts as a guide when the reader ”tours” the text (Mauranen 1993b: 16). 5.5.2 ‘Let’-imperatives in a Norwegian economics article In this section, we take a closer look at how ‘let’-imperatives are used in one economics article in Norwegian, viz. noecon12. This article is special in that it is based on the author’s so-called trial lecture for the doctoral degree in economics and hence may not be a typical research article. It is interesting, nevertheless, because it contains 12 examples of ‘let’-imperatives: five sentences with la oss (‘let us’) and 206 Academic Voices seven with la meg (‘let me’). The examples of ‘let us’ will be related to the usage types posited in 5.3, and we will see that there is a rather clear functional distribution of ‘let us’ and ‘let me’ in this article (see also Kinn 2005c). The article has a number of reader-oriented features, as well as expressions of author manifestation. In addition to ‘let us’ and ‘let me’, it contains several occurrences of the ordinary imperative and some occurrences of ‘let’-imperative with a third person object. There are also direct questions, singular and plural (mostly inclusive) first person pronouns and a large amount of metatext. (This case study takes into account all types of metatext, including those of our investigation in 5.2.) The article even has a couple of direct references to the reader, viz. by the use of leseren (‘the reader’). All this gives the text a very reader-oriented and fairly lecture-like character. It is quite possible that the oral history of the article has attributed to this. The five examples of ‘let us’ are provided in (15)–(19). (15) For å illustrere enda en Nash-likevekt, la oss gå tilbake til eksempelet med de to bilene som møter hverandre uventet på en smal vei. ‘…, let us go back to the example …’ (16) La oss konkludere diskusjonen av angrepskoordinerings-problemet. ‘Let us conclude the discussion …’ (17) La oss betrakte den følgende vrien på historien om Radar og Blind før jeg forsøker å definere «nesten åpen kunnskap» mer presist. ‘Let us consider the following twist of the story …’ (18) La oss først se nøyaktig hvordan sjåførenes nytte er gjensidig avhengig av hverandre i den følgende spillmatrise, før vi finner Nash-likevektene. ‘Let us first see exactly how …’ (19) La oss definere åpen oppfatning mer presist. ‘Let us define common belief more precisely.’ Examples (15) and (16) with ‘go back’ and ‘conclude’ illustrate the structuring type posited in 5.3. While the former primarily orients the reader towards the thematic structure of the text, the latter both orients the reader and involves the reaching of an opinion about the matter in question. Example (17) with ‘consider’ belongs in the scope type, defining the focus of attention, while example (18) with ‘see’ should probably be classified in the analysis type (bordering on the scope type). The last example, (19), with ‘define’, illustrates the definition type, referring to an act of terminologisation. As argued in Kinn (2005c), the Norwegian la oss-imperative is typically used in cases where it is easy to create the impression of the author and reader performing the act together and having the same role. Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 207 On the other hand, according to Kinn (2005c), when the creation of a dyad where author and reader have the same role is less easy, there is a tendency to use a la meg-imperative instead. This is illustrated by the first six of examples (20)–(26), which are the ones found in noecon12. The enunciative acts of exemplifying, mentioning, saying, explaining and telling relate a sender and a receiver. In ”reality”, the sender here is the author, and the receiver is the reader of the article. Since the two have different roles in the act, it is more felicitous to use la meg than la oss. (20) La meg gi et eksempel på et spill i følge denne definisjonen. ‘Let me give an example …’ (21) La meg nevne tre av disse [antakelsene]. ‘Let me mention three of these (assumptions).’ (22) Før jeg forsøker å besvare dette spørsmålet, la meg si noen ord om ambisjonene til artikkelen. ‘…, let me say a few words about the ambitions of the article.’ (23) La meg forklare intuisjonen bak dette resultatet. ‘Let me explain the intuition behind this result.’ (24) I stedet for å gjøre det, la meg fortelle om en viktig re[ak]sjon på angrepskoordineringsproblemet i litteraturen.35 ‘…, let me tell (you) about an important reaction …’ (25) Før jeg forteller mer utførlig hvordan Monderer og Samet definerte nesten åpen kunnskap, la meg gi intuisjonen bak deres tilnærming. ‘…, let me give the intuition behind their approach.’ (26) La meg skissere et argument – som jeg tror gir en plausibel forklaring på hvordan folk klarer å koordinere handlingene sine uten at spillet er åpent kjent. ‘Let me sketch an argument – …’ The last example of la meg-imperative, (26), involves sketching, which less clearly differentiates between a sender and a receiver role. Some of the examples with la meg can be classified according to the types of usage for ‘let me’ in 5.3. For instance, (21) with nevne (‘mention’) is of the awareness type.36 Other examples are more difficult to place, e.g. (24) with fortelle (‘tell’); it is probably safe to claim that this is an unusual locution for a research article. 35. The article has relasjon (‘relation’), but it is clear that reaksjon (‘reaction’) is meant. 36. It is probably significant that this function is performed with a ‘let me’- rather than a ‘let us’-imperative in Norwegian – recall that ‘let us’ in connection with awareness is more or less confined to French examples. There appears to be a functional distribution of ‘let us’ and ‘let me’ corresponding to one formal type in French. 208 Academic Voices As observed in 5.3, there is a tendency for ‘let us/me’-imperatives to co-occur with paragraph transitions and (to a lesser degree) with section transitions. This is also the case in this article, and more clearly for paragraphs than for sections. Out of 12 imperatives, four are in the first sentence of a paragraph (viz. examples (15), (16), (23) and (26) above), two in the second (examples (17) and (24)), and one or two in the last (examples (25) and, possibly, (18)).37 As regards co-occurrence with section transitions, this is not a strong tendency here: One imperative is in the first paragraph of a section (example (21)), two in the second (examples (20) and (25)), one in the second to last (example (16)) and one in the last (example (24)). We will look more closely at two passages involving four of the examples. The first passage, given as (27) below, is in the introductory section; it begins on the second page and ends on the third and includes examples (15) and (18) above. (The section goes on for about two thirds of a page.) (27) [example of a Nash equilibrium] En Nash-likevekt er altså et par av handlinger […]. […] For å illustrere enda en Nash-likevekt, la oss gå tilbake til eksempelet med de to bilene som møter hverandre uventet på en smal vei. Sjåførene kaller vi for henholdsvis Adam og Eva. Anta at både Adam og Eva verdsetter […]. […] La oss først se nøyaktig hvordan sjåførenes nytte er gjensidig avhengig av hverandre i den følgende spillmatrise, før vi finner Nash-likevektene. [figure: game matrix] ‘(example of a Nash equilibrium) Thus, a Nash equilibrium is a pair of actions … To illustrate yet another Nash equilibrium, let us go back to the example with the two cars that meet unexpectedly on a narrow road. We will call the drivers Adam and Eve, respectively. Assume that both Adam and Eve value … Let us first see exactly how the drivers’ gains depend on one another mutually in the following game matrix, before we find the Nash equilibria. (figure: game matrix)’ The paragraph with the two ‘let us’-imperatives is a very clear example of their tendency to co-occur with (other bits of) metatext. The first imperative is preceded by an adverbial of motivational metatext (For å illustrere …). This expression motivates the textual move of returning thematically to a previous scenario, which is announced with the imperative. The second imperative co-occurs with not one, but three metatextual adverbials, viz. først, i den følgende spillmatrise and før vi finner … These are all instances of locational metatext. The first and last of these 37. The classification depends on whether a specific figure is considered to be in the middle of or after the paragraph in question (i.e. whether the paragraph continues after the figure). The problematic imperative is in the last sentence before the figure (see example (27)). Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 209 relate two text parts to one another sequentially; there is first an examination of a matrix and then a calculation of equilibria. The second metatextual expression explicitly identifies the first element of the sequence as (primarily) consisting of the matrix referred to. This example is an unusually clear illustration of the frequent co-occurrence of ‘let’-imperatives and metatext. This passage also illustrates the tendency for ‘let’-imperatives to co-occur with paragraph transitions. The first imperative is in the first sentence of the paragraph, the second in the last sentence before the matrix figure. The paragraph is not close to a section transition, however. The second passage, in (28), amounts to the last two paragraphs in the third main section of the article and includes examples (16) and (24) above. There is less metatext here than in the previous passage, but the adverbial I stedet for … preceding the second imperative takes on a metatextual character in this context. (28) [paragraph] La oss konkludere diskusjonen av angrepskoordineringsproblemet. Angrepskoordineringsproblemet forteller oss at […]. […] Hva jeg ikke har sagt, og vil heller ikke si noe om, er hvor generelt det gjelder […]. I stedet for å gjøre det, la meg fortelle om en viktig re[ak]sjon på angrepskoordineringsproblemet i litteraturen. [new section] ‘(paragraph) Let us conclude the discussion of the coordinated attack problem. The coordinated attack problem tells us that … What I have not said, neither will say anything about, is how generally it is the case … Instead of doing that, let me tell (you) about an important reaction to the coordinated attack problem in the literature. (new section)’ The first imperative begins a new paragraph, and the second ends a paragraph that is also the end of the section. In effect, the last two paragraphs of the section conclude the section thematically and introduce the theme of the next, and the imperatives make this explicit. In the passages above, we see how ‘let’-imperatives direct the attention of the reader and help to guide him or her through the article. There is a fairly strong presupposition built into these locutions that the reader agrees with the author and is willing to follow. More than is typically the case, this author (in this specific article) takes on a pedagogical role, assigning a student role to the reader. This style is more typical of lectures and text books (see Wales 1996: 65–66), and, as mentioned in the beginning of this section, it is possible that the history of the article as a trial lecture has contributed to its tone. 210 Academic Voices 5.5.3 Metatext and author manifestation in a French medical article In this section, we take a closer look at a French medical article that has no examples of the kinds of metatext that we investigated in section 5.2, nor of ‘let us’-imperatives (5.3), viz. frmed32. The investigation in section 5.2 is limited to a selection of metatextual expression types. The present case study also looks for metatextual elements that were not included there. We also look at author manifestation. The article has a lower relative frequency of nous (‘we’; 4.3) and on (‘one’; 4.4) than the median for French medicine (with absolute frequencies of four and three examples, respectively). That is, explicit mention of the authors themselves is rare.38 We begin with author manifestation. In addition to the four examples of nous (‘we’), there are 17 examples of the possessive notre/nos (‘our’). The explicit presence of the authors (and possible other non-author colleagues included in the ‘we’) is therefore stronger than the figure for nous might lead us to believe. However, all the examples of notre/nos and three of the examples of nous are in the discussion section. The remaining example of nous is the first one in the text and is found in the section ”Patients et méthode”; it is used in a description of the procedure for registering information for each patient case. Except for this one example, there is in fact no mention of the researchers or authors in the introduction, material/ method or (rather lengthy) results sections, which take the shape of a report and are formulated in past tenses. Needless to say, the researchers are implicitly present as the agents of research processes referred to by various impersonal expression types, e.g. passives, nominalisations and non-finite verbal constructions (see the case study in 4.6.2). Most of the types of author manifestation found in the article are illustrated in the passages in (29) and (30), which are both taken from the discussion section. (29) Notre étude retrouve le caractère nosocomial de l’infection à CD. Cependant, près de la moitié des cas sont considérés comme des infections acquises en dehors de CHU […]. Cette place importante des infections « extra-hospitalières » dans notre série nécessite d’être confirmée par une étude prospective. Mais ce premier constat mérite que l’on s’attache à informer davantage nos confrères extra-hospitaliers. […] La mention « recherche de CD » doit également figurer dans les prescriptions hospitalières. ‘Our study identifies the nosocomial character of CD infection. But almost half the cases are considered to be infections acquired outside of the CHU 38. The relative frequency of negation is slightly higher than the median for French medicine, while the ones for adversative conjunctions and bibliographical references are well above the respective medians; see Chapter 6 for these features. Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 211 (hospital) … This important place of ”extra-hospital” infections in our series needs to be confirmed by a prospective study. But this first report indicates that one should seek to inform our extra-hospital colleagues. … Mention should also be made of ”test for CD” in hospital prescriptions.’ (30) Le motif de prescription de l’antibiothérapie n’est pas mentionné dans les séries de la littérature. Cependant, au vu de nos résultats, il paraît intéressant de noter que dans 90 % des cas l’infection est banale […]. C’est probablement pour cette raison que les épidémies hospitalières constatées dans notre étude étaient surtout hivernales. ‘The reason for the prescription of antibiotic therapy is not mentioned for the series in the literature. But in the light of our results, it seems interesting to note that in 90 % of the cases the infection is banal … It is probably for this reason that the hospital epidemics observed in our study occurred mostly in the winter.’ As mentioned above, the research is mostly presented as an activity of the past. However, in a few cases the research process is extended into the textual here-andnow, e.g. when they note with interest the high share of ”banal” infections in (30). Other examples of this include nous constatons (‘we observe’) and nous enregistrons (‘we register’), also in the discussion. There is some use of persuasive adjectives in the text. Two instances are importante in (29) and intéressant (‘interesting’) in (30). The clearest example is a use of surprenant (‘surprising’). Other types of expressions that mark the presence of thinking subjects include the epistemic modality markers sembler (‘seem, appear’) and probablement (‘probably’) (see Vold 2005). The passage in (29) contains two other interesting features, viz. the combined motivation and ”self-obligation” to inform colleagues and the piece of advice that testing for CD infection should become part of hospital prescriptions. This illustrates an aspect of applied science that is characteristic of many medical articles: The research is conducted in order to gain knowledge that may help us fight disease and cure disorders, and this knowledge can serve as the basis for advising colleagues in the medical profession. We see, then, that the presence of the authors is a little stronger than the pronoun figures seem to indicate. The features that we have mentioned primarily have to do with authorial presence. There is, however, also a certain amount of metatext in the article. One example can be seen in (29) above: ce premier constat (‘this first report’). Some of the metatext is so conventionally engrained as to be hardly noticeable, e.g. quant à (‘as regards’) and il s’agit de (‘concerning’), à savoir (‘namely’). More noteworthy is the way that reference is made to figures and tables, illustrated in (31) and (32). These are taken from the section ”Patients et méthode”. 212 Academic Voices (31) La Figure 1 fait apparaître deux périodes enregistrées au sein de l’unité posturgence. ‘Figure 1 shows two periods …’ (32) Les principaux motifs de prescription sont regroupés dans le Tableau 1. ‘The principal reasons … are grouped in Table 1.’ Significantly, the authors avoid mentioning themselves. In (31) this is achieved by metonymy, in the personification of the figure. In (32) it is done by means of the passive. Apart from these examples, there is virtually no metatext until the end of the article. The last two paragraphs are quoted in (33). (33) Enfin, il est important d’insister sur le retentissement économique qu’engendre une telle complication. D’abord, elle occasionne un surcroît de travail […]. Ensuite, elle isole le patient […]. […] En conclusion, une infection à CD doit toujours être évoquée […]. De plus, cette complication est classiquement connue comme infection nosocomiale, mais notre expérience montre que l’infection à CD complique aussi l’antibiothérapie prescrite en ville. ‘Finally, it is important … To begin with, it causes … Further, it isolates … To conclude, a CD infection … In addition, this complication is classically known as …, but our experience shows …’ The enfin of the second to last paragraph signals the arrival of the last new point to be mentioned, and the two sentence-initial adverbials d’abord and ensuite structure this part of the text. The last, informationally important, paragraph is similarly flagged and structured by means of two metatextual adverbials (en conclusion and de plus). To conclude this case study, then, the amount of metatext is fairly sparse in frmed32, but it is not completely absent. It is probably significant that it is most clearly present in the concluding paragraphs, where the essence of the message to be conveyed is given in brief. 5.6 Concluding remarks In this chapter we have seen that discipline is a very important factor to take into account when discussing reader/writer interaction, particularly regarding the phenomenon of metatext. In addition, the language factor comes into play and contributes to the observed variation in the corpus (cf. Table 3.2-1). In section 5.1 we stated that about 34 % of the variance is left unaccounted for. This is in fact the lowest percentage observed for any of our features, i.e. it is the feature with least Chapter 5. Reader/writer interaction 213 individual variation. In terms of discipline, economics makes most frequent use of metatext, while linguistics represents a clear second in this respect. Medicine − most likely due to its fixed rhetorical text structure − has less need for providing the reader with overt text structural signposts, and uses metatext only to a negligible degree. In terms of language, English uses most metatext, illustrating its socalled reader-oriented approach; Norwegian, in second place, also belongs in the reader-oriented group, while French, ranked third in all three disciplines, may on this basis be characterised as a writer-oriented language. French, however, turned out to be the most frequent user of ‘let us’-constructions, which in our material turned out to typically co-occur with metatextual expressions (5.3.3). Hence, the inclusion of this construction to some extent blurs the picture drawn above of the three languages as belonging in two different groups in terms of reader/writer interaction. As for the discipline variable, the ‘let us’-constructions basically display the same pattern as our metatext elements, implying that they are more frequent in economics and linguistics than in medicine. Thus, our findings show that medicine is clearly the discipline with least overt interaction between reader and writer. In terms of the overt textual presentation of ‘results’ and ‘conclusions ‘, when the author is signalling his or her knowledge claims to the readers, our study reveals that English-writing authors are again more explicit than their French colleagues, with Norwegian authors occupying a middle position between the two. As regards the discipline dimension, economics in this case, in contrast to several of the other features studied, turns out to be more similar to medicine than to linguistics; hence in this respect economics shows an affiliation to the hard sciences. Thus, our hypotheses regarding reader/writer interaction (section 5.0) have on the whole been confirmed. English does display overt interaction to a higher degree than French; for Norwegian, our expectation that author behaviour would be similar to English (albeit a little less explicit) also turns out to hold true. With respect to the discipline variable, economics and linguistics authors on the whole are more visible in their texts than their colleagues within the medical profession. chapter 6 Presence of the others 6.0 Introduction We have summarised our main object of study in the notion of person manifestation (see section 1.1). In a general textual perspective, this notion may easily be associated with author- or self-manifestation (first person) only. However, in our study of the research article, the notion of person manifestation covers reference to all three persons (first, second and third). In our distinction between self, self & other and other, the self-dimension corresponds to first person as manifested by the presence of the author(s), self & other to first and second person as manifested through the interaction between author and reader, and other mainly to third person as manifested by the presence of researchers other than the author(s), but also to second person manifested through references to the reader(s). The two previous chapters have dealt primarily with the presence of the author (self-dimension in Chapter 4) and with the interaction between writer and reader (self- & other-dimension in Chapter 5). We now direct our attention towards linguistic features that the authors use in order to bring other researchers (third persons), their research and viewpoints into the text. Thus, the focus is on the other-dimension, and we mostly address our second main question: How are the voices of other researchers reflected? When studying person manifestation in the research article, bringing in the third person or other researchers is obviously relevant. Given the fast developing and competitive nature of research today, scientific authors need to refer to previous publications and to compare their results with previous findings in order to present their claims and discuss scientific progress. With a rhetorical view of scientific discourse as something which is created in a particular and multivoiced communicative situation, it becomes natural to pay special attention to the mixing of voices of self and others, i.e. polyphony. In recent years, Bakhtinian ideas on dialogism and polyphony in all kinds of discourse studies have pervaded studies of academic discourse as well (see Bondi 2005; Bondi & Silver 2004). Placing ourselves to some extent in this tradition, we have chosen as our theoretical framework the ScaPoLine version of linguistic polyphony (see section 2.1.2). This framework is particularly relevant for the present 216 Academic Voices chapter. It gives us the opportunity to go further than the study of reported speech as realised through bibliographical references and citations alone. As already stated in section 2.1.2, the ScaPoLine theory provides a framework where a series of linguistic means function as signals of voices in text. We follow Thompson (1996: 502) who states that “many reports are expressed by means of structures other than quotes or reported clauses”. In an approach which is more functional than structural, his purpose is “to suggest an overall framework for the description of ‘language reports’” (ibid.: 502), defined as “signalled voices in text”. He takes as his point of departure the four dimensions of choice for the reporter: voice, message, signal and attitude. We find the voice dimension particularly relevant, which specifies the five options of self, specified other(s), unspecified other(s), community and unspecifiable other(s) (ibid.: 524). Even though structured and labelled somewhat differently, these options are covered by the discourse beings assumed by ScaPoLine (see 2.1.2). In our view, the advantage of ScaPoLine is that it covers a larger spectrum of signals, within one homogeneous framework. Thompson lists reporting clause, adjunct, noun, adjective and verb as structural options for language reports (ibid.: 524), while ScaPoLine considers in addition various adverbs and connectives as important signals of voices or points of view. In this chapter we focus on the manifestation of others’ voices in two perspectives: explicit presence, mainly in the form of bibliographical references (section 6.2), and implicit presence, mainly through the manifestation of others in negation and in concession constructions signalled by the adversative connective ‘but’ (section 6.4). Our decision to study the use of general features such as negation and adversative connectives in research articles may call for an explanation. The main reason is that both negation and the adversative ‘but’ signal polyphonic patterns. In addition there is an interesting rhetorical aspect related to these features: Both negation and adversatives may convey polemic attitudes. Salager-Meyer, Alcaraz Ariza and Zambrano (2003) study the socio-pragmatic phenomenon of academic conflict, realised by various linguistic features, in Spanish, French and English medical articles. We see our analysis of negation and adversative ‘but’ as complementing their study. The distinction between explicit and implicit presence is a methodological one. Implicit and explicit manifestations of voices are, in fact, often interwoven, as can be observed in the following examples (emphasis added): (1) Blanchard and Watson (1986) and Blanchard and Quah (1989) found evidence that demand shocks were the main source of US fluctuations, but Shapiro and Watson (1988) and Gali (1992) found that supply shocks predominated. (engecon22) Chapter 6. Presence of the others 217 (2) There is an interrelation between the absence or presence of the TO-phrase experiencer and the agency of the subject of these verbs. It is not enough to claim, as Brinton (1988, p. 31, following Mourelatos, 1978, p. 419) does, that there is aspectual multivalence. The different aspectual behaviour we see with these verbs is associated with the presence or absence of an argument – the experiencer – and with the polysemy of the verbs of appearance. (engling39) In (1) there is explicit other-presence through references combined with a concessive but-construction manifesting implicit polyphony; in (2) there is explicit presence through references, introduced by a negation construction indicating implicit polyphony (It is not enough to claim, …). In addition, in (2) the plural pronoun we indicates that the author is bringing the reader and/or a larger discourse community into the argumentation (engling39 is a single-author article). These examples illustrate that in academic language explicit other-manifestation realised through bibliographical references and implicit polyphonic constructions are often interrelated, and they are, of course, both polyphonic. The notion of linguistic polyphony can handle both the explicit and implicit perspectives, as well as the combination of the self- and other-dimensions within a coherent theory and by means of a homogeneous methodological apparatus. It can handle both explicit citations in some form of reported speech, as well as implicit presence as manifested, for example, by an adversative and concessive connective like but, or by the negation not (see examples above). As regards bibliographical references, what we call explicit presence of others, these constitute a domain within academic discourse which has been extensively studied. In our qualitative analysis of referencing behaviour in research articles, we can therefore lean on previous research (e.g. Swales 1986, 1990; Salager-Meyer 1998, 1999; Valle 1999; Hyland 2000; we will come back to some of these in section 6.2). However, as far as we know, no studies take into account the doubly contrastive language–discipline perspective adopted in this book. This implies that there is little prior research on which to base well-founded hypotheses concerning quantitative characteristics of the referential behaviour in the three languages and the three disciplines studied. (We will however return to a possible comparison with Hyland’s 2000 study of eight different disciplines.) Hence the hypotheses we set forth are somewhat speculative in nature. If we take into consideration the size and the age of our three disciplines, we might nevertheless hypothesise, tentatively, that references are more frequent in medicine than in linguistics, and more frequent in linguistics than in economics. Likewise, if we take into consideration the extension of the three languages and the amount of research reported in English, French and Norwegian language journals, we expect English to have the highest frequency of references, French to rank second highest and Norwegian third. In 218 Academic Voices order to contribute to answering our key research issue related to potential cultural identities within academic discourse (see section 1.1), we need to undertake quantitative analyses which can provide new insight into the frequency of bibliographical references in research articles in different disciplines and written in different languages (see section 6.1). Polyphonic constructions as presented within ScaPoLine, in particular constructions indicating implicit presence of others, are a much less studied domain, at least in the Anglo-American tradition. In 6.4 we will return to previous studies relevant to the qualitative analysis of these constructions. However, as far as we know, the quantitative aspect of negation and adversative connectives in academic discourse has only been studied within the KIAP project. If we focus on the polemic aspect of these constructions, we might, as mentioned above, relate our issue to the studies of criticism in Spanish, French and English medical discourse undertaken by Salager-Meyer et al. (2003). We can on that basis hypothesise that French medical authors use more negations and adversatives than their English counterparts (for further comments see 6.1). Our quantitative data are presented and discussed in section 6.1. Section 6.2 provides a qualitative study of different types of bibliographical references as well as their distribution in different disciplines and languages. We focus particularly on references with grammatical subject function. In section 6.3, we relate the other-dimension to the self-dimension. This section focuses on a comparison of what roles the authors assign to themselves and to the others in the polyphonic drama. By comparing verbs combined with the reference source in subject position with verbs combined with first person pronominal subject referring to the authors, we attempt to answer the question of “who can do what?”. Finally, negation (‘not’) and concessive constructions signalled by the adversative connective ‘but’ are issues dealt with in section 6.4. Section 6.5 presents a case study of the use of negation in three English articles (one from each discipline), while we in section 6.6 sum up and discuss our main results in some concluding remarks. 6.1 Quantitative and comparative results This section presents results of our last three main quantitative investigations. Bibliographical references are the subject of 6.1.1, negation is treated in 6.1.2, and 6.1.3 deals with adversatives. Chapter 6. Presence of the others 219 6.1.1 Bibliographical references The bibliographical references we have included in our quantitative study comprise publications of the years 1900–1999 and 2000–2003. We have not counted instances where the reference takes the Latin forms of ibid., op.cit., loc.cit., etc. Further, instances with a reference of the form Hansen 1999a, b, c have only been counted as one occurrence. In the medical articles we have counted the note numbers referring to the list of references at the end of the article. References integrated in notes have not been counted, the reason being that we have chosen to limit the study to the main article text (the body part; see 1.2). Central data concerning the frequency of bibliographical references are presented in Table 6.1-1. We saw in 3.2 (Table 3.2-1) that as much as 44 % of the variance in the relative frequency of bibliographical references in the KIAP Corpus is due to differences between disciplines, whereas language differences contribute only 5 % (cf. also Appendix B). The contribution of factor interaction is also significant, viz. 2 %. About 49 % of the variance is unaccounted for. Table 6.1-1. The use of bibliographical references Corpus No. of articles No. of tokens Mean rel. fr. Median rel. fr. Standard deviation Quartile deviation engecon engling engmed frecon frling frmed noecon noling nomed 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 1279 4184 2663 1366 1040 2019 1583 2088 1819 0.437 0.930 1.630 0.445 0.485 1.411 0.493 0.868 1.837 0.396 0.814 1.604 0.350 0.443 1.040 0.472 0.674 1.500 0.258 0.484 0.604 0.347 0.401 1.673 0.321 0.744 1.202 0.173 0.234 0.371 0.148 0.174 0.410 0.191 0.238 0.450 econall lingall medall 150 150 150 4228 7312 6501 0.458 0.761 1.626 0.401 0.637 1.427 0.310 0.592 1.243 0.168 0.238 0.447 engall frall noall 150 150 150 8126 4425 5490 0.999 0.780 1.066 0.821 0.510 0.744 0.678 1.102 1.007 0.486 0.298 0.470 KIAP 450 18041 0.948 0.688 0.952 0.421 Relative frequencies and deviations in %. 220 Academic Voices The discipline factor The relative frequency of bibliographical references is clearly highest in medicine, and it is higher in linguistics than in economics. The differences between medicine and economics and between medicine and linguistics are significant both at the superlevel and at the sublevel (in each language).1 The same holds for the differences between linguistics and economics, except at the French sublevel, where the difference is not significant. The overall findings confirm our hypothesis tentatively formulated in 6.0, namely that references are more frequent in medicine than in linguistics, and more frequent in linguistics than in economics. Our selection of three disciplines is obviously too narrow, however, for us to posit a claim of general validity that there is a relation between the size and age of a particular discipline and the number of bibliographical references used in the same discipline. As regards our English subcorpus, it is interesting to compare our findings with those presented by Hyland (2000) in his study of 80 articles from eight disciplines. His general conclusion related to frequency is formulated as follows: The figures broadly support the informal characterisation that softer disciplines tend to employ more citations, with engineering and physics well below the average, although the frequencies for molecular biology seem to differ considerably from this picture. (Hyland 2000: 24) Since the disciplines he studies are not the same as those included in the KIAP Corpus, a direct and general comparison is not possible, but we can look at the figures related to some of the disciplines studied by Hyland. If we consider molecular biology as a discipline relatively close to medicine, we see a certain correspondence as regards relative frequency: In Hyland’s study, the relative frequency of bibliographical references in molecular biology is 1.55 %; in our study, it is 1.63 % in English medicine (1.83 % for Norwegian medicine). Other comparisons which could be made, still keeping in mind that the disciplines are not the same in our corpus, are the following: In his study of applied linguistics, Hyland observes a relative frequency of 1.08 %, while we have observed a relative frequency of 0.93 % in English linguistics. In Hyland’s study, the relative frequency in sociology is 1.25 % while it is only 0.44 % for English economics in our material. In conclusion, we see that our findings related to the English subcorpus correspond fairly well to those of Hyland (2000), except for the discipline of economics to which there is no directly comparable counterpart. 1. The terms superlevel and sublevel are explained in 2.2.5. Chapter 6. Presence of the others 221 The language factor English and Norwegian have similar frequencies of bibliographical references, and there are more in these two languages than in French. At the superlevel, the differences between English and French and between Norwegian and French are significant, but not that between English and Norwegian. At the sublevel, all the three language differences are significant in linguistics, with English first, Norwegian second and French third. In medicine, the differences between English and French and between Norwegian and French are significant, but the difference between English and Norwegian is not. In economics, there are no significant differences (and there are slightly more references in Norwegian than in English). The overall findings correspond only to a modest degree to our hypothesis formulated in 6.0 suggesting more references in English than in French and Norwegian, and more in French than in Norwegian. Norwegian articles are in fact quite close to English articles while French articles have a substantially lower frequency of bibliographical references, even if this language has a considerably larger extension than Norwegian (see also 6.6). One tentative explanation might be that Norwegian culture is traditionally more oriented towards Great Britain and the US, and that Norwegian researchers commonly orient themselves towards international research. As regards French academics, they may traditionally have been less oriented towards research undertaken and published outside the francophone world. However, the differences are more modest in the language perspective than in the discipline perspective. This might be taken as support for our general hypothesis of greater differences between disciplines than between languages.2 The gender factor In single-author articles, there are no significant differences in the relative frequency of bibliographical references between articles written by a man and articles written by a woman in any of the subcorpora, nor in combinations thereof.3 2. The results of an exploratory study comprising 180 articles, reported in Fløttum (2003e), are very similar to the results obtained for the total corpus. The difference is that the frequency of bibliographical references in medical articles is higher when the whole corpus is taken into account (1.41 % in the 180 articles and 1.56 % for the whole corpus). The difference holds for all the language corpora with the following figures: engall 0.82 % versus 1.00 %; noall 0.85 % versus 1.07 %; frall: 0.65 % versus 0.71 %. 3. Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test, α = 0.05; see section 2.2.5. 222 Academic Voices 6.1.2 Negation The search for expressions in this main quantitative investigation includes English not, French ne … pas and Norwegian Bokmål ikke, Nynorsk ikkje. (The English contractions -n’t and cannot were not included in the quantitative analysis. Nor were any other kinds of negating expressions.) As we saw in 3.2, differences between disciplines and differences between languages contribute to almost exactly the same share of the variance in the relative frequency of negation in the KIAP Corpus, viz. 18 % (cf. also Appendix B). There is no significant interaction between the discipline and language factors for negation. Most of the variance, about 64 %, cannot be attributed to either factor or their interaction. Table 6.1-2. The use of negation Corpus No. of articles No. of tokens Mean rel. fr. Median rel. fr. Standard deviation Quartile deviation engecon engling engmed frecon frling frmed noecon noling nomed 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 1194 2822 717 1084 1541 511 2059 2604 628 0.388 0.623 0.442 0.371 0.654 0.354 0.646 0.967 0.583 0.323 0.595 0.410 0.359 0.612 0.345 0.644 0.893 0.566 0.193 0.264 0.252 0.128 0.282 0.177 0.192 0.336 0.246 0.127 0.198 0.142 0.067 0.212 0.131 0.106 0.237 0.171 econall lingall medall 150 150 150 4337 6967 1856 0.468 0.748 0.460 0.430 0.716 0.423 0.214 0.332 0.245 0.156 0.219 0.151 engall frall noall 150 150 150 4733 3136 5291 0.484 0.460 0.732 0.440 0.394 0.682 0.258 0.247 0.312 0.176 0.134 0.172 KIAP 450 13160 0.559 0.507 0.300 0.192 Relative frequencies and deviations in %. The discipline factor Negation is clearly used more in linguistics than in economics and medicine. The differences between linguistics and economics and between linguistics and medicine are significant both at the superlevel and at the sublevel (in each language). There is no significant difference, however, between economics and medicine, at either level. The same picture of disciplinary differences and similarities is found for adversatives (see 6.1.3). Chapter 6. Presence of the others 223 The language factor Negation is used more in Norwegian than in English and French. The differences between Norwegian and English and between Norwegian and French are significant both at the superlevel and at the sublevel (in each discipline). There is no significant difference, however, between English and French, at either level. It is probable that one factor behind the higher frequency of negation in Norwegian is a grammatical one, viz. the fact that the negative quantifier ingen (‘no’) has a more restricted use than corresponding English and French expressions; constructions involving ikke/ikkje (‘not’) are frequently used instead. But Norwegian also has more adversatives than the other languages (see 6.1.3), and this, together with the high frequency of negation, might indicate a stronger argumentative character of Norwegian research articles (see discussion in section 7.1.) (For further comments on language differences, see 6.1.3.) The gender factor In single-author articles, no significant differences in the relative frequency of negation between articles written by a man and those written by a woman have been found in any of the subcorpora or combinations thereof.4 6.1.3 Adversatives Our quantitative investigation of adversatives is limited to adversative conjunctions, viz. English but, French mais and Norwegian men. Thus, words like however, nevertheless etc. and corresponding French and Norwegian expressions were not included in the corpus searches. The reasons that we limit this part of our study to only three conjunctions, or connectives as we often call them, are both qualitative and quantitative. First, these connectives are interesting in a polyphonic perspective and thus fit well with the overall approach of this book. Second, they are the most frequent and relevant connectives (already confirmed in a pilot study; see Breivega et al. 2002). And third, the three connectives but, mais and men are semantically comparable. A comparison of connectives in different languages requires in fact careful semantic-pragmatic considerations. Even though some connectives correspond more or less to each other, they often have particular semantic-pragmatic values in different languages. Adversative ‘but’ in different languages may also convey different meanings; however, they have in common a concessive meaning. This is the meaning which is particularly interesting to the polyphonic perspective and which will be further developed in section 6.4 (when concessive, these connectives 4. Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test, α = 0.05; see section 2.2.5. 224 Academic Voices function as markers of polyphony). There are of course other connectives which it could have been interesting to study. If we look at connectives that may convey a concessive meaning, the following clearly deserve further study in the context of academic discourse (number of tokens in our corpus in parentheses): English however (1,282), French cependant (378), Norwegian imidlertid (846), English although (521), French bien que (100) and Norwegian selv om (350). However, they are less frequent than the three we have chosen to study (the figures for but, mais and men are 2,296, 1,632 and 2,445 respectively; see Table 6.1-3) and it would have been difficult to pick out clear counterparts in each language for a systematic contrastive analysis. Our investigation hence has limited value for making generalisations, but it seems unique in its kind up to now. As seen in 3.2, 25 % of the variance in the relative frequency of adversative conjunctions in the KIAP Corpus can be attributed to disciplinary differences, while language differences contribute 9 % (cf. also Appendix B). The interaction contributes 1 %, which is not significant. This means that about 65 % of the variance is unaccounted for. Table 6.1-3. The use of adversative conjunctions Corpus No. of articles No. of tokens Mean rel. fr. Median rel. fr. Standard deviation Quartile deviation engecon engling engmed frecon frling frmed noecon noling nomed 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 592 1428 276 513 870 249 815 1293 337 0.197 0.319 0.171 0.163 0.382 0.181 0.254 0.463 0.325 0.188 0.270 0.137 0.148 0.379 0.161 0.235 0.454 0.304 0.105 0.195 0.120 0.093 0.141 0.099 0.147 0.152 0.223 0.063 0.059 0.072 0.070 0.096 0.068 0.098 0.065 0.125 econall lingall medall 150 150 150 1920 3591 862 0.205 0.388 0.226 0.194 0.377 0.175 0.122 0.173 0.171 0.070 0.115 0.103 engall frall noall 150 150 150 2296 1632 2445 0.229 0.242 0.347 0.207 0.210 0.340 0.158 0.150 0.197 0.085 0.097 0.127 KIAP 450 6373 0.273 0.239 0.177 0.116 Relative frequencies and deviations in %. Chapter 6. Presence of the others 225 The discipline factor Adversative conjunctions are clearly used more in linguistics than in economics and medicine. The differences between linguistics and economics and between linguistics and medicine are significant both at the superlevel and at the sublevel (in each language). There is no significant difference, however, between economics and medicine, at either level. It is noteworthy that this picture is exactly the same as for negation (see 6.1.2). The language factor Adversatives are more frequently used in Norwegian than in English and French. The differences between Norwegian and French are significant both at the superlevel and at the sublevel (in each discipline). The same holds for the differences between Norwegian and English, except at the economics sublevel, where the difference is not significant. At the linguistics sublevel, there is more frequent use of adversatives in French than in English, and the difference is significant. At the economics and medical sublevel, there are no significant differences between these two languages, nor is there a significant difference at the superlevel. In section 6.0 we indicated that if focusing on the polemic aspect of both negations and adversatives (for further details on the polemic aspect, see section 6.4), we may compare our findings related to the studies of academic conflict undertaken by Salager-Meyer et al. (2003). They investigated academic conflict in Spanish, French and English medical articles, published between 1930 and 1995. Their overall findings indicate that French (and Spanish) medical authors tend to be more critical (and authoritarian) than their English-speaking counterparts (and for French this discoursal pattern has not changed substantially over time). These findings correspond to ours, but only to a very modest degree, and only to the extent that negation and the adversatives but and mais are used with a polemic meaning. In our corpus French medical authors use slightly more negation and adversatives than their counterparts writing in English, but the difference is not significant.5 If we transfer this line of argument from the discipline of medicine to a general discipline perspective, our findings indicate that linguists are more polemic than economists and medical researchers. Further, Norwegian authors are more so than their English counterparts. 5. In their study of negative appraisals in academic book reviews (BR), Salager-Meyer and Alcaraz Ariza (2004: 168) conclude that “[t]he frequency, […] would tend to be language/culture dependent, English- and French-written BRs being less critical than their Spanish counterparts.” However, as regards the quantitative differences between English and French, the percentage of BRs with negative appraisals is slightly higher in French (76 %) than in English (70 %), (ibid.: 156). 226 Academic Voices The gender factor For single-author articles, one subcorpus displays a significant gender difference, viz. Norwegian linguistics, where male authors use adversatives more frequently than female authors. There are no other significant gender differences for adversatives in any of the other subcorpora, nor combinations thereof.6 6.2 Explicit presence: bibliographical references and citations The topic of this section is the explicit presence of others as manifested in bibliographical references. With the quantitative data presented in 6.1.1 as a background, we first present the four subtypes studied (6.2.1) and then look into the distribution of these subtypes (6.2.2). Further, we focus on the type of bibliographical references in which the reference is used as a grammatical subject (6.2.3). In 6.2.4 we discuss functions that bibliographical references can assume. 6.2.1 Four subtypes Looking behind the general figures presented in 6.1.1, we propose to differentiate four subtypes of bibliographical references. These subtypes can tell us a lot more about how and to what extent other researchers are given the opportunity to manifest themselves in a research article. We have studied different realisations of explicit references through four relatively broad categories proposed below (R1–R4).7 Like Salager-Meyer (1998, 1999), Koskela (1999), Hyland (1999, 2000), Bondi & Silver (2004) and many more, we were inspired by Swales’ distinction between integral and non-integral references in the setting up of these categories: An integral citation is one in which the name of the researcher occurs in the actual citing sentence as some sentence-element; in a non-integral citation, the researcher occurs either in parenthesis or is referred to elsewhere by a superscript number or via some other device. (Swales 1990: 148) However, since to us there seems to be an important qualitative distinction between those references where the name of the researcher does not occur in the main text and those where it does (be it within parentheses or not), we have defined our categories somewhat differently. There is a second important distinction between references where the actual researcher is only mentioned in one way or another 6. Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test, α = 0.05; see section 2.2.5. 7. The same categories were used in Fløttum (2003e). Chapter 6. Presence of the others 227 and those where he or she is actually given the floor, i.e. by a verbatim quote. These reflections have resulted in a division into four categories in the present study: R1 – Non-integral reference: Little Lake is polluted [1]. R2 – Partly integral reference: Little Lake is polluted (Clark 1999). R3 – Semi-integral reference: Clark (1999) has observed that Little Lake is polluted. R4 – Fully integral reference: Clark (1999) claims: “Little Lake is polluted.” / Clark (1999) claims that “Little Lake is polluted”. As regards R1, numbers inserted in brackets or parentheses or superscript numbers refer to a bibliographical list (typically an end-list). As regards R2 and R3, they are characterised by the presence of a cited author’s name and the year of publication, within parentheses (R2) or as an integrated element of the sentence in which the reference occurs (R3). Finally, R4 represents the case where the cited author is quoted; quotes are here defined as 3 or more words included by direct or indirect reported speech. In the following, some typical authentic examples are provided (for practical reasons most of the examples are taken from the English subcorpus). First the R1 – Non-integral type: (1) One pupillary manifestation of DAN is small pupil size but the mechanism for this is unclear despite a number of previous studies that have assessed pupil function in diabetic patients using both static and kinetic methods. [2-12] (engmed34) It is clear that the authors refer to eleven specific studies, indicated by a number of previous studies and the numbers [2-12], but the name and year of each publication is placed in a reference list at the end of the article, outside the main text. The reader gets to know the results of the research referred to, but when it comes to who carried them out or how old the studies are, this information is only available through the bibliographical list. Let us look at another example: (2) A large number and wide variety of medications approved for use by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are available to the US population, and expenditures on drugs have increased dramatically in recent years. [13] New prescription drugs are continually introduced, and older drugs are increasingly available over the counter (OTC), making self-medication commonplace. Adverse reactions to drugs are among the leading causes of hospitalization and death in this country. [4,5] (engmed20) This example simply refers to a set of facts, without any explicit mention of a study. We must, however, believe that the presented facts are accounted for in the publica- 228 Academic Voices tions referred to by the numbers [1-3] and [4,5]. This type of more or less objectively presented fact is also quite commonly found in the partly integral reference, R2: (3) Another difficulty is the sheer size of theses and dissertations as texts for analysis (Swales, 1984; Swales and Thompson, 1999). (engling11) This example is not very different from (2). But the mention of name and year makes this reference more informative. There might, however, be some confusion as to who did or found exactly what when there is a cluster of references in the same sentence: (4) Hence, we follow recent work in cognitive linguistics (Fauconnier 1994, 1997, Fauconnier & Turner 1998, Turner 1991, 1996), which posits that formal linguistic expression underspecifies for meaning. (engling17) When faced with a reference of this type, if one does not know the publications referred to, it becomes legitimate to ask the following question: Do all the publications referred to say “that formal linguistic expression underspecifies for meaning” and in the same way? In a study concerning the specific phenomenon of cluster, defined as the accumulation of three or more bibliographical references represented within parentheses as in the R2 type, Fløttum (2004i) claims that even if clustering represents an efficient way of referring to and positioning oneself in relation to other relevant research, it may lead to considerable ambiguity and even go against the academic ideal of clarity. There are, of course, situations where clustering is practical (for example when referring to a group of publications treating the same subject or belonging to the same tradition), but in many cases it may be pertinent to ask why such accumulations occur. Here is an example from engling16: (5) However, the relevant dimensions of discourse meaning have proved quite hard to characterize. The tunes have variously been associated with social attitude (O’Connor and Arnold 1961 and in a different sense Merin 1983), illocutionary acts (Liberman and Sag 1974, Sag and Liberman 1975, Liberman 1975), propositional attitudes and maintenance of mutual belief (Ward and Hirschberg 1985, Pierrehumbert and Hirschberg 1990, Bartels 1997), and various notions of information structure or packaging (Halliday 1967a, Jackendoff 1972, Schmerling 1976, Ladd 1980, 1996, Gussenhoven 1983, Selkirk 1984, Terken 1984, Terken and Hirschberg 1994, Morel 1995, Rochemont 1986, Steedman 1991a,b, Zubizarreta 1998). (engling16) The first two clusters are in fact introduced and specified in a quite informative way; but the last one, containing 14 references, is introduced rather vaguely by Chapter 6. Presence of the others 229 the complex noun phrase various notions of information structure or packaging. With many clusters like these, it is not surprising that the total number of occurrences in this article is as high as 185. However, this example must be considered an extreme one. The semi-integral reference, R3, is more informative than R2 due to the presence of the name of the cited researcher as an integrated member of the citing utterance. The reader is told who did or found what: (6) Deci and Ryan (1985) and Lepper et al. (1973) find that if people are given external rewards for pursuing an activity, their existing internal motivation is undermined. (engecon20) The most prominent syntactic role a cited researcher can get seems to be the syntactic subject (more about these constructions below), as in example (6). But there is considerable variation within category R3, and often researchers are only referred to through a passive construction, as in (7): (7) As shown by Ludema (2001), the above properties can be satisfied by a punishment path in which countries play symmetric Nash tariffs […]. (engecon38). The final category, R4, fully integral reference, is the one in which the voice of the other(s) is the most explicit. This type comprises the cases where an author is directly quoted. The author(s) might be introduced formally by a reporting verb like ‘say’ or ‘write’ (or by other, non-reporting verbs) followed by a colon and with or without quotation marks, and often marked off graphically, as in the following reference to Poustma: (8) Jespersen (1942: 117) coined the expression ‘light verb’, but the phenomenon in English was noted earlier by Poutsma (1926: 394–400) and Kruisinga (1932: 198–200). Poutsma writes (p. 394): There is a marked tendency in Modern English to express a verbal idea by means of a combination consisting of a verb with a vague meaning and a noun of action. The latter is then the real significant part of the predicate, while the former mainly serves the purpose of the connective. (engling10) In this example, the citation ‘light verb’ taken from Jespersen is not counted, while the quote taken from Poutsma is (There is a marked tendency … the connective). We also find many complex mixed forms where the citing author mixes his own words with one or several cited authors’ words in quotation marks: (9) Discussing SEE, Croft (1991, p. 220) says that ”since experiencer and stimulus are both simultaneously initiator and endpoint, they are identical in causal 230 Academic Voices structure”, but this observation is at odds with Langacker’s (1991, p. 304) claim that (for SEE) ”the object’s semantic role is zero”. (engling39) The explicit presence of other(s) as realised through R3 and R4 corresponds to what is commonly called reported or represented speech. If we understand polyphony as the presence of several voices in one and the same text, or even in one utterance, reported speech is the polyphonic phenomenon par excellence (see Nølke et al. 2004: 57). The locutor (corresponding to the author) gives the floor to another person, the represented locutor, either directly by transferring complete responsibility for the reported sequence to the represented locutor, as in R4, or indirectly by transferring responsibility of content only (and not form) of the reported sequence to the other, as in R3. In the R1 and R2 types, the other is also introduced explicitly, but without being given the floor. However, the reference convention indicates that the other’s voice or point of view is represented in some way or another. 6.2.2 Quantitative distribution of the four subtypes In a disciplinary perspective, our findings related to the distribution of the four subtypes of bibliographical references more or less confirm our working hypothesis that medical authors rarely give the floor to others while economists and especially linguists report or cite other researchers more frequently. In the KIAP Corpus, R1 is the type typically used by medical authors (relative frequency 1.4 %8 for the total medical corpus of 150 articles). This is not surprising given “the highly professionalized, structured and conventional character of the late 20th century medical research and medical research writing”, as Salager-Meyer (1999: 300) states in her well-known diachronic study of referential behaviour in English medical discourse. The numerical end-list pattern has become “the almost unique referential pattern in today’s medical discourse” (ibid.: 295). This is a pattern which is also imposed on medical authors by the large majority of medical journals. However, even if medical authors typically relate to colleagues that are nameless in the body text, these colleagues are present by the number referring to the end-list, and their voices are mixed in some way or other with the voice of the authors. It may also be argued that this type of hiding the represented voice makes it easier for the authors to present the reported text “in a way that most effectively supports their own argument” (Hyland 2000: 26). 8. For R1 the relative frequency is calculated as the percentage of reference numbers in relation to the total number of words; for R2–R4 the relative frequency is calculated as the percentage of publication year references (counted as 1 word) in relation to the total number of words. Chapter 6. Presence of the others 231 R2 and R3 are the types preferred by linguists and economists. For R3, the relative frequency is the same for the two disciplines, viz. around 0.3 %. As regards R2, linguists (and especially English linguists) use it much more than economists (the relative frequency is around 0.4 % and 0.15 % respectively). R4, the fully integral reference, i.e. with a direct quote, is used only to a very limited extent (relative frequency of 0.03 % for the total corpus), and mainly by linguists (very seldom by economists, and hardly ever by medical researchers; see also Salager-Meyer 1999). The R3 and especially the R4 types represent the most faithful way of bringing the voices of others into the text; however, the preference seems to be for the other types. Even though Hyland’s study (2000) is not directly comparable to ours, it might be interesting to report some of his findings in this context. He investigates the use of references (or “citations”, which is the term he uses) in eight different disciplines (only English). He adopts the binary distinction of Swales (1990) between integral (corresponding to our R3 and R4) and non-integral (corresponding to our R1 and R2) references. In contrast to the variation observed in the frequency of references, Hyland finds that “there was far less variation in the ways disciplinary communities refer to sources, with all but philosophy displaying a distinct preference for non-integral structures” (Hyland 2000: 24). To some extent this corresponds to our general findings (for example that R4, the fully integral reference with a direct quote, is very infrequent and is used mainly by linguists). However, our more finegrained categories have made it possible to reveal that, for example, the linguists use much more of the R2 type than economists. While there are notable differences between disciplines as regards the use of the four subtypes R1–R4, the language differences are smaller and will not be further commented on here. There are several particular features which could be further studied in relation to the analysed reference types. However, our presentation here is limited to examples where a bibliographical reference assumes the grammatical function of subject, as in example (6) above. Our purpose is to study which roles are assigned to the others in research articles. 6.2.3 Bibliographical references as grammatical subjects We will here look at the cases where a bibliographical reference assumes the grammatical function of subject. The examples studied correspond, on one hand, to the semi-integral (R3) and the fully integral (R4) types, and, on the other, to the non-integral reference type indicated by (superscript) number (R1). The reason for including the R1 type, typical of the medical articles, is that in these articles, the studies referred to may be given the prominent function of grammatical subject 232 Academic Voices even if they are not referred to by exact name and year of publication. The typical noun used in these contexts is study (or corresponding nouns in French and Norwegian); other nouns used are report and survey. In some cases, the names of the persons responsible for the study referred to are indicated, as in example (10):9 (10) In another study, Helzlsouer et al. [32] did not find lower measured levels of vitamin A, […]. (engmed10) So what are the other researchers allowed to do? What roles do the authors assign to the other researchers when relating to them? A very general answer to this question, based on the analysis of our material, is as follows: The others are present as researchers. They find facts and solutions and show observations and proofs related to their scientific issues, as in the following examples taken from the three languages under study: (11) Kormendi and Meguire (1985) and Aizenman and Marion (1993) find that output growth is adversely affected by the volatility of monetary policy, […]. (engecon03) (12) Pinchon (1972: 122-128) a montré qu’il ne s’agit pas d’une impossibilité stricte, [...]. (frling06) ‘Pinchon (1972: 122-128) has showed that it is not a question of strict impossibility, ...’ (13) Flere studier viser at MRCP er et godt alternativ til diagnostisk ERCP (1–9). (nomed14) ‘Several studies show that MRCP is a good alternative to diagnostic ERCP (1–9).’ This general conclusion is based on studies of the verbs combined with the reference assuming the grammatical function of subject and typically the semantic-pragmatic function of agent. Table 6.2-1 presents the five most frequent verbs – of 10 or more occurrences – in combination with bibliographical references in subject position. 9. Since the year of publication is not indicated and the number referring to the bibliographical end-list is given, this type is counted as being of the R1 category in the quantitative classification. Chapter 6. Presence of the others 233 Table 6.2-1. Verbs used with bibliographical references as subjects Corpus RefS V engecon engling 364 713 93 167 find 60 argue 51 show 40 note 33 engmed 233 51 report 47 find 36 frecon 255 97 152 84 souligner 18 (‘emphasise’) proposer 16 proposer 15 (‘propose’) frling frmed 153 69 noecon 496 118 montrer 35 démontrer 11 (‘show’) montrer 18 démontrer 2 montrer 29 démontrer 2 finne 63 (‘find’) noling 573 150 si 44 (‘say’) vise 43 påvise 1 (‘show’) hevde 35 (‘claim’) påpeke/ peke på 17 (‘point to’) skrive 29 (‘write’) nomed 80 40 vise 22 påvise 4 (‘show’) 3,019 869 Total Most frequent verbs provide 18 point to/ out 18 show 28 report 16 show 31 argue 15 propose 26 demonstrate 23 suggérer 10 (‘suggest’) suggest 14 benytte 16 (‘use’) påpeke/ peke på 28 (‘point to’) få 13 (‘get’) mene 23 (‘think’) finne 20 (‘find’) RefS = number of references in subject position; V = number of different verbs. The first notable finding is the high number of different verbs used in the constructions studied: 869 for the three languages. Most verbs are used only once or twice. A general conclusion is thus that the lexical variation in this type of construction is considerable. This corresponds to Hyland’s (2000) study. He also finds great variation in the choice of verb used in referencing (over 400 were found in his corpus of 80 articles written in English) and notes “substantial differences between disciplines” (ibid.: 27). Another interesting point in our corpus is the modest presence of typical reporting verbs, except in English medicine, which employs report, and Norwegian linguistics, which employs both si/seie (‘say’) and skrive (‘write’) quite frequently. The table shows interesting similarities between both disciplines and languages: In all the nine subcorpora (except for Norwegian linguistics), the others are presented as researchers who show or find something. But there are also 234 Academic Voices interesting distribution and frequency differences concerning the use of different verb types (see 4.2). Reporting verbs (like report, say, write) are, as stated above, used in English medicine and Norwegian linguistics; research and discourse verbs (like find, show) are more or less used by all but typically in economics and medicine; position verbs (like argue, claim) are typically used in linguistics, especially in English linguistics, but also in English economics. From a different perspective, these verbs can be considered as factive (show, find) and non-factive (say, argue). (A third group would be contra-factive verbs (pretend). The last group is for obvious reasons more or less irrelevant to our corpus.)10 The verb variation is also interesting from a polyphonic perspective. One of the challenges for all discourse analyses of citations is the interpretation of the relation between the speaker and the citation (or the represented/reported speaker), i.e. between the different voices integrated in the text. The ScaPoLine theory (see Nølke et al. 2004: 49–50 and section 2.1.2) proposes only one general relation, that of representation, for the cases of reported speech. This relation is of the non-responsibility type, which implies that the locutor, or speaker, is not taking responsibility for the represented speech, regardless of whether it is signaled by quotation marks and regardless of the verb. However, it seems possible to imagine different subtypes of relations according to the verb that is used in the inquit (i.e. the introduction to the citation, as in Henry says …). We argue that there is a clear non-responsibility relation between author (self) and represented researcher (other) in the case of reporting (non-factive) verbs. However, in the case of factive verbs, this non-responsibility seems weakened. The author indicates that the proposition reported is one he or she is clearly taking into account. The relation between self-voice and other-voice is still one of non-responsibility, but at the same time there is an indication that the author is adopting the other’s observation. The verbs provide important information as regards how the author uses others’ research in his or her own presentation and positioning, as well as the author’s attitude to the content of what is reported. A further interesting elaboration related to this can be found in Perrin’s studies of reported speech.11 He proposes a distinction between referential and modal reported speech. The referential reported speech is considered as a simple object of 10. Lyons (1977: 599) describes factive verbs as follows: “Anyone who says (21) John realizes that it is raining (in order to make a statement) is committed by his use of the verb ‘realize’ to the truth of the proposition expressed by the complement-clause: he presupposes that it is raining.” Contra-factive verbs, on the other hand, commit the speaker to the falsity of the expressed proposition. Finally, a non-factive verb “commits the speaker to neither the truth nor the falsity of the expression expressed by its complement clause” (ibid. 795). 11. Inspired by Clark & Gerrig (1990), but also by Bakhtinian ideas, Perrin has studied reported speech and polyphony in a number of contexts; (cf. e.g. Perrin 2003, 2004a, 2004b, 2005, forthcoming). For a relevant study of “argumentation par autorité”, see also Norén 2004b. Chapter 6. Presence of the others 235 reference and is not activated in the author’s own discourse; the author just mentions that something has been said (more or less as an historical event): […] l’élément rapporté n’est […] qu’un simple objet de référence et n’est donc nullement activé dans le discours effectif du locuteur, pris en charge par le locuteur effectif si l’on préfère, qui se contente alors de communiquer quelque chose à propos (plutôt qu’au moyen) de ce qui est exprimé dans la reprise […]. (Perrin 2004b: 64) ‘the reported element is only a simple object of reference and not at all activated in the effective discourse of the locutor, taken charge of, if you like, by the effective locutor, who is then satisfied by communicating something concerning (rather than by means of) that which is expressed in the report’ The modal reported speech, on the other hand, is taken into account by the author and activated in his own discourse: Dans le cadre d’un discours rapporté modal, […] l’élément rapporté est simultanément activé dans le discours effectif du locuteur et ne peut donc être assimilé à un simple objet de référence de ce qui est communiqué. L’élément en question est bel et bien rapporté dans la mesure où il relève d’un discours objet auquel le locuteur réfère, mais d’un autre côté cet élément est simultanément pris en charge par le locuteur, au même titre que n’importe quel élément constitutif de son propre discours. (Perrin 2004b: 65) ‘In the context of modal reported speech, […] the reported element is simultaneously activated in the effective discourse of the locutor and thus cannot be assimilated to a simple object of reference of what is communicated. The element in question is clearly reported to the extent that it depends on a discourse object to which the locutor refers, but on the other hand, this element is simultaneously taken charge of by the locutor, in the same way as whatever element constitutive of his own discourse.’ It seems reasonable to propose that reported speech with a factive verb should be a good candidate for the modal type. In fact, only the context can provide an indication of whether the reported speech is activated in the author’s discourse in the sense that it is developed in his or her argumentation. Let us look at a French example where the reported speech is introduced by the verb montrer (‘show’): (14) Hudson et al. [25] montrent que 6 % des boulimiques (n = 49) sont également dépendantes d’amphétamines, 13 % pour les anorexiques (n = 16), et 28 % pour les anorexiques-boulimiques (n = 25). (frmed13) ‘Hudson et al. [25] show that …’ 236 Academic Voices If one considers the sequence directly following this utterance, one might think that it is an example of the referential type – a simple object of reference. In fact, the author introduces another reference directly after the one in (14): (15) Plus récemment, ont été effectuées des études contre témoins. Stern et al. [26] retrouvent ainsi 15 % de ”substance abuse disorder” (abus de toxiques) chez 34 femmes souffrant d’anorexie ou d’anorexie-boulimie, contre 3 % chez les témoins. (frmed13) ‘Stern et al. [26] find …’ However, if one takes a closer look at the article, Hudson et al.’s arguments are actually reported several times, one after the other; their results are even presented in a separate table. There is no doubt that Hudson et al. constitute an argument of authority and that the introduction by the verb montrer indicates modal reported speech. The modal reported speech, in our view, is still not the author’s responsibility; nevertheless it is, to a certain extent, blended with his or her discourse.12 6.2.4 Discoursal and rhetorical functions of bibliographical references If one considers scientific writing as a tension between progress and continuity (Fløttum 2003e) – progress in the sense of being original and presenting new findings, and continuity in the sense of situating oneself as a researcher in a scientific tradition – the use of bibliographical references assumes an important role. However, in general, reference practices may seem to be more important for the continuity dimension than for progress. In the KIAP Corpus, the most frequently used verbs combined with references in subject position, i.e. factive verbs (see Table 6.2-2), indicate that other researchers are cited first and foremost to present what has already been found or shown in the research territory in question.13 As mentioned in 6.2.3, English and Norwegian linguists constitute, to some extent, an exception in that they often use non-factive verbs (like argue and hevde ‘claim’) which emphasise argumentation. Norwegian linguists also use non-factive verbs 12. A construction which may indicate even more clearly modal reported speech is the comparison introduced by comme (‘as’), as in this example: “[…] comme le montrent Zaleski et Zech (1996)” (frecon02). In this context, constructions like according to X or for X (in French: selon X, pour X; in Norwegian: ifølge X, for X) are also interesting (see Coltier & Dendale 2004; Fløttum 2004b; Perrin 2005). 13. Some of the references we have studied may of course contain modal elements and hedges which modify the meaning of the verbs, but in the majority of the around 3000 examples with a reference in subject position, the function of this reference can clearly be interpreted on the basis of the semantic-pragmatic meaning of the main verb. Chapter 6. Presence of the others 237 like si/seie (‘say’) and skrive (‘write’), which may play an argumentative part in the play between self and other, but which do not indicate argumentation directly. When researchers integrate bibliographical references clearly in their argumentation, these references may of course also assume an important role within the progress dimension. They may claim progress by refuting what has been said, found or done in previous research; however, they also present directly what they have done without comparing with or referring to others. It is clear that our rhetorical conception of academic discourse as both inviting cooperation and claiming position may also help to explain the citation practices demonstrated in research articles.14 To some extent these two aspects of rhetoricity parallel the dimensions of continuity and progress. A third distinction which may contribute to the understanding of referencing practice is the distinction proposed by Bondi and Silver (2004) between disciplinary participants and discourse actors in their study of textual voices in research articles taken from economics and history. When the reported voices are interpreted as disciplinary participants, they seem to be part of a positioning process or ongoing debate within the relevant disciplinary community; on the other hand, when the reported voices are considered as discourse actors, they are only staging voices of disciplinary agents situated in a context where the author emphasises the object of study or a particular event, rather than an ongoing debate. If it is relatively easy to point to general disciplinary tendencies as regards the type of bibliographical references used (see 6.2.2), it is on the other hand rather difficult to point to general tendencies as regards the discoursal and rhetorical functions the references may assume.15 However, the general dimensions of continuity/ progress and cooperation/position constitute relevant guidelines for the interpretation of the function of references that in most cases seem to manifest some kind of “collective intelligence” (see Valle 1999), while each article may demonstrate individual patterns of reference use according to subject matter and the author’s position in the discourse community. When studying individual articles, we believe that the introduction of factivity combined with the modal/referential distinction 14. Tuomarla (1999), contrasting the citation practices in news articles characterised by dramatisation with academic practices, points to positioning (or “actualisation” in her French terminology) as an important function of bibliographical references in research articles. 15. Bibliographical references used to indicate continuity, for example, can have different subfunctions, like giving historical background, giving credit, assigning priority or gaining support (see Valle 1999: 401). But it is difficult to distinguish them clearly; they often overlap. We find it more useful to establish a few, relatively general, functions or dimensions which can operate as guidelines for the interpretation of the individual references (and clusters of references). For other relevant studies, see Rosier (1999) and Boch & Grossmann (2002). 238 Academic Voices contributes to a better understanding of similarities and differences in knowledge construction and argumentation in different disciplines and languages. 6.3 Who can do what? Self, other and verb use In a polyphonic perspective, the locutor, corresponding to the author, constitutes the dominating voice in every text, regardless of whether he or she is “visible” or not. However, in addition to the locutor’s voice, others are allowed to take the floor. But, as we have seen in section 6.2, the author lets other voices manifest themselves in many different ways, assigning different roles to them (often signalled by the verb combined with the reference). In order to get a better picture of who does what and to find out to what extent there are similarities and differences between the representations of self and other, we will here compare the verbs combined with self and the verbs combined with other (see Table 6.3). For the self-dimension, we present the three most frequent main verbs used in combination with ‘I’ in economics and linguistics and with ‘we’ in medicine.16 For the other-dimension, we present the three most frequent main verbs used in combination with references, represented by third person plural pronouns in the list.17 Throughout the book we have observed heterogeneity, in many respects, as a characteristic feature of the research articles in our corpus. However, as already stated in section 6.2, we note some homogeneity in the other-dimension, as can be seen here through the use of verbs combined with third person nominal phrases referring to cited authors. The others, in all disciplines apart from Norwegian linguistics, are allowed to show or find something. However, the discipline factor seems stronger than the language factor in that the most homogeneous patterns are found within economics and medicine. Linguistics is more heterogeneous; in this discipline we observe that cited authors are allowed to argue more explicitly (through verbs such as argue, proposer and hevde). Norwegian linguistics is special; cited authors in this discipline are literally reported through verbs such as si/seie and skrive. 16. The reason for this, again, is that medical articles are generally multi-author articles. 17. In some cases, four verbs are listed. The reason is that number three and four of the verbs are (nearly) equally frequent. As regards the frecon subcorpus, we have only listed one verb. The reason is that there is only one French economist author who uses the first person pronoun je in our corpus. The presence of the verb considérer in this context should therefore be interpreted only as a feature of an individual article. Chapter 6. Presence of the others 239 Table 6.3-1. The three most frequent verbs used in a selection of self- and other-contexts Subcorpus SELF engecon I frecon je noecon jeg/ eg engling I frling je noling jeg/ eg engmed we frmed nous nomed vi/ me OTHER consider use assume considérer (‘consider’) they ils/ elles anta (‘assume’) diskutere (‘discuss’) betegne (‘call’) argue show suggest proposer (‘propose’) revenir à (‘return to’) considérer (‘consider’) mene (‘think’) kalle (‘call’) se (på) (‘see’/’look at’) find use examine observer (‘observe’) constater (‘see’) analyser (‘analyse’) de/ dei finne (‘find’) ha (’have’) velge (‘choose’) de/ dei they ils/ elles de/ dei they ils/ elles find show provide montrer (‘show’) souligner (‘emphasise’) proposer (‘propose’) finne (‘find’) vise (‘show’) påpeke (‘point to’) argue note point out/to, show montrer (‘show’) proposer (‘propose’) signaler (‘point to’) si (‘say’) hevde (‘claim’) skrive (‘write’) report find show montrer (‘show’) trouver (‘find’) proposer (‘propose’) rapporter (‘report’) vise (‘show’) finne (‘find’) rapportere (‘report’) The discipline homogeneity observed within medicine, in several cases, extends in this context to the self-dimension. When entering the scene, the medical authors allow themselves to be represented as researchers who find something (in French a similar semantic content is represented by the verb observer). However, the general picture of the self-dimension is much less homogeneous. The author roles manifested vary to a considerable extent, as shown in Chapter 4. Apart from arguing linguists, we see all kinds of manifestations. The authors, when manifested through first person pronouns, allow themselves to consider, to discuss, to argue, to call, to return to, etc. Nevertheless, the cognitive and perceptive self seems quite important through verbs like ‘consider’, ‘assume’, ‘think’ and ‘see’. We also note that the result orientation marked by verbs such as ‘find’ and ‘show’ in 240 Academic Voices the other-dimension is more or less absent in the self-dimension of economics and linguistics. It should also be noted that both in linguistics and economics, the verbs ‘find’ and ‘show’ are frequently combined with ‘we’ (not shown in the table). The clear presence of verbs taking as their complement expressions referring to some result or finding in medicine may be related to the nature of the research undertaken in this discipline. The research presented in medical articles is often of a kind which provides observable and quantifiable findings; furthermore, the medical research is clearly presented as completed in the articles. (For interesting and very relevant studies of tense choice in verbs used in referencing, see Shaw 1992 and Hawes & Thomas 1997.) In linguistics, on the other hand, the research is often non-experimental, having objects of study which are ontologically different from the objects of study in medicine, providing other kinds of results (see section 7.1). In many of the linguistics articles in the KIAP Corpus, the research is presented as undertaken in the article itself. This may explain the greater presence of cognitive (or research) verbs and argumentative (or position) verbs in the linguistics articles. As regards economics, this discipline is similar to linguistics in the self-perspective but to medicine in the other-perspective (except for the low frequency of bibliographical references). This observation corresponds to other observations made in previous chapters: Economics is situated in a non-stable middle position, sometimes biased towards linguistics and sometimes towards medicine. To give a better picture of the French self-perspective, we have also studied the verbs combined with the indefinite pronoun on. The quantitative data presented in 4.1 show that on is by far the most frequent of the French pronouns which are studied here. As shown in section 4.4, this pronoun, due to its referential potential, demonstrates personal as well as indefinite uses. Further, we saw that the use of on in the KIAP Corpus is more self- than other-oriented in the sense that the most frequent values of on refer to the author(s), sometimes alone but more often included in a more or less indefinite reference. Table 6.3-2 presents the ten most frequent main verbs combined with on in each subcorpus.18 18. We emphasise that many of these verbs are modalised by the auxiliary pouvoir (‘may/can’). The sequence on peut (‘one may’) + infinitive form of the main verb is typical. If the pronoun on is an indirect means of self-manifestation, the pouvoir hedging adds considerably to this indirectness. It appears with about 1/5 of the on-occurrences in the economics subcorpus, with about 1/3 in the linguistics subcorpus and with about 1/6 in the medical subcorpus. Chapter 6. Presence of the others 241 Table 6.3-2. The ten most frequent verbs combined with the French pronoun on frecon 1,213 on 253 verb types noter 69 (‘note’) supposer 68 (‘suppose’) avoir 66 (‘have’) obtenir 64 (‘obtain’) considérer 53 (‘consider’) montrer 43 (‘show’) observer 30 (‘observe’) déduire 29 (‘deduct’) remarquer 29 (‘remark’) voir 29 (‘see’) frling 1,564 on 361 verb types avoir 88 (‘have’) voir 88 (‘see’) dire 67 (‘say’) trouver 62 (‘find’) considérer 37 (‘consider’) noter 37 (‘note’) retrouver 37 (‘find’) constater 36 (‘see’) parler 36 (‘speak’) observer 33 (‘observe’) frmed 236 on 111 verb types observer 29 (‘observe’) constater 18 (‘see’) retrouver 17 (‘find’) noter 11 (‘note’) considérer 8 (‘consider’) estimer 6 (‘estimate’) savoir 6 (‘know’) remarquer 5 (‘remark’) assister 3 (‘assist’) avoir 3 (‘have’) Even if the lists are made without taking into account the different on-values posited in 4.4, they give an interesting picture of what the authors allow themselves to do when “hiding” behind on, alone or together with a more or less limited multivoiced community. Once again the heterogeneity is striking. Four of the listed verbs are common to all three disciplines, but are ranked differently: avoir, considérer, noter and observer. A general conclusion which may be drawn from this table is that the pronoun on does not appear with clear argumentative or position verbs. In other words, French researchers do not represent themselves through the pronoun on when assuming the arguer role. Thus, we do not find for example on défend (‘one defends’) with on referring to the author(s). To conclude, Tables 6.3-1 and 6.3-2 give a complex but interesting picture of what the authors typically allow themselves and their cited colleagues to do. We have pointed to some general tendencies, and in addition, the verb lists provide valuable insight into the complexity of research and research processes in the three different disciplines. 242 Academic Voices 6.4 Implicit presence: negation and concessive constructions 6.4.1 Introduction The source of an assertion can be more or less overtly or explicitly marked. In this context, it is quite common, particularly in Anglo-American discourse analysis, to refer to the distinction described by Sinclair (1987) in terms of averral and attribution. Bondi and Silver explain the distinction in the following way: Averral is the default condition of a text, where the reader can assume that the responsibility for each proposition lies with the speaker or writer. Attribution, on the other hand, is the case where a proposition is indicated as deriving from a source. (Bondi & Silver 2004) However, within the ScaPoLine theory (see section 2.1.2), the distinctions are somewhat different. Our polyphonic framework argues that there is a responsible locutor (or speaker) behind every utterance. This locutor may give the floor to other voices, explicitly or implicitly. In the previous section, we discussed the explicit type as manifested by bibliographical references, particularly in the form of reported speech (often considered as the prototypical form of discoursal polyphony). However, polyphonic interactions very often take place in more subtle ways, without explicit sources (see also Fløttum 2001a). In the present section, we look at two kinds of implicit polyphony, as manifested by negation with ‘not’ and by the concessive construction marked by the adversative connective ‘but’. As mentioned above, implicit and explicit polyphony are often interwoven. For methodological reasons, we distinguish between them here. Polyphony is actually explicit in most cases, through some distinctive marker. But there are different degrees of explicitness. In the following example, the connective however indicates polyphony: (1) Phenomenon X is difficult to describe in linguistic terms; however, it is essential to the explanation of text structure. In example (2) also, however indicates polyphony, but in this example there is another kind of polyphony as well, viz. reported speech: (2) Smith (2000) claims that phenomenon X is difficult to describe in linguistic terms; however, in my studies (Johnson 2001) it is essential to the explanation of text structure. The methodological distinction corresponds to a distinction between two types of polyphony: the explicit one, for example reported speech with an explicit source, and the implicit one, for example concessive constructions indicated by however or but, without explicit sources of the represented voice. Chapter 6. Presence of the others 243 What is particularly interesting in this context is that negation and concession, by virtue of their inherent semantic content, indicate what the function of the voices integrated in these constructions is – regardless of the source responsible for the content presented. For the interpretation process, however, it is crucial to identify the sources. These are issues that we will develop in the following. 6.4.2 Quantitative comments Our quantitative analyses give reason to consider polyphony as realised by adversative ‘but’ and negation ‘not’ as a general or typical trait of the research article genre. As shown in section 6.1, there are some differences as regards frequency in different languages and disciplines; however, negation and concession are clearly present in all articles. To compare with another frequent feature, first person plural pronouns: the mean relative frequency for adversatives is 0.27 %,19 for negation 0.56 % and for first person plural pronouns in multi-author articles 0.46 %. There are, of course, variations related to the different variables we study. As we saw in section 6.1, there is more frequent use of negation and of adversatives in linguistics than in economics and medicine, and the differences between linguistics and economics and between linguistics and medicine are significant at the superlevel, as well as in each language, whereas the difference between economics and medicine is not. Furthermore we have observed that Norwegian linguists use both most frequently. 6.4.3 The case of negation The ScaPoLine perspective allows us to propose various uses of the negation construction. We find different nuances of meaning by taking as our point of departure the polyphonic structure of this construction (see section 2.1.2), for convenience repeated here: (3) This wall is not white. pov1: [X] TRUE (‘this wall is white’) pov2: [l0] UNJUSTIFIED (pov1) Two points of view (pov) are indicated by the negation not. The polyphonic structure also consists of an instruction saying that the locutor (l0) is responsible for 19. It is of course not satisfactory to measure concession by the adversative markers but, mais, men. First, these may have other values; second, there are other connectives which mark concessive constructions. Cases in point are English however, French cependant and Norwegian imidlertid. For further explanation, see 6.1. 244 Academic Voices pov2, but not for pov1, which has an unknown source (X). Pov1 is considered as true by X, but as unjustified by l0. Without going into the discussion of the old distinction between descriptive and polemic negation,20 let us just mention that the challenge here is to see to what extent there are two points of view, and if there are two, to try to identify the individual (or group of individuals) responsible for the negated pov in order to determine the function that the negation assumes in discourse. To a certain extent, we follow Nølke (1993b: 241–242; 1993a), who characterises the primary value of the negation as polemic. The descriptive value is only the result of a derivation. In our studies, however, we question the traditional distinction between polemic and descriptive negation and postulate the existence of a scale of uses manifesting different degrees of polemicity, depending on who is responsible for the negated pov (self or other, internal or external voice). There are certain linguistic contexts which are clearly more interesting than others in this context: Different kinds of contrastive contexts, which are important to the interpretation of the examples in the present study, often signal polemicity. In order to determine the nature of polyphony, it is necessary to take into consideration a larger context than the isolated utterance. We have to consider the situational context, in which the text genre itself plays an important role. In the following, we propose four different uses of negation. Since our qualitative studies in this domain have mainly been carried out on the French subcorpora,21 we refer to French examples containing the negation ne … pas (but the semantic-pragmatic analysis is also valid for English not and Norwegian ikke/ikkje). We use the term self when referring to the article or study from which the example is taken, or to its author (self-author); we use the term other when referring to what the self-author reports from (another author, study or article). We will discuss the four types of negation use in turn: refutative, delimitative, corrective and descriptive. Refutative use of negation This use typically has a high degree of polemicity. It often concerns observations, findings and choices attributed to others and refuted by the self-author. The presence of a positive pov1 seems evident, and justified by different contexts of contrast. This use often manifests itself in an interactional situation where the self-author wants to position him- or herself within the relevant scientific community and is trying to occupy a niche (Swales 1990) that others have not (yet) occupied. There are 20. For this discussion see for example Nølke (1993a, b); Fløttum (2004f, 2005c); and additional references in these publications. 21. For a study of the Norwegian negation ikke/ikkje, see Fløttum (2004f). Chapter 6. Presence of the others 245 several subtypes within this use, according to the more or less explicit nature of the implicated discoursal beings and according to the degree of accessibility of the pov1 source. Here is an example (emphasis added), taken from a multi-author article: (4) Une idée jugée prometteuse par BLUNDELL et LEWBEL [1991] est celle préconisée par l’école de Leyden (VAN PRAAG [1979]). Celle-ci consiste à utiliser des variables d’opinion pour approcher les niveaux d’utilité atteints. Cette approche ne résout cependant pas tous les problèmes d’identification sur lesquels on reviendra. (frecon01). ‘An idea considered as promising by BLUNDELL and LEWBEL [1991] is the one put forward by the Leyden school (VAN PRAAG [1979]). It consists in … However, this approach does not solve the identification problems which we will come back to.’ In this use, the negation is clearly related to self-research, as in (4). It is situated enunciatively, often by a metatextual expression (like revenir sur, ‘come back to’) or by a personal pronoun referring to the author(s) in one way or another (like the pronoun on (‘one’), in (4)). Emphasising that their study will show the inadmissibility of the reported pov, the authors, corresponding to the responsible locutor, refute the idea put forward by the other. All in all, the construction contributes to the positioning of the self-authors. The source of the refuted pov can be explicit (as in (4) through l’école de Leyden) or not, as in the following example: (5) Cet article montre que la prise en compte des inégalités n’est pas sans conséquence sur l’évolution de la pollution. (frecon10) ‘This article shows that taking the inequalities into consideration is not without consequence for the evolution of pollution.’ This negation is also refutative, situated in relation to the self-research (cet article ‘this article’), but the source of the refuted pov is not explicit. In fact, in order to determine the polyphony, it is not important to know if pov1 really has been expressed or thought, or not. The interesting aspect is that the locutor attributes this pov to a source. However, for the interpretation of the whole text, it can be essential to identify the real person or community corresponding to the discoursal being responsible for pov1. 246 Academic Voices Delimitative use of negation The delimitative use of negation, manifesting a lower degree of polemicity, is typically related to the self-author’s choices and objectives: (6) Dans le présent modèle, nous ne proposons pas une analyse de la formation endogène du chômage ; nous nous intéressons à l’interaction entre la localisation endogène des chômeurs, des employés et des entreprises. (frecon36) ‘In the present model, we do not propose an analysis of the endogeneous formation of unemployment; we take an interest in the interaction between …’ At first sight, the presence of an underlying positive pov may not be obvious. However, by contextual inference, a pov1 appears. One can easily imagine that the selfauthor, faced with his study, could reason as follows: “Given the fact that I am studying A, a phenomenon consisting of the subphenomena a1, a2, a3 … an, the community to which I belong might think that my objective is to study a1, a2, a3 … an. I have to specify my objective: I will not study a1.” By anticipating potential questions from his or her colleagues, the author utilises a negation that is more informative than polemic. The negation assumes a delimitative function. The contrastive context here is the article itself, seen in relation to what may exist – now or in the future – in other relevant studies or articles. In this interaction, what is negated is normally a constructed pov, which it may be difficult to access and attribute to a collective third, corresponding to the community that the author is addressing (including the reader). Even if it is not very strong, the polemicity is present and is often supported by a contrastive perspective in the text. In (6) above, the metatextual expression dans le présent modèle implicitly indicates the contrast with other models. Corrective use of negation This subtype usually comprises negation concerning the utilised data in the selfstudy or findings that the author’s analyses provide. Thus this negation type bears on the analysis or interpretation of the object of study itself. The self-author corrects a pov considered as wrong: (7) Comme le montre la discussion de ces deux exemples, les éléments de la FS n’ont pas nécessairement de réalisation lexicale. (frling19) ‘As shown by the discussion of these two examples, the FS elements do not necessarily have a lexical realisation.’ While contributing to the positioning of the author, this negation use assumes a corrective function in the sense that it rejects conceptions (real or potential) of precise data considered as wrong or unjustified. Chapter 6. Presence of the others 247 As regards the polyphonic dimension, the presence of pov1 might not be immediate. In the subtype illustrated above, it is the situational context which guides us towards a polemic and polyphonic interpretation. The polyphonic reasoning might go as follows: “Given the already acquired knowledge, the academic community that I address might think that my data indicate X. If research is to progress, I have to correct this supposition: My data do not indicate X.” The source of pov1 can be of various types. It might be a more or less undefined collective third party, or an individual third party corresponding to a particular researcher (who the self-author thinks of without necessarily referring to him or her), or even the textual locutor, L, i.e. an image of LOC (constructor) at a previous stage or in another study. In the latter case there is a “mise en scène” of different images of the locutor. Descriptive use of negation? The last negation example we will present represents a subtype that might not be polyphonic. At least this is the use of negation with the lowest degree of polemicity (if any at all) among the examples treated here. It is close to the negation traditionally referred to as descriptive; in polyphonic terms a construction without an underlying positive pov. Here is an example: (8) Danielle Leeman m’a fait observer que l’emploi actif de planter s’étend à des objets qui ne sont pas des plantes, comme des clous, […]. (frling30) ‘… the active use of planter extends to objects which are not plants …’ If this negation is interpreted as descriptive, it indicates that there are no other (obvious) linguistic means by which the author could express what she wants to express. We leave the discussion here – even if it is tempting to try to apply the polyphonic perspective to such examples as well. Before going on to concessive constructions, we sum up by emphasising that the analysis undertaken above has as its point of departure the linguistic polyphonic structure of negation (see (3)). This basis has made us ask what we see as very relevant questions in the interpretation process, especially so in the search for contextual explanatory factors of the various negation uses proposed. 6.4.4 The case of concession Let us now look at an example of the polyphonic marker but in its adversative and concessive capacity. In simple terms, a construction with but can be formalised in the following way: (9) p but q 248 Academic Voices where p and q constitute two propositions in contrast and where p represents the concession and q an argument that the locutor identifies with, here and now. The locutor does not refute p; the q argument is however the one that counts in the specific context where the utterance is produced. In the polyphonic analysis these arguments are treated as points of view (pov). Let us look at some authentic examples of French, Norwegian and English concessive constructions with mais, men and but respectively: (10) En situation imparfaite, le régulateur ne connaît pas les caractéristiques de l’exploitation, mais il peut tenir compte de la connaissance statistique des rendements des terres pour proposer un contrat d’exploitation. (frecon27) ‘In an imperfect situation, the regulator does not know the characteristics of the exploitation, but it may take into consideration the statistical knowledge …’ (11) Her er ikkje data like uproblematiske. Rett nok skjer det genusskifte i norsk, som Beito (1954) har dokumentert, men det er likevel svært små endringar i den relative fordelinga av dei tre generaa frå gammalnorsk til nynorsk anno 1900-1950. (noling47) ‘… admittedly gender changes do occur in Norwegian, as documented by Beito (1954), but there are still very small changes in the distribution of the three genders …’ (12) The most general characterization of actually is as a marker of contrast and revision. But such a broad characterization cannot capture the subtleties of its use displayed so far. (engling20) For practical reasons we use the English example (12) in our illustration. The analysis of the concessive but-construction, containing four points of view, goes as follows in a somewhat simplified form:22 (13) pov1: [X] (TRUE (p)) pov2: [norm] (generally (if p then r)) pov3: [locutor] (TRUE (q)) pov4: [norm] (generally (if q then non-r)) 22. The original analysis as developed in Nølke et al. (2004), for French, is presented as follows (where TOP signifies topos; i.e. a notion inspired by the theory of argumentation in langue (see Ducrot 1984) signifying a principle that ensures the passage from an argument to a conclusion): pov1: [X] (VRAI (p)) pov2 : [ON] (TOP (si p alors r)) pov3 : [l0] (VRAI (q)) pov4 : [ON] (TOP (si q alors non-r)) Chapter 6. Presence of the others 249 This can be read and interpreted as follows: Pov1 says that an unknown non-explicit person or group of persons (X) thinks that p is true. Related to example (12), p corresponds to ‘the most general characterization of actually is as a marker of contrast and revision’. The connective but gives the instruction that the locutor might agree with this – the claim is not rejected; however, what counts to the locutor in this context is q, corresponding to ‘such a broad characterization cannot capture the subtleties of its use displayed so far’ – a relation expressed by pov3. Further, according to pov2, some norm or more or less indefinite scientific community (here: community of linguists) implies that the argument ‘if p then r’ is generally true. The symbol r represents a conclusion to be found in the interpretation process. In this context, we may imagine the conclusion to be something like “go for this characterisation of actually”. However, another community or norm is implicated in this discussion, the one expressed in pov4. This one opposes the one in pov2 and believes that if q then non-r is generally true. We might interpret the conclusion non-r as “do not go for the first characterisation of actually”. The linguistic polyphony structure cannot answer all the questions that are relevant for the interpretation of a concessive structure in discourse. However, it indicates relevant questions to ask. For example, who is the voice hiding behind X in pov1? Who is responsible for this pov? The utterance alone cannot tell us. Given the context of scientific discourse, we may of course imagine that another researcher or researchers are responsible for this pov1 and some scientific community, including X, for pov2. However, X could even correspond to the self ’s pov at another, maybe earlier, stage in his work. It may be important to identify X for the interpretation, i.e. to decide whether it is an external or an internal polyphony. If it is internal, X may correspond to an image of the locutor at another point in the research process. In this case, the internal polyphony indicates that the author is conscious of potential objections, that he or she might have raised him- or herself, leading to a given conclusion. If the polyphony is external, the author offers a concession to an external person or group of persons. This concession indicates that the author is ready to admit the existence of claims oriented towards a conclusion that is different from the one indicated in the utterance in question. In both cases, whether the polyphony is external or internal, it is a matter of manifesting the intention to promote cooperation between different points of view. However, according to the nature of the concession, this intention plays different roles as regards the author’s position. In the case of external concession, the invitation contributes at the same time to a clear positioning vis-à-vis the external community in question. 250 Academic Voices Determining whether the concession is internal or external is also important for the determination of the norm or community responsible for pov2. If the concession is internal, we may ask whether this is a norm created by the author or a more general norm. The same question is relevant to pov4. However, in that case, we already know that the argumentation presented is one that the author is supporting. The q is in fact considered as true by the locutor in pov3, and this very q is part of a norm represented in pov4. But to what extent does this norm or topos correspond to a more or less general, and real, opinion, in a more or less defined community? In other words, does this norm really exist in the community to which the author belongs or would like to belong? Or is the norm created by the author for this specific occasion? If so, in that context, the author imposes on the reader something which is not necessarily generally accepted, i.e. the conclusion non-r. Regardless of the level of detail one aims at in the analysis, the questions raised would contribute to a better understanding of the complex interaction of voices in research articles. 6.4.5 Summing up Our findings show that the presence of the other(s) is an important aspect of academic discourse as realised in research articles. The use of bibliographical references is the most obvious manifestation of this presence. However, when it comes to the frequency of other-presence, polyphonic constructions are far more important. In this study, we have mainly studied negation and concessive constructions as manifested by adversative connectives, but there are many other polyphonic constructions which could have been taken into account in this book, for example other connectives (like the French donc ‘thus’, see Didriksen 2004) or epistemic expressions like it seems, may/might, perhaps, probably (see Vold 2005). We have tried to demonstrate how the polyphonic perspective may be an interesting one. In order to understand and interpret academic discourse, it is important to examine not only explicit but also implicit manifestations of both self and other, especially in order to modify the traditional view of scientific discourse as objective and fact-oriented. Both self and other are present through the instructions given by different markers, like not and but, contributing to the argumentation implicitly incorporated in the text. Here is a final example where explicit and implicit polyphony are interwoven: (14) After this quick survey, then, it looks like NP-deletion is possible after every determiner except no, every, a, and the (cf. Lobeck 1995:42-45). But it has been argued for some time that, under certain conditions at least, one and a Chapter 6. Presence of the others 251 are phonological variants of the same lexical item (Perlmutter 1970; Stockwell et al. 1973). (engling46) It seems useful to have a frame like the linguistic polyphonic one when “attacking” complex examples of self- and other-presence of this kind. Linguistic polyphony is a subtle way of bringing both self and other into a text, which might otherwise be considered as “objective” and deprived of traces left by the writing subject or by other voices. It is clear that multivoiced or polyphonic presence of this kind is manifested in different ways and to different degrees in different languages and disciplines. However, our findings allow us to argue that there are some polyphonic phenomena which, independent of language or discipline, constitute a common and characteristic feature of the research article. Among these are negation and concessive constructions. 6.5 Case study: Negation in individual articles In this case study we take a closer look at the use of negation. Following ScaPoLine (see 2.2.1), we argue that there is a responsible locutor (or speaker) behind every utterance. This locutor may give the floor to other voices, explicitly or implicitly. The negation construction with not is one type of implicit interaction between the locutor and other voices. The source of the latter is frequently not explicit. The negation not indicates two points of view, where the locutor is responsible for the negated one (see 6.4.3). We now want to focus on the disciplinary variable, and have therefore selected three articles written in the same language (English) but taken from our three different disciplines. In section 6.1, we saw that negation is clearly used more in linguistics than in economics and medicine and that there is no significant difference in the use of negation between economics and medicine. The question we ask in this case study is the following: Do the three disciplines display differences in the nature of the negation constructions used? We will try to answer this question through an analysis of the articles engecon28, engling06 and engmed44 (all multi-author articles, displaying frequencies which are fairly close to the discipline median for negation). The analysis will focus on the distribution of the four types of use proposed in section 6.4.3, which we repeat here: 1) Refutative use of negation, typically polemic, often concerning observations, findings and choices attributed to others and refuted by the author. The presence of a positive underlying pov1 may usually be justified by different contexts of contrast. This use often manifests itself in an interactional situation where the author wants to position him- or herself within the relevant scientific community. 252 Academic Voices 2) Delimitative use of negation, manifesting a lower degree of polemicity, typically related to the author’s own choices and objectives. By anticipating potential questions from his or her colleagues, concerning the delimitation of the actual study, the author utilises negation of a more informative than polemic nature. 3) Corrective use of negation, typically concerning data utilised by the author or referred to (used by others) in the study, or findings that the author’s analyses provide. The author corrects a pov, considered as wrong, related to the analysis or interpretation of the object of study itself. 4) Descriptive use of negation, with a low, if any, degree of polemicity. When interpreted as descriptive (and not polyphonic), this negation indicates that there are no other (obvious) linguistic means by which the author could express what he or she wants to express. Let us start with engecon28, containing 20 occurrences of not. This article displays a varied use of negation. All the four types are represented, but the corrective use seems to dominate. Here is an example: (1) The present paper contributes to this debate by presenting a case study of Ireland’s break with sterling following its decision to join the exchange rate mechanism (ERM) of the European Monetary System in 1979. If forming a currency union has a large positive effect on trade, the break-up of a union would be expected to have a significant adverse effect, but we do not find this to be so. (engecon28) In this example, the authors correct what is presented as a reasonable expectation, probably based on already acquired knowledge (the source of this point of view is not explicit), by referring to what their own data show. In addition to the frequent corrective use, this article also includes instances of negation which may be interpreted as being refutative, as in the following example: (2) While it was generally believed that trade diversification towards the continental countries was in Ireland’s interest, this was not a prime motive for breaking the sterling link. (engecon28) The polemic tone is present already in the clause introduced by the contrastive connective while. The construction it was generally believed may be interpreted as a form of inquit (see 6.2) followed by represented speech. This impersonal construction does not indicate whether the locutor was part of the “general belief ” represented. What is clear, however, is that the locutor refutes that the content of this belief was a prime motive for breaking the sterling link. It seems reasonable to think that the point of view refuted is attributed to a source that may also share Chapter 6. Presence of the others 253 the general belief represented in the subordinate clause, a voice the locutor clearly is not part of. Let us now turn to the linguistics article, engling06, containing 50 occurrences of not. It is dominated by the refutative use of negation (about 20 of the 50 occurrences). This interpretation of not is often supported in this article by clear author presence through introductions consisting of a first person pronoun combined with a position verb, i.e. the authors are assuming the arguer role (see section 4.2), as in this example: (3) That is, although New Zealand English is now typologically very close to the English of the southeast of England, we assert that it is not simply the result of the transplantation of, say, London English to the other side of the world. (engling06) The source of the point of view constituting the outset of the polemics is not made explicit in the same utterance as the negation is expressed. However, we are informed about the source in the immediately succeeding cotext: This was erroneously argued for by Wall 1938; … Finally, a further mark of contrast, often accompanying the refutative use of negation, is found in the concessive although. In addition to some negations which are not easily classified into one of the four proposed types of use, the article contains a couple of delimitative uses (in the section called Aims), some corrective and quite a few descriptive uses. Not unexpectedly, the delimitative use is related to the delimitation of the reported study: (4) Our work on this topic is mainly, though not exclusively, concerned with phonetics and phonology, since most distinctive characteristic of New Zealand English today is its accent. We have not, however, dealt with suprasegmental phonology, […]. (engling06) The descriptive uses may be explained by the fact that a major part of the text is dedicated to the description of data, as in the following example: (5) […] those of our speakers who are most obviously and consistently Scottish in their phonetics and phonology do not have this feature […]. (engling06) We will now turn to engmed44, the medical article, containing 15 occurrences of not. In addition to some delimitative-like expressions like data not shown, placed within parentheses and referring to data which are not shown in the figures included in the article, the dominating use of negation is of a descriptive or descrip- 254 Academic Voices tive-corrective type. We have classified the following example as descriptive, i.e. with no apparent polyphonic aspect (at least to a non-expert): (6) Addition of TNF or IL-1 had no effect on IL-6 production and IL-4 similarly did not alter baseline levels of IL-6 […]. (engmed44) The next example may be interpreted as being of a more corrective use: (7) Untreated PANC-1 cells did not express RNA for IL-8 but this appeared when cells were pre-treated with TNF or IL-1. (engmed44) The author corrects a point of view which the readers could anticipate, given the description of the study up till now. The justification of an underlying point of view of this kind is given in the succeeding concessive construction but this appeared when cells were pre-treated with TNF or IL-1. The general impression of the negations used in this article is that they are primarily non-refutative, in the sense that they are not used to contest points of view attributed to specific studies or researchers. However, we find negations which may indicate an implicit polemicity, as the following example taken from the Introduction section, containing presentation of and dialogue with existing literature in the relevant domain: (8) The obvious question, which arises, concerns the source and nature of the stimulus for acute phase protein production. In vitro studies have suggested that re-prioritisation of hepatic protein synthesis in favour of acute phase protein production is mediated by […] (5). It has been suggested that these cytokines might account in part for many of the metabolic abnormalities and consequent tissue wasting observed in the cancer host. Despite compelling data demonstrating the potency of IL-6, IL-1 and TNF in stimulating acute phase protein production in vitro, in animal models and in humans, these factors are often not detectable in the sera of tumor-bearing patients who have an elevated APPR. (engmed44) The analysis undertaken above has given a positive answer to the question raised in the introduction of this section. There are, in fact, differences between disciplines as regards the nature of the negation constructions that are used. The linguistics article, engling06, demonstrates a varied use of negation with the refutative use as the dominating one. This corresponds well with other observations indicating that linguists are more polemic and expressive than economists and medical authors (see for example the study of author roles, section 4.2; see also section 7.1). Let us also mention that the frequency of first person plural pronouns is particularly high in this linguistics article. The economics article, engecon28, also displays a varied use of negation constructions. However, the refutative use is not the Chapter 6. Presence of the others 255 dominating one; engecon28 contains more corrective (and thus not very polemic) use of not. In parallel to the comment on pronominal use in engling06, it is worth mentioning that engecon28 displays a relatively low frequency of first person pronouns. Finally, in the medical article, engmed44, the use of not is less varied than in the other two articles, and is mostly confined to a descriptive or corrective use. The polemic aspect seems to be very modest here. The use of first person pronouns is also relatively small; however, the presence of adversative but is relatively important. This last point may indicate that there are contrastive (and perhaps polemic) aspects related to other expressions than the negation particle not. The analysis undertaken above has also shown that the general quantitative differences do not correspond directly to the qualitative differences between the three articles investigated. From our quantitative data we know that economics and medicine are similar disciplines as regards the frequency of negation; however, in the present study of specific articles, we have seen that there are clear qualitative differences between engecon29 and engmed44. By its varied use of negation constructions, including some refutative use, engecon29 is more similar to engling06 than to engmed44. The presence of negation constructions may, in fact, imply many different uses and thus contribute to different tones in various articles. As stated earlier, economics seems sometimes to be biased towards linguistics and sometimes towards medicine. This particular study of an individual economics article has in fact demonstrated this instability in an interesting way: While the quantitative data indicated similarity between economics and medicine, the qualitative analysis of three individual articles from the three disciplines indicates greater similarity between economics and linguistics. 6.6 Concluding remarks In this chapter, we have focused on the presence of others and their voices (the other-dimension) through analyses of the use of bibliographical references and of polyphonic constructions. We have addressed our second main question related to the way voices of other researchers are reflected. We have seen that the ScaPoLine framework can handle both explicit presence through referencing in some form of reported speech, as well as implicit presence as manifested, for example, by an adversative and concessive connective like but, or by the negative particle not. As regards the quantitative results presented in 6.2, we saw that our somewhat loosely formulated hypothesis concerning a possible relation between the frequency of references and the size and age of a discipline was confirmed. In our corpus medical articles have in fact the highest frequency of bibliographical references, linguistics ranks second and economics third. 256 Academic Voices To the extent that Hyland’s (2000) study of references in English articles is comparable to our findings, we see some similarities and some differences in relation to our English subcorpus (see 6.2). We also formulated a working hypothesis concerning language differences: Since English is the language having the largest extension, articles written in English are likely to contain the highest number of references. This hypothesis was not confirmed. Norwegian articles, written in the language with the smallest extension of the three, were in fact very close to the frequency observed in English articles. French articles, written in a language with a large extension compared to Norwegian, contained the smallest number of references in all three disciplines. The explanation for these differences clearly has to do with other factors than language extension only. Being a small country with relatively small research communities, Norwegian researchers probably feel the necessity of acquiring knowledge from and relating their research to larger, international communities. In order to justify this claim, a systematic study of national versus international references in the Norwegian articles is required. We have looked at a selection of Norwegian references that seem to provide some support for it. As regards our study of the distribution of different types of bibliographical references, we observed much clearer differences between disciplines than between languages. The non-integral type (R1) was by far the most frequent in medical articles and the partly integral (R2) and the semi-integral (R3) references were the most frequent in linguistics and economics articles (linguists use more R2 than economists). The fully integral type (R4; verbatim quote) was used only to a very modest extent and then mainly by linguists. In our discussion of rhetorical functions of bibliographical references (6.2.4), we pointed to the dimensions of continuity/progress and cooperation/position as relevant guidelines for the interpretation of the function of references. However, each article may demonstrate individual patterns of reference use according to the socioprofessional context in which the research reported in the article is produced. In section 6.3, called “Who can do what?”, we compared verbs combined with first person subject pronouns (self) and verbs used with references in subject position (others). Our findings showed a relatively homogeneous picture of the others, who mainly are given the researcher role, signalled by verbs such as find and show. The general picture of the self-dimension turned out to be clearly more heterogeneous. The three main author roles presented in 4.2 (researcher, writer, arguer]) were all represented with a large spectrum of different verbs. As regards verbs combined with the French pronoun on (‘one’), we observed that some of the ten most frequent verbs were used in all disciplines. We also noticed that no argumentative or position verb was among the ten most frequently used, in any of the Chapter 6. Presence of the others 257 three disciplines, thus implying that the on-subject does not commonly assume the arguer role. Let us now turn to the implicit presence of the others through negation and the adversative connective ‘but’. In 6.1, we saw that both negation and adversative ‘but’ were clearly used more in linguistics than in economics and medicine, and more in Norwegian than in English and French. To the extent that negation is used in a polemic way, this may indicate that linguists are more argumentative and even more “critical” than economists and medical researchers, and that Norwegian authors are more so than their English and French colleagues. Negation and adversative ‘but’ are also obvious markers of polyphony, i.e. they give instructions pointing to the presence of voices other than the author’s. The presence of others, be they specified or unspecified, individual or collective, constitutes an important aspect of the enunciative and rhetorical characterisation of the research article. In 6.4, we questioned the traditional distinction between polemic and descriptive negation and posited the existence of a scale of uses manifesting different degrees of polemicity, depending on who is responsible for the negated point of view (self or other, internal or external voice). We proposed four uses: refutative, delimitative, corrective and descriptive. In the case study (6.5), we demonstrated how this classification may contribute to quite revealing results when applied to the analysis of whole articles. The study showed that qualitative analyses of polyphony are necessary in order to account for different uses of negation in articles taken from different disciplines. The ScaPoLine perspective has proven to be fruitful in that it unveils not only explicit but also implicit sources of voices. The search for the interaction between implicit and explicit voices helps us to discover important rhetorical strategies in discourse. And the polyphonic perspective has made us ask questions that are important in the interpretation process and in the search for relevant contextual explanatory factors. To conclude, in general the discipline factor is more important than the language factor as regards the cultural identities we have pointed to (see also section 3.2): It is the discipline factor, i.e. differences among disciplines, which has the greatest effect on the relative frequency related to both bibliographical references and adversative connectives. As regards negation, discipline and language are equally important (see Table 3.2-1). chapter 7 Conclusions 7.0 Introduction In this book, we have focused on person manifestation in research articles. We have studied how this genre displays traces of academic voices: of the authors themselves (the self-dimension), of the reader and of third persons, in particular other members of the discipline community (the other-dimension), and in relation to the interaction with their readers and others (self & other). Our aim has been to provide answers to the following questions, repeated from 1.1: • • • How do article authors manifest themselves in the texts? How are the voices of other researchers reflected? How do authors present and promote their own research? Taking as our point of departure the textual manifestations of different academic voices, we have based our investigations on the electronic KIAP Corpus, which is a collection of 450 refereed research articles distributed evenly over three languages viz. English, French and Norwegian, and over three disciplines, viz. economics, linguistics and medicine. This has allowed us to study texts from the research article genre in a doubly contrastive perspective and on a solid quantitative foundation. We have performed large-scale statistical analyses of the relative frequencies of six selected linguistic features (see 7.1). In addition, we have undertaken a number of qualitative and combined quantitative/qualitative studies of these and other features. Among the qualitative investigations are a number of case studies. Applying an enunciative and polyphonic approach to language and beginning with specific linguistic features at the micro-level, we have taken a primarily bottom–up perspective. This perspective, however, has been assumed with a view to providing a solid empirical basis for generalisations not only at the micro-level, but also at the textual and contextual macro-levels. The genre of the research article is socio-professionally situated, has a historically established conventional form (or, not to beg the question, one or more conventional forms) and is, by its nature, rhetorical. Throughout the book, we have attempted to connect the micro- 260 Academic Voices and macro-levels. We believe that our study has produced new knowledge which we hope may inspire further research in this field. In the present concluding chapter, we first sum up and discuss the quantitative results of our investigations (7.1) We then return to the settings that we established in Chapter 1 for the concept of cultural identity, and attempt to relate these to our findings – of differences and similarities between languages and between disciplines – and to our recurrent observation of the great amount of individual variability (7.2). Finally, in 7.3 we consider our findings in the light of the concept of academic voices. 7.1 Quantitative results: summing up and discussion 7.1.1 Overview Focusing on person manifestation in research articles as our main object of study, we have undertaken a number of quantitative studies based on the KIAP Corpus. We repeat the list here for convenience: (1) first person grammatical subjects (‘I’ and ‘we’), (2) indefinite pronoun subjects (‘one’), (3) metatext (e.g. ‘section’), (4) negation (‘not’), (5) adversative conjunctions (‘but’) and (6) bibliographical references (e.g. Johnson (1999)). The number of features investigated is thus fairly small, and we have stated, several times, that our findings for these features can only be indicative of a larger picture. Nevertheless, our doubly comparative study based on extensive empirical materials has allowed us to produce novel kinds of findings: Very little previous research has had such a double perspective, and no other studies have, to our knowledge, had an equally broad empirical foundation. The data on our main quantitative results have been presented in Chapter 3 and sections 4.1, 5.1 and 6.1. Several other sections also present results of additional quantitative investigations of various types and scales. In the present section, we attempt to sum up the tendencies that we have documented, and discuss what conclusions can be drawn on the basis of them. As regards the discipline factor, linguistics exhibits the strongest degree of person manifestation and medicine the weakest, with economics assuming a variable middle position, sometimes closest to linguistics and sometimes to medicine. As regards the language factor, English exhibits the strongest degree of person manifestation but is closely followed by Norwegian, whereas French has a much weaker degree of person manifestation. Chapter 7. Conclusions 261 7.1.2 The disciplines Starting with disciplinary differences and similarities, we have found that medical articles have fewer first person subjects than texts from the two other disciplines. This less manifest presence of medical authors is related to a similar relative scarcity of indefinite pronoun subjects in medicine (except in Norwegian, where the disciplines differ very little); although referring vaguely, indefinite pronouns, like first person pronouns, refer to human agents: researchers, writers etc. In French, the indefinite on is often used with a more specific reference, and it is possibly indicative that it is used more in French than the corresponding pronouns are in Norwegian (see below) – except in French medicine, which has less of it than Norwegian medicine: It may be that this is because medical writers avoid a large amount of on just as first person pronouns are avoided. However, as we saw in 4.4.1, to the extent that French medical writers use on, the pronoun quite often refers to the authors, so the reasons behind its low frequency appear to be more complex. A very small amount of metatext and ‘let us’-imperatives in medical articles also contributes to a weaker personal presence in medicine than in economics and linguistics. On the other hand, medical articles have more bibliographical references than economics and linguistics texts, positioning the medical research in question more firmly in its disciplinary context. When we compare economics and linguistics with respect to metatext and references, we find that economics has more of the former (except in English), while linguistics has more of the latter (except in French). With respect to the weaker personal presence of authors and interaction of author and reader in medical articles, it might be tempting to ascribe this to a stronger presence of an objectivist ideal of science in medical research than in economics and (perhaps especially) linguistics. An overt presence of author and reader makes the interpretative aspect of research more evident, and from an objectivist perspective this may be regarded as undesirable. In our view, however, such possible differences concerning what science is should not be the first place to look for explanations. Rather, we want to point to other differences between medicine and our other two disciplines. For present purposes, we contrast medicine primarily with linguistics. First, medical research is more clearly cumulative than linguistic research, in the sense that new research contributions are added to the collective knowledge capital. It may safely be stated that it would be highly unusual for a medical research article to start with discussions of the very basic medical conceptual system. In the normal case, this is quite unnecessary. Even though linguistics, too, accumulates knowledge, the linguist more often needs to discuss fairly fundamental concepts and argue for his or her understanding of the research field in order to try to ascertain a similar understanding on the part of the reader. The need for an 262 Academic Voices overt personal presence and for appeals to the reader is greater, then, in linguistics than in medicine. (For a related discussion, on data-driven and conceptually driven academic discourse, see MacDonald (1989).) In our view, this situation is above all due to the central objects of study being ontologically different between the disciplines. The more cumulative nature of medical research is, we believe, also reflected in the higher frequency of bibliographical references in this discipline than in economics and linguistics, adding to the factor of the higher age and greater size of medicine (see 6.1): The reported research builds on and modifies the previous research that is referred to and is in general highly integrated in the community research activities. This indicates a different potential axis for generalisation than in Hyland (2000), where the distinction between ”soft” and ”hard” disciplines is referred to (see 6.3). Second, writing occupies different positions in the research processes. In medical research, writing is typically a complex collective process that takes place after the ”real” research is finished (see Gilhus 2003). It is natural for this situation to result in fewer addressee features (like ‘let us’-imperatives) in certain parts of the article (viz. Material/Method and Results), because it is harder to engage the reader in what has already been done. Medical texts also employ the past tense more than linguistic texts. In linguistics, it is more often (but far from always) the case that there is no temporal distance between ”real” research and writing. When the research is performed, so to speak, in the text, during writing, the reader can more easily be engaged. In linguistics, the present is the typical grammatical tense employed. Third, there is the relation between research group and author group in medicine: There is not necessarily full overlap between the two. Some of the research may have been performed by only some of the authors, and other medical staff than the authors may have been involved. Quite often it is of no importance exactly who did what, and the choice of some impersonal mode of expression may simply be more appropriate than using ‘we’. Fourth, and most importantly in connection with the low frequency of metatext and ‘let us’-imperatives in medicine, medical research articles typically exhibit a simpler thematic structure than linguistic ones (see Breivega 2003: 235–236). This is closely related to the strict adherence of the typical medical article to the IMRAD format. There is a weaker need for medical writers than for linguists to exhibit text composition, which is perhaps the principal function of metatext and ‘let us’-imperatives. As regards economics and linguistics, the higher frequency of metatext in the former is at least partly due to the fact that economics articles typically have an article structure presentation at the end of the Introduction section. Swales (2004) assumes that such presentations are used more the less IMRAD-structured the articles from the discipline tend to be (see 5.2). However, this leads us to expect an Chapter 7. Conclusions 263 even higher frequency in linguistics than in economics, and our study of metatext does not corroborate this prediction. We have already touched upon the more frequent use of bibliographical references in medicine than in the other disciplines above. If we are on the right track in assuming that this is related to the more cumulative nature of medicine and the stronger integration of medical research in an established and global research community, the higher frequency of references in (English and Norwegian) linguistics than in economics would seem to indicate that economics is the less cumulative and integrated of the two. There may be other explanations, however (see below). Linguistics has more frequent use of negation and adversative conjunctions than economics and medicine. It seems reasonable to assume that an important factor behind this clear tendency is that linguistics texts are often more overtly argumentative than medical and economics texts. This may in turn be related to a less cumulative state of affairs in linguistics than in medicine, but this can hardly be the sole reason, and it is not clear how economics fits in here. However, a more argumentative tendency in linguistics than in the other disciplines may also be perceptible in the verb use in connection with bibliographical references – the views of others appear to be referred to a little more frequently with non-factive verbs in linguistics than in the other disciplines (see 6.3). It is possible that the higher frequency of references in linguistics than in economics comes partly from a more extensive argumentation with disciplinary “opponents” in addition to references to work that is in line with the author’s own contribution, in order to substantiate the claims made. In addition, linguistics has a longer research tradition than economics. 7.1.3 The languages English and Norwegian use first person subjects more frequently than French. This result is more interesting when broken down into three contributing factors: 1) the use of ‘I’ in single-author articles, 2) the use of ‘we’ in single-author articles and 3) the use of ‘we’ in multi-author articles. The use of ‘I’ refers to the author and excludes the reader, and the use of ‘we’ in multi-author articles can (but need not) refer to the authors and exclude the reader. That is, these two factors have a lot in common. We also find that they behave similarly in ranking the languages: French has less frequent use of them than English and Norwegian, while the last two are very similar to one another in this respect. ‘We’ in single-author articles, on the other hand, often includes the reader. This use is more frequent in Norwegian than in English and French; the last two are similar. Our findings first of all confirm that French je (‘I’) is used less than the corresponding English and Norwe- 264 Academic Voices gian pronouns (although it is indeed used in French linguistics). The “detestable” first person singular – le moi haïssable – is frequently avoided (see 4.2 and 4.4.2). The French also use the first person plural less in multi-author articles than their English- and Norwegian-writing colleagues. Thus, our study corroborates the observations in Loffler-Laurian (1980) that the French avoidance of direct reference to the first person carries over from ‘I’ contexts to ‘we’ contexts. There appears to be little difference between English and French in the use of ‘we’ in single-author articles, but Norwegians use this more. We have not studied the phenomenon in detail, but our impression is that it involves a more frequent use of expressions that portray the author and the reader as collaborators in the same activities (see 4.3). This indicates, then, a clearer Norwegian reader-orientation in this respect than even for English. We have further found, unsurprisingly, that English indefinite one is used much less than its French and Norwegian correspondences. The difference between English and Norwegian is evidently a stylistic one, where the indefinite pronoun is regarded as very marked in English, but much less so in Norwegian. As concerns French on, this pronoun is quite often used as a referential substitute for personal pronouns, and this extended use is probably the reason that it is more frequently used than the Norwegian pronouns. It is noteworthy that the situation is reversed in medicine, where Norwegian has more indefinite pronouns than French (see above). Possibly, this is related to the higher degree of avoidance of personal reference in medicine than in the other disciplines. As already mentioned, however, the matter appears to be more complex. For metatext and bibliographical references, we have found the highest relative frequencies in English and the lowest in French. For ‘let us’-imperatives, however, which are functionally similar to metatext, it is French that has the highest relative frequency. We have discussed the focus on a reader orientation in the teaching of writing in the Anglo-American world and the position of our three languages on a scale of reader/writer orientation: Considering metatext, English and Norwegian come out as more reader-oriented than French. The higher frequency of ‘let us’imperatives in French modify this picture somewhat, however, reducing the differences between the languages. As regards bibliographical references, any attempt on our part to explain the language differences at this stage must be speculative. We have tried to relate them to differences in the size of disciplinary communities: The English ones are the biggest and require more references to colleagues. The Norwegian ones would in light of this be expected to have the fewest references, but the general orientation of Norwegian research towards the international research communities, especially the Anglo-American ones, might be a contributing factor to the higher frequency of references here than in French. Norwegian articles typically have many references to publications in English. The French, at Chapter 7. Conclusions 265 least in the humanities, seem to have focused more on the francophone research world. These speculations would need to be corroborated by more detailed studies of the references, however, specifically of the language and national origin of the publications referred to. Finally, Norwegian authors use negation (with ‘not’) and adversative conjunctions more frequently than their English- and French-writing colleagues. As noted in 6.1, it is to be expected that there is more negation using ‘not’ in Norwegian than in English and French, because the Norwegian negative quantifier ingen (‘no’) is subject to special grammatical restrictions, so that constructions involving ikke/ikkje (‘not’) are often used instead. However, we see no similar possibility for explanation of the higher Norwegian frequency of adversatives. In our disciplinary comparisons, we found that linguistics uses both negation and adversatives more than the other disciplines, and we pointed to the possible explanation that linguistics articles are more argumentative than economics and medical texts (to the extent that these features are used polemically). Our findings of language differences – restricted to the use of negation and adversative conjunctions – appear to indicate that Norwegian academic discourse is more overtly polyphonic than academic discourse in the other two languages. Whether this tendency is also present with regard to other polyphonic markers remains to be corroborated by more detailed investigations. 7.1.4 Gender Finally, we mention our most important finding regarding gender: There are hardly any significant differences between single female and single male authors for the features that we have looked at. We have found no significant gender differences for the use of ‘I’ or ‘we’, nor for negation or bibliographical references. In English linguistics, male authors use ‘one’ more than female authors, but the difference is not found in English economics or in the other languages. In French and Norwegian economics, males use metatext more than females, but the difference is not found in English economics or in linguistics in any of the languages. In Norwegian linguistics, men use adversatives more than women, but this difference is not found in linguistics in the other languages, nor in economics. These few gender differences appear rather haphazard to us and do not seem to reflect general tendencies that call for further explanation. 266 Academic Voices 7.2 Community identity versus individual heterogeneity In Chapter 1 we presented some reflections on the concept of cultural identity. We established four settings which we saw as relevant to a discussion of how the academic author develops a textual persona (section 1.3). The time has now come to return to that discussion and see if these settings have been useful in our investigation of academic discourse across languages and disciplines. As all authors belong in a national culture, we established that as our first setting. This setting is linked in an obvious manner to the language variable in the present study. In the various discussions of how the authors are visible in texts written in the three languages represented in our study, we have linked author presence, in the self- and other-dimensions, for several of our features to values prevalent in the national cultures. An example is the high frequency of metatext in English and Norwegian economics and linguistics texts compared with the French texts. This may be seen as a possible reflection of the contrast between the Anglo-American and Scandinavian cultures relying on explicit transmission of information, and the French culture, where more implicit information coded in the context would appear to be the norm (section 5.2). We did, however, also point out that the form-based approach adopted for the study of metatext might have led us to exclude functionally equivalent expressions in French which could have resulted in a different impression of French in this respect (cf. Moreno 1998). In section 1.3 we also stated that we expected each language to show linguistic preferences at the lexical level. Our investigation has proved this to be the case in quite a few instances, as reflected for instance in the discussions of author roles, displayed by various pronoun and verb constructions (see e.g. sections 4.2 and 4.5), as well as for negation (section 6.1.2). These linguistic preferences are not always easy to explain by reference to cultural aspects, at least not at the present level of knowledge. However, we see clear trends towards increased focus on cultural values in linguistic research (e.g. Koutsantoni 2005), and future research in this field may benefit from closer integration of more traditional text linguistic research and approaches common within intercultural communication studies. As regards similarities observed between English and Norwegian, they might to some extent be due to the typological closeness between the two languages. Whether this in turn partly may explain the closeness in culture is difficult to ascertain. Analyses undertaken within the framework of the so-called Quaestio model (cf. e.g. Hendriks 2005a: 7–8) have shown that languages differ in how they organise information on domains such as persons, spaces and events in order to make coherent texts (e.g. Hendriks 2005b; Stutterheim & Lambert 2005). Whether linguistic preferences found in our data may be explained within this framework remains to be seen. Chapter 7. Conclusions 267 The second proposed setting was the academic world. This is the only setting not implying a contrast, unless we want to see it as opposed to everyday communication, which was not the point in our study. Rather, we focused on the common features of scientific communication, pointing to the rhetorical, and sometimes more specifically, the persuasive nature of such communication. Persuasion was touched upon in our discussion of the “author as arguer”-role (sections 4.2 and 4.5) as well as in our investigation of overt evaluation in abstracts (sections 4.5 and 4.6.2), but, as our quotes from Melander et al. (1997) and Lindeberg (2004) in section 4.5 so clearly indicate, the actual persuasion is carried out in a much more complex and sophisticated way than merely by means of “sales talk” items such as innovative, good and We argue that … An academic text in addition becomes persuasive through the interplay of a range of elements, including the choice of co-author(s) and publishing channel, methodology, cited (and left out) sources, information ordering and hedges, to name but a few. As for the features we had selected for investigation, they in our view turned out to be relevant for a description of academic discourse, and they also turned out to be sensitive with respect to the language and discipline factors. For one of the features, first person plural pronouns, for example, we had on the basis of previous research expected variation, between languages in particular, but also between disciplines. For another, bibliographical references, we had only general preconceptions of what patterns to expect. This feature turned out to be particularly discipline-sensitive. Our third setting was disciplinary identity, hence representing a setting relating directly to our second independent variable in this study. As indicated in Chapter 1, our point of departure for the present study was that we assumed disciplinary differences to be more important than language differences. Our data can be said to have confirmed this assumption (see Chapter 3 and 7.1.2), so that we may postulate disciplinary identity as a meaningful construct in this context. At the outset of our study we envisaged the three disciplines to display linguistic behaviour which could be plotted as being spread out evenly along a continuum. What we have found, however, is slightly different. With a few exceptions (e.g. metatext and bibliographical references; cf. section 3.3) the general picture reveals that while linguistics and medicine, as expected, in most cases represent the end points of the continuum, economics cannot simply be described as being equidistant from these two along the line. For some of the features we have studied, especially metatext, first person subjects and ‘let us’-constructions, it is rather closer to linguistics. Hence, linguistics and economics to some extent share linguistic practices, which in turn may be seen as a reflection of shared epistemological features. On the other hand, our lexical-semantic study of how research findings are reported by means of the word family ‘result’ (section 5.4) points to differences in their epistemolo- 268 Academic Voices gies. In Chapter 1 we quoted Breivega (2003: 16), who states that research results in the humanities often take the shape of the actual argumentation in the text (section 1.3.4). Our lexical study in Chapter 5 supports this claim for our humanities discipline. There is very little use of ‘result’ in the linguistics texts (section 5.4). The economists, on the other hand, are frequent users of ‘result’, and in fact in our material use it more than even the medical authors. Still, as pointed out in another quote from section 1.3.4, very few economics articles have a section termed Results (Bloor & Bloor 1993). On the basis of these reflections, we may conclude that economics is similar to linguistics in some respects and to medicine in other respects and hence occupies a somewhat unstable middle position of the continuum. Our analysis can thus perhaps be seen as providing support for Becher & Trowler’s (2001) statement that “[a] detailed analysis of disciplinary discourse […] can help not only to bring out characteristic cultural features of disciplines but also to highlight various aspects of the knowledge domains to which they relate” (p. 46). Our fourth suggested setting was genre and discourse community. In Chapter 2 we defined genre in rather simple terms as a recurrent social practice, linguistically realised through text containing traits which make up more or less fixed patterns (section 2.1). We also stated that we did not see these traits as constituting absolute patterns. On the basis of this definition, the heterogeneity observed between the subcorpora as well as in single articles in our view still allows us to claim that the research article of the kind investigated here represents one genre. Whether it is fruitful to establish subtypes of the genre is another matter which must be discussed in studies focussing on that.1 This has not been a key issue in the present book. As regards the concept of discourse community, we in Chapter 1 acknowledged the special status of English as a research language (cf. Montgomery 2004), a fact which has consequences for how other, lesser used languages, are able to exist as mediators in scientific communication. In our study this is particularly relevant for Norwegian. Does the fact that we have used only one Norwegian language journal in two of the disciplines studied here, viz. economics and medicine, and the fact that the large majority of Norwegian economists and medical authors publish primarily in English, make it meaningless to compare research articles in these journals with those of the more numerous English and French ones, addressing much larger and perhaps also more specialised discourse communities? It is our opinion that it has been meaningful to compare, and that the articles can be said to belong to the same genre. The majority of the authors of the Norwe1. Swales (2004) in the chapter named ”The research article revisited” does argue for dividing his 1990 research article genre into three separate genres, viz. the theoretical, the experimental and the review article. Chapter 7. Conclusions 269 gian texts also publish in English (or other major languages), and their readers also read articles in the international journals. The results obtained in our study support this claim, in the sense that the Norwegian texts in each discipline have been shown to share linguistic behaviour with their English, and to a lesser extent, French counterparts. These four settings that we have chosen to use as a backdrop for our study of linguistic practices across languages and disciplines have, in our view, served us well. They have enabled us to some extent to get beyond the mere reporting of numerical data. On the other hand, the fact that our text corpus is so large makes us more confident when we make claims about general or typical behaviour. However, we once more want to draw attention to the voice of the individual author. Even from the outset of our study we realised that this dimension should not be ignored, no matter how large the corpus and how comprehensive our battery of statistical tests. We have attempted to provide snapshots of the individuals contributing to the general impressions through the case studies included in the three chapters dealing with our data (Chapters 4–6). Some of these qualitative studies have confirmed the broad, general picture, e.g. the case study of author presence in abstracts in section 4.6.2. Other case studies, again, have been illustrations of the wide divergence in the corpus at the level of individual texts, such as our study of pronouns (section 4.6.1). Yet other individual studies have shown how numerically similar behaviour in fact on closer inspection hides differences at the linguistic level. A case in point is the qualitative study of metatext in two economics articles (section 5.5.1). All in all, then, we may say that the interaction of our two key concepts of culture and identity as reflected in the linguistic practices of academic authors has proved to be even more complex and intriguing than envisaged at the outset of this investigation. 7.3 Academic voices in harmony and contrast We have investigated person manifestation in research articles through different kinds of textual traces of academic voices. In the broad pragmatic and rhetorical meaning given to this concept, it has represented a unifying instrument for the analyses of the various phenomena studied. The rhetorical situation or context in which a research article is produced is particularly multivoiced, and our enunciative and polyphonic theoretical approach has led to new insight into person manifestation and thereby a new awareness of how academic discourse works. It has become clear that multivoiced or polyphonic presence is manifested in different ways and to different degrees in different disciplines and in different languages. 270 Academic Voices Some disciplinary or language voices are in harmony in the sense that they use similar linguistic features; others are in contrast in using different linguistic features or similar features but with different frequencies. The author voice is always present in an utterance, but the type of presence varies between the two extremes of implicit or hidden presence and explicit presence by means of the first person pronouns ‘I’ or ‘we’. As regards the self-dimension, we have focused on explicit author voice in more or less performative constructions of the type ‘I show’, ‘I argue’ and ‘I analyse’, manifesting the roles of writer, arguer and researcher respectively. In this dimension, we have also studied the collective author voice, including reader and/or other researchers through the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘one’. In the analyses of author/reader interaction (the self- & other-dimension), we have studied explicit addresses to and inclusion of the reader in metatextual expressions and ‘let us’-imperatives. It should be noted, however, that, through these constructions, the authors do not give the floor to the reader; the latter is only addressed or included in the authors’ own voice. Finally, in the other-dimension, we have studied third persons’ voices as manifested through bibliographical references. In some (but rather few) cases, third person voices are given the floor through quotes. Most often, however, they are not allowed to speak for themselves; their voices are represented through the authors’ own wording. In addition to these types of explicit manifestation of voices, we have studied implicit manifestation as realised through the negative particle ‘not’ and the adversative-concessive connective ‘but’. The study of these markers of polyphony has shown that there is more to the presence of self than constructions with first person pronouns and more to the presence of others than a straightforward identification of bibliographical references in the form of reported speech. In order to get a fuller picture of the complex interaction of voices characterising the socioprofessional practice found in research articles, it is necessary to take into account a larger spectrum of signals (as is also indicated by Thompson 1996). The study of the polyphony markers of negation and concession has shown that voices are present even if the sources of the points of view conveyed are not always identifiable. However, through the use of these markers, the different voices are given specific roles in the polyphonic drama presented by the author: the negation ‘not’ in its polemic meaning always points to an “opponent” (to whom the refuted point of view is attributed), and the concessive ‘but’ always points to a source whose point of view is accepted, but not judged valid in the here and now of the text. When there is explicit presence of third person voices through reported speech (as realised by bibliographical references), the author attributes different roles to the cited voices by using different verbs in the inquit. Whereas the role attributed through non-factive verbs (such as argue) is not obvious, the role attributed by fac- Chapter 7. Conclusions 271 tive verbs, such as show, is quite obviously a “supporter” role (e.g. Johnson (2000) shows that …). Academic voices in medical articles are in harmony in the sense that they use similar features whatever language the articles are written in: the other-dimension is frequently present while the self-dimension is infrequent compared to the other disciplines. Linguistic articles in English and Norwegian display academic voices in harmony in the sense that both the self-dimension and the self- & other-dimension are frequent. But their different use of the collective voices manifested by ‘one’ and ‘we’ indicates contrast. In general, academic voices in Norwegian articles contrast with academic voices in English articles by their more frequent use of the polyphonic markers ‘but’ and especially ‘not’. Academic voices in economics articles are in harmony across languages in the sense that the self- & other-dimension as manifested through metatextual expressions is more frequent than in the other disciplines. As regards language, we have already pointed to some tendencies of harmony between academic voices in English and Norwegian linguistics articles. French articles in all disciplines display harmony in the sense that they prefer the collective author voice by using the indefinite on (‘one’) and avoid the self-dimension as manifested by first person pronouns. The French preference of the collective author voice is in clear contrast to English articles, but to some extent in harmony with Norwegian articles. To conclude, academic voices are developed through interchange within various kinds of communities which the authors belong to. However, there is also room in academic discourse for each author to develop his or her own individual voice, a voice which may be exploited in very personal ways to achieve the ultimate goal of scientific persuasion. References* Adam, J.-M. 1999. Linguistique textuelle. Des genres de discours aux textes. Paris: Nathan. Adam, J.-M. 2005. 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Fløttum, K. 2004g. ”Den franske vitenskapelige forfatter – je, nous eller on ?” TRIBUNE 15: 56-69. Fløttum, K. 2004h. ”Om formulering av forskningsresultater i vitenskapelige artikler.” In Kommunikasjon, E. Lambertsson Björk and S. Vesterhus (eds), 61-76. Halden: Høgskolen i Østfold. Fløttum, K. 2004i. ”Traces of others in research articles: the citation cluster.” In New Directions in LSP studies. Proceedings of the 14th European Symposium on Language for Special Purposes. 18–22 August 2003, Communication, Culture, Knowledge, K. Ahmad and M. Rogers KIAP publications 287 (eds), 153-159 (160-166 in pdf-document). Guildford: University of Surrey (UniS). ISBN: 1-84469-007-5. http://portal.surrey.ac.uk/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/COMPUTING/NEWS/ LSP%202003/LSP%20PROCEEDINGS_1.PDF. Fløttum, K. 2005a. ”Individual linguistic variation and possibilities for academic self-hood?” Akademisk Prosa 3: 87-100. Skrifter fra KIAP. Department of Romance studies, University of Bergen. Fløttum, K. 2005b. ”The self and the others – polyphonic visibility in research articles.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics 15 (1): 29-44. Fløttum, K. 2005c. ”MOI et AUTRUI dans le discours scientifique : l’exemple de la négation NE...PAS.” In Dialogisme, polyphonie: approches linguistiques, J. Bres, P.P. Haillet, S. Mellet, H. Nølke and L. Rosier (eds), De Boeck-Duculot, 323-337. Fløttum, K. 2005d. ”Om nekting i et polyfonisk og vitenskapsretorisk perspektiv.” Sproglig polyfoni, Arbeidspapirer 2: 45-64. Roskilde: Roskilde Universitetscenter. Fløttum, K. 2005e. ”Lingvistiske og diskursive studier i KIAP-korpuset. Om utvikling og bruk av et flerspråklig og flerdisiplinært korpus av vitenskapelige artikler.” In Korpus i forskning og undervisning. Hvor står vi i Norge?, 25-51. Kristiansand: Høgskolen i Agder. ISBN: 827117-572-6. Fløttum, K. 2006. ”En språklig analyse av norsk medisinsk prosa.” Tidsskrift for Den norske lægeforening 126 (1): 65-68. Fløttum, K. Forthcoming a. ”Interrelation de voix internes et externes dans le discours.” In Dialogisme et polyphoni en langue et en discours, L. Perrin (ed.). Metz: Recherches Linguistiques. 2006. Fløttum, K. Forthcoming b. ”The typical research article – does it exist?” In Cross-cultural and cross-linguistic perspectives on academic discourse, E. Suomela-Salmi (ed.). University of Turku. Fløttum, K. Forthcoming c.” Polyphonic constructions as epistemic and evaluative qualifications in research articles.” In Evaluation in academic discourse, G. Del Lungo and E. Tognini Bonelli (eds). Fløttum, K. and Breivega K.R. 2002. ”Cultural identity in academic prose: national versus discipline-specific.” In Porta Scientiae II. Lingua specialis. Proceedings of the University of Vaasa, M. Koskela et al. (eds), 533-545. Reports 96. Vaasa. Fløttum, K. and Rastier, F. (eds). 2003. Academic discourse. Multidisciplinary approaches. Oslo: Novus. Fløttum, K., Kinn T. and Dahl, T. Forthcoming. ”“We now report on ...” versus ”Let us now see how ...”: Author roles and interaction with readers in research articles.” K. Hyland and M. Bondi (eds). Academic Discourse across Disciplines. Bern/Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Gjesdal, A.M. 2003. L’emploi du pronom “on” dans les articles de recherche. Une etude diachronique et qualitative. Master’s thesis. Department of Romance studies, University of Bergen. Gjesdal, A.M. 2004a. ”Om bruken av on i vitenskapelige artikler.” Akademisk Prosa 2: 87-97. Skrifter fra KIAP. Department of Romance studies, University of Bergen. Gjesdal, A.M. 2004b. ”Bruken av pronomenet ”on” i franske, lingvistiske artikler. En diakronisk studie 1980–2000.” TRIBUNE 15: 121-128. Gjesdal, A.M. 2005. ”Scientific writing and gender: the case of personal pronouns.” Akademisk Prosa 3: 101-112. Skrifter fra KIAP. Department of Romance studies, University of Bergen. Grinde, L. 2003. Les choix lexicaux dans des articles de recherche français. Master’s thesis. Department of Romance studies, University of Bergen. 288 Academic Voices Kinn, T. 2004. ”Cognitive research agents in academic prose.” Akademisk Prosa 2: 137-149. Skrifter fra KIAP. Department of Romance studies, University of Bergen. Kinn, T. 2005a. ”Plays of we-hood: What do we mean by we?” Akademisk Prosa 3: 129-142. Skrifter fra KIAP. Department of Romance studies, University of Bergen. Kinn, T. 2005b. ”Denne artikkelen analyserer … Den tenkjande forskaren i norske forskingsartiklar.” In MONS 10. Utvalde artiklar frå det tiande Møte om norsk språk i Kristiansand 2003, S. Lie, G. Nedrelid and H. Omdal (eds), 183-194. Kristiansand: Høyskoleforlaget. Kinn, T. 2005c. ”Tilbod og innbydingar: imperativ med la i forskingsartiklar.” Norsk Lingvistisk Tidsskrift 23: 145-175. Skiple, J. 2003. L’emploi de la négation dans les articles scientifiques français. Master’s thesis. Department of Romance studies, University of Bergen. Vold, E.T. 2004a. ”Vers une conception philosophico-logique de la modalité en linguistique.” Akademisk Prosa 2: 117-135. Skrifter fra KIAP. Department of Romance studies, University of Bergen. Vold, E.T. 2004b. Comment sélectionner ses observables dans l’analyse d’une catégorie sémantique ? Paper given at Young Researchers’ Conference, 29–30 April, 2004. Paris-X, Nanterre. Vold, E.T. 2004c. ”Epistemisk pouvoir/kunne i vitenskapelige artikler.” TRIBUNE 15: 229-240. Vold, E.T. 2005. ”Expressions of uncertainty in scientific research articles.” Akademisk Prosa 3: 113-127. Skrifter fra KIAP. Department of Romance studies, University of Bergen. Vold, E.T. 2006. ”Epistemic modality markers in research articles: a cross-linguistic and crossdisciplinary study.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics 16 (1): 61-87. Vold, E.T. Forthcoming. ” The choice and use of epistemic modality markers in linguistics a n d medical research articles.” K. Hyland and M. Bondi (eds). Academic Discourse across Disciplines. Bern/Frankfurt: Peter Lang. KIAP working papers, Department of Romance studies, University of Bergen: Akademisk prosa 1. Skrifter fra KIAP: June 2003 Akademisk prosa 2. Skrifter fra KIAP: April 2004 Akademisk prosa 3. Skrifter fra KIAP: February 2005 Appendix A The KIAP Corpus Table A-1. The KIAP Corpus Journals English economics European Economic Review Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization Journal of International Economics English linguistics Computers and the Humanities English for Specific Purposes Journal of Linguistics Journal of Pragmatics Language Language Sciences Lingua Linguistic Inquiry Linguistics Natural Language & Linguistic Theory Natural Language Semantics English medicine Breast Cancer Research British Journal of Ophthalmology British Medical Journal International Journal of Cancer International Journal of Oncology Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism Journal of the American Medical Association French economics Annales d’Économie et de Statistique Économie Appliquée Revue Économique No. of articles 50 18 5 27 50 2 8 10 4 4 11 3 1 1 2 4 50 6 7 5 5 6 6 15 50 34 7 9 Publication years 2001–2003 2000–2002 2000–2003 2003 2001–2002 1998–2001 2001–2002 2001 2001–2002 2002 2000 2002 2001–2002 2001–2002 2002–2003 2001 2000–2001 1999, 2001 2002 2003 2001–2002 1998–2001 2000–2001 2000–2001 290 Academic Voices Journals French linguistics Langue Française Marges Linguistiques Revue de Sémantique et Pragmatique Travaux de Linguistique French medicine Annales de Médecine Interne Bulletin de la Société Belge d’Ophtalmologie Maladies Chroniques au Canada Norwegian economics Norsk Økonomisk Tidsskrift Norwegian linguistics Maal og Minne Norsk Lingvistisk Tidsskrift Norwegian medicine Tidsskrift for Den norske Lægeforening No. of articles 50 13 2 17 18 50 30 15 5 50 50 50 6 44 50 50 Publication years 2001–2002 2001 1999–2001 2001–2002 1999–2003 1999–2003 1995, 1997–1999 1993–2003 1998–2001 1992–2002 2000–2003 Appendix B Statistical tests In this appendix, we present the results of four sets of statistical analyses of the relative frequency of six linguistic features in the KIAP corpus. Each feature is subjected to the same battery of analyses. The features are (see section 1.1 for an overview and sections 4.1, 5.1 and 6.1 for details): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. first person subjects indefinite pronoun subjects metatext negation adversative conjunctions bibliographical references The tests are the following, all non-parametric ones based on ranks: 1. two-way analysis of variance (using the Scheirer–Ray–Hare extension of the Kruskal–Wallis test) of the whole corpus (i.e. of 3 × 3 × 50 = 450 articles) with discipline and language as the two factors. These are tests at the superlevel (see section 2.2.5). The purpose of this analysis is twofold. First, we test the significance of the effects of discipline and language and of the interaction of discipline and language. Specifically, we test a. whether there are significant differences (in the relative frequency of the feature) between at least one pair of disciplinary subcorpora (or, to put it differently, whether the discipline factor has a significant effect), b. whether there are significant differences between at least one pair of language subcorpora (or, in other words, whether the language factor has a significant effect), and c. whether the effects of discipline and language interact significantly, so that, in order to tell how much discipline matters, we have to take language into account, and vice versa. Second, we compare the effects of discipline and language in order to tell which factor has the stronger effect on the use of the feature. If we find that a factor has no significant effect, no further comparisons for that factor are motivated, i.e. pairwise comparisons of disciplinary subcorpora and 292 Academic Voices of language subcorpora. If a significant effect is found, we proceed to such pairwise comparisons. 2. pairwise comparisons (using the Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test) of disciplinary subcorpora (all languages together) and of language subcorpora (all disciplines together), i.e. comparisons of 2 × (3 × 50) = 300 articles. These are tests at the superlevel (see section 2.2.5). Since there are 3 pairs of disciplinary subcorpora and 3 pairs of language subcorpora, the number of such tests is 6 for each feature (given that significant effects have been found for both discipline and language in the two-way analysis of variance). The purpose of these tests is to find out a. for any given pair of disciplinary subcorpora (e.g. lingall and medall), whether there is a significant difference between them (in the relative frequency of the feature), and b. for any given pair of language subcorpora (e.g. engall and noall), whether there is a significant difference between them. 3. one-way analyses of variance (using the Kruskal–Wallis test), for language differences within each discipline and for disciplinary differences within each language (i.e. analyses of 3 × 50 articles). These are tests at the sublevel (see section 2.2.5). Since there are 3 disciplines and 3 languages, there will be 6 such analyses for each feature. The purpose of these tests is to find out a. for a given discipline (e.g. econall), whether there is a significant difference between at least one pair of language subcorpora (with respect to the relative frequency of the feature), and b. for a given language (e.g. noall), whether there is a significant difference between at least one pair of disciplinary subcorpora. If we find that there are no significant differences between subcorpora, no further investigations are motivated. If significant differences are found, we proceed to pairwise comparisons of language subcorpora within each discipline and of disciplinary subcorpora within each language. 4. pairwise comparisons (using the Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test) of language subcorpora for each discipline and of disciplinary subcorpora for each language (i.e. comparisons of 2 × 50 = 100 articles). These are tests at the sublevel (see section 2.2.5). Since there are 3 disciplinary subcorpora with 3 language pairs each, and 3 language subcorpora with 3 disciplinary pairs each, there will be 18 such tests for each feature (given that significant differences have been found for both discipline and language in the one-way analyses of variance). The purpose of these tests is to find out a. for any given pair of language subcorpora within one discipline (e.g. frecon and noecon), whether there is a significant difference between them (with respect to the relative frequency of the feature), and Appendices 293 b. for any given pair of disciplinary subcorpora within one language (e.g. engecon and engmed), whether there is a significant difference between them. We have used the statistics program SPSS to do the statistical testing, with one exception, viz. the two-way analysis of variance, for which SPSS does not provide a non-parametric test. To do the two-way ANOVA (Scheirer–Ray–Hare extension of the Kruskal–Wallis test), we first used Microsoft Excel to rank articles. We then used SPSS to perform a parametric two-way ANOVA on the ranks. Finally, we used Excel to do the remaining calculations. Two-way analysis of variance Our first statistical study, the two-way analysis of variance, takes all the 450 articles in the corpus into account. The analysis is based on a ranking of all the articles for the relative frequency of the six features that are investigated: first person subjects, indefinite pronoun subjects, metatext, negation, adversatives, and bibliographical references. Table B-1 provides the mean ranks (rounded off to whole numbers) for the nine language–discipline subcorpora (with 50 articles each) and for each of the disciplines and languages (with 3 × 50 = 150 articles each). Since there are 450 articles in the corpus, the expected mean rank is in every case 225.5 ≈ 226. If the mean rank is smaller, articles in that sample tend to have a lower relative frequency for the feature in question than the median. Table B-1. Mean ranks for the relative frequency of the investigated features 1st p subj eng fr no all econ 288 203 301 264 ling 265 176 338 260 med 166 120 175 153 all 239 166 271 226 eng fr no all econ 110 319 267 232 ling 134 378 296 269 med 51 208 268 176 all 98 302 277 226 Indef subj 294 Academic Voices Metatext eng fr no all econ 372 253 320 315 ling 346 183 263 264 med 124 84 85 98 all 281 173 223 226 eng fr no all econ 143 137 287 189 ling 263 273 375 304 med 173 130 249 184 all 193 180 303 226 eng fr no all econ 171 136 217 175 ling 265 321 366 317 med 140 154 259 184 all 192 204 281 226 eng fr no all econ 127 124 144 131 ling 259 137 220 205 med 363 294 363 340 all 249 185 242 226 Negation Advers Bibl ref Table B-2 presents the results of two-way factorial analysis of variance, viz. the Scheirer–Ray–Hare extension of the Kruskal–Wallis test, two-tailed with α = 0.05. The table gives numbers for the total variance (all observations together, labelled Total). The total variance is composed of two parts: variance within groups (i.e. sum of variances in each of the 9 subcorpora) and variance between groups. The numbers for variance within groups are given in the row labelled Error. (It is called error because the variance within groups cannot be accounted for with reference to the factors (discipline and language) or the interaction between them.) The variance between groups has three components: variance depending on the two factors, viz. variance between disciplines and variance between languages, and variance depending on the interaction between the factors. Numbers for these three are given in the rows labelled Discipline, Language, and Disc*Lang, respectively, and it is these measures that are tested for significance. Mean square (MS): This a measure of variance. (In ANOVA result tables, the sum of squares (SS) is sometimes given. SS = MS × df.) The mean square shows, for disciplines, how much variance there is between disciplinary subcorpora (in other words, how much it matters whether an article is from one discipline or the other), and analogously for languages and the interaction between discipline and language. The higher the mean square for a factor or the interaction between Appendices 295 them, the stronger is the effect of the factor or interaction on the relative frequency of the feature in question – and the more likely it is that the effect is significant. χ2 is the value of H, the test statistic for the Kruskal–Wallis test. The test is two-tailed, and we use a 5 % level of significance. For the factors (discipline and language), the degree of freedom is 2, which means that the critical value for χ2 is 5.99. If χ2 ≥ 5.99, the effect of the factor in question is significant. For the interaction, the degree of freedom is 4, which means that the critical value for χ2 is 9.49. If χ2 ≥ 9.49, the effect of the interaction is significant. Significant values are marked with an asterisk. Significance means that we can claim, with less than 5 % probability of being wrong, that there are differences in the populations from which the samples have been drawn (with respect to the relative frequency of the feature in question) depending on what discipline the article comes from, or what language it is written in, or the interaction of discipline and language. For lower χ2 values, although there are differences, there is a probability greater than 5 % that the differences are coincidences of the sampling. When a significant effect for a factor is found, we proceed to a pairwise testing of differences between disciplines and between languages (Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test). The p column provides further information about significance (whether there is significance also at the 0.01, 0.005 and 0.001 level). ω2 is a measure of strength of relationship. It tells us how much of the variance in the population is accounted for by the factor or interaction in question. Table B-2. Results of the Scheirer–Ray–Hare extension of the Kruskal–Wallis test Discipline Language Disc*Lang Error Total df 2 2 4 441 449 MS χ2 586164.50 69.33* 435403.09 51.49* 39846.17 9.43 12222.92 16910.53 p < 0.001 < 0.001 > 0.050 ω2 0.15 0.11 0.01 Discipline Language Disc*Lang Error Total df 2 2 4 441 449 MS χ2 330927.77 39.47* 1854844.97 221.24* 71637.95 17.09* 6509.60 16767.99 p < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.005 ω2 0.09 0.49 0.03 1st p subj Indef subj 296 Academic Voices Metatext MS χ2 1936700.83 235.38* 432709.41 52.59* 51194.29 12.44* 5544.43 16455.89 p < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.050 ω2 0.52 0.12 0.02 Discipline Language Disc*Lang Error Total df 2 2 4 441 449 Discipline Language Disc*Lang Error Total df 2 2 4 441 449 MS 690915.13 686855.12 20284.20 10786.93 16912.50 χ2 81.70* 81.22* 4.80 p < 0.001 < 0.001 > 0.050 ω2 0.18 0.18 0.00 Discipline Language Disc*Lang Error Total df 2 2 4 441 449 MS χ2 955371.29 112.98* 347264.45 41.07* 37251.45 8.81 10973.77 16912.49 p < 0.001 < 0.001 > 0.050 ω2 0.25 0.09 0.01 Discipline Language Disc*Lang Error Total df 2 2 4 441 449 MS χ2 1671869.04 197.71* 187757.59 22.20* 45997.38 10.88* 8368.41 16912.50 p < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.050 ω2 0.44 0.05 0.02 Negation Advers Bibl ref Two-tailed test, α = 0.05, N = 3 × 3 × 50 = 450. Pairwise comparisons of disciplines and of languages Our second statistical study first compares discipline subcorpora two and two (with all languages included), and then we similarly compare language subcorpora (with all disciplines included). This investigation is a two-tailed Mann–Whitney– Wilcoxon test, α = 0.05. The test is based on a ranking of the 2 × 150 = 300 articles in each pair of discipline or language subcorpora for the relative frequency of the six features that are investigated. The results are presented in tables B-3 and B-4 for discipline and language pairs, respectively. Mean ranks: Since the total number of articles in each comparison is 300, the expected mean rank for each sample is 150.5. If the mean rank is smaller, articles in that sample tend to have a lower relative frequency for the feature in question than the median. The greater the difference between the samples, the more likely it is that the difference is statistically significant. Appendices 297 z: This is the value of the test statistic. Since we are using a two-tailed test and a 5 % level of significance, the critical value for z is 1.96. If the absolute value of z ≥ 1.96, the difference between the samples is significant. (Such values are marked with an asterisk.) This means that we can claim, with less than 5 % probability of being wrong, that there is a difference between the populations from which the samples have been drawn with respect to the relative frequency of the feature in question. For lower z values, although there is a difference between the samples, there is a probability greater than 5 % that the difference is a coincidence of the sampling. The p column provides further information about significance (whether there is significance also at the 0.01, 0.005 and 0.001 level). Table B-3. Results of the Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test of differences between discipline subcorpora Mean ranks Econ vs ling z p 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref econ 152.03 137.49 171.13 111.57 101.65 121.65 ling 148.97 163.51 129.87 189.43 199.35 179.35 –0.305 –2.599* –4.120* –7.772* –9.754* –5.761* > 0.050 < 0.010 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref econ 187.02 169.86 219.54 152.79 148.52 85.31 med 113.98 131.14 81.46 148.21 152.48 215.69 –7.293* –3.904* –14.202* –0.458 –0.396 –13.016* < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 > 0.050 > 0.050 < 0.001 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref ling 186.13 180.96 209.25 189.89 193.63 101.49 med 114.87 120.04 91.75 111.11 107.37 199.51 –7.114* –6.122* –12.226* –7.864* –8.612* –9.786* < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 Econ vs med Ling vs med Two-tailed test, α = 0.05, N = 2 × 150 = 300. 298 Academic Voices Table B-4. Results of the Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test of differences between language subcorpora z p 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref eng 176.09 87.07 185.33 154.71 147.23 172.17 Mean ranks fr 124.91 213.93 115.67 146.29 153.77 128.83 –5.111* –12.817* –7.040* –0.841 –0.654 –4.326* < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 > 0.050 > 0.050 < 0.001 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref eng 138.70 86.32 170.75 113.81 120.40 152.79 no 162.30 214.68 130.25 187.19 180.60 148.21 –2.355* –12.953* –4.072* –7.326* –6.011* –0.457 < 0.050 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 > 0.050 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref fr 116.66 163.22 133.09 109.41 125.45 131.53 no 184.34 137.78 167.91 191.59 175.55 169.47 –6.758* –2.540* –3.565* –8.204* –5.001* –3.788* < 0.001 < 0.050 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 Eng vs fr Eng vs no Fr vs no Two-tailed test, α = 0.05, N = 2 × 150 = 300. Analyses of variance for languages within disciplines and for disciplines within languages Our third statistical study, the one-way analysis of variance, first takes into account the 3 × 50 articles in each language and tests the amount of variance among the three disciplines. Second, it takes into account the 3 × 50 articles in each discipline and tests the amount of variance among the three languages. The investigation is a two-tailed Kruskal–Wallis test with α = 0.05 and df = 2. The test is based on a ranking of the 3 × 50 = 150 articles in each discipline or language for the relative frequency of the six features that are investigated. The results are presented in tables B-5 and B-6 for discipline and language triples, respectively. Mean ranks: Since the total number of articles in each analysis of variance is 150, the expected mean rank for each sample is 75.5. If the mean rank is smaller, articles in that sample tend to have a lower relative frequency for the feature in Appendices 299 question than the median. The greater the differences between the samples, the more likely it is that the variance is statistically significant. χ2: This is the value of H, the test statistic. Since the test is two-tailed with a degree of freedom of 2 and we use a 5 % level of significance, the critical value for χ2 is 5.99. If χ2 ≥ 5.99, the variance between the samples is significant. (Such values are marked with an asterisk.) This means that we can claim, with less than 5 % probability of being wrong, that at least one pair of populations from which the samples have been drawn is different with respect to the relative frequency of the feature in question. For lower χ2 values, although there are differences between the samples, there is a probability greater than 5 % that the differences are coincidences of the sampling. When significant variance is found, we proceed to a pairwise testing of differences between languages (within each discipline) and between disciplines (within each language) (Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test). The p column provides further information about significance (whether there is significance also at the 0.01, 0.005 and 0.001 level). Table B-5. Results of the Kruskal–Wallis test of variance among disciplines in language subcorpora Variable χ2 p 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref econ 92.96 83.60 104.70 58.48 67.84 33.96 ling 84.48 100.48 95.16 99.64 102.88 76.24 med 49.06 42.42 26.64 68.38 55.78 116.30 28.730* 54.647* 96.511* 24.453* 31.714* 89.821* < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref econ 88.28 80.08 107.07 62.38 52.64 54.82 ling 81.36 106.34 80.71 106.64 114.34 59.74 med 56.86 40.08 38.72 57.48 59.52 111.94 14.452* 58.997* 67.738* 38.849* 60.569* 53.084* < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref econ 84.60 70.57 108.75 65.56 52.77 42.60 ling 98.24 83.77 88.08 106.30 105.94 67.70 med 43.66 72.16 29.67 54.64 67.79 116.20 42.749* 2.751 92.136* 39.274* 39.806* 74.165* < 0.001 > 0.050 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 English French Norwegian Mean ranks Two-tailed test, α = 0.05, N = 3 × 50 = 150. 300 Academic Voices Table B-6. Results of the Kruskal–Wallis test of variance among languages in discipline subcorpora χ2 p 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref eng 83.38 31.88 104.38 57.54 74.50 74.20 Mean ranks fr 54.36 106.63 47.11 57.62 60.90 72.04 no 88.76 87.99 75.01 111.34 91.10 80.26 18.142* 80.459* 43.454* 51.040* 12.120* 0.962 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.005 > 0.050 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref eng 76.46 30.50 107.78 59.70 50.85 97.40 fr 46.42 112.58 44.60 64.02 77.09 48.89 no 103.62 83.42 74.12 102.78 98.56 80.21 43.373* 91.762* 53.054* 29.818* 30.249* 32.050* < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref eng 81.24 31.94 92.67 71.65 60.09 85.64 fr 61.10 87.72 66.90 56.85 66.73 55.84 no 84.16 106.84 66.93 98.00 99.68 85.02 8.359* 85.436* 19.342* 23.017* 23.816* 15.363* < 0.050 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 Economics Linguistics Medicine Two-tailed test, α = 0.05, N = 3 × 50 = 150. Results of pairwise comparisons of language–discipline subcorpora Our fourth statistical study first compares discipline subcorpora two and two for each language, and then we similarly compare language subcorpora for each discipline. The investigation is a two-tailed Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test with α = 0.05. The test is based on a ranking of the 2 × 50 = 100 articles in each subcorpus pair for the relative frequency of the six features that are investigated. The results for discipline pairs are presented in tables B-7–9 for English, French, and Norwegian, respectively. The results for language pairs are similarly presented in tables B-10–12 for economics, linguistics, and medicine, respectively. (Results for indefinite pronoun subjects in Norwegian and for bibliographical references in economics have been included for the sake of a full presentation, although the results of the one-way analysis of variance have not yielded significant variance for these feature–subcorpus combinations.) Appendices 301 Mean ranks: Since the total number of articles in each comparison is 100, the expected mean rank for each sample is 50.5. If the mean rank is smaller, articles in that sample tend to have a lower relative frequency for the feature in question than the median. The greater the difference between the samples, the more likely it is that the difference is statistically significant. z: This is the value of the test statistic. Since we are using a two-tailed test and a 5 % level of significance, the critical value for z is 1.96. If z ≥ 1.96, the difference between the samples is significant. (Such values are marked with an asterisk.) This means that we can claim, with less than 5 % probability of being wrong, that there is a difference between the populations from which the samples have been drawn with respect to the relative frequency of the feature in question. For lower z values, although there is a difference between the samples, there is a probability greater than 5 % that the difference is a coincidence of the sampling. The p column provides further information about significance (whether there is significance also at the 0.01, 0.005 and 0.001 level). Table B-7. Results of the Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test of differences between discipline subcorpora in English z p 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref econ 53.70 44.66 55.08 36.80 38.14 32.82 Mean ranks ling 47.30 56.34 45.92 64.20 62.86 68.18 –1.103 –2.041* –1.579 –4.722* –4.260* –6.094* > 0.050 < 0.050 > 0.050 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref econ 64.76 64.44 75.12 47.18 55.20 26.64 med 36.24 36.56 25.88 53.82 45.80 74.36 –4.915* –5.746* –8.553* –1.144 –1.620 –8.224* < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 > 0.050 > 0.050 < 0.001 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref ling 62.68 69.64 74.74 60.94 65.52 33.56 med 38.32 31.36 26.26 40.06 35.48 67.44 –4.198* –7.309* –8.421* –3.599* –5.177* –5.839* < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 Engecon vs engling Engecon vs engmed Engling vs engmed Two-tailed test, α = 0.05, N = 2 × 50 = 100. 302 Academic Voices Table B-8. Results of the Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test of differences between discipline subcorpora in French z p 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref econ 53.62 40.46 60.71 35.06 30.42 48.60 Mean ranks ling 47.38 60.54 40.29 65.94 70.58 52.40 –1.076 –3.461* –3.533* –5.322* –6.921* –0.655 > 0.050 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 > 0.050 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref econ 60.16 65.12 71.86 52.82 47.72 31.72 med 40.84 35.88 29.14 48.18 53.28 69.28 –3.333* –5.041* –7.777* –0.800 –0.958 –6.473* < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 > 0.050 > 0.050 < 0.001 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref ling 59.48 71.30 65.92 66.20 69.26 32.84 med 41.52 29.70 35.08 34.80 31.74 68.16 –3.097* –7.171* –5.888* –5.412* –6.466* –6.087* < 0.005 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 Frecon vs frling Frecon vs frmed Frling vs frmed Two-tailed test, α = 0.05, N = 2 × 50 = 100. Table B-9. Results of the Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test of differences between discipline subcorpora in Norwegian Mean ranks Noecon vs noling 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref econ 45.46 46.19 59.48 36.06 33.02 40.76 ling 55.54 54.81 41.52 64.94 67.98 60.24 z p –1.737 –1.486 –3.096* –4.977* –6.025* –3.357* > 0.050 > 0.050 < 0.005 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 Appendices 303 Noecon vs nomed 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref econ 64.64 49.88 74.77 55.00 45.25 27.34 med 36.36 51.12 26.23 46.00 55.75 73.66 –4.874* –0.214 –8.746* –1.551 –1.810 –7.983* < 0.001 > 0.050 < 0.001 > 0.050 > 0.050 < 0.001 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref ling 68.20 54.46 72.06 66.86 63.46 32.96 med 32.80 46.54 28.94 34.14 37.54 68.04 –6.101* –1.365 –7.850* –5.639* –4.467* –6.046* < 0.001 > 0.050 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 Noling vs nomed Two-tailed test, α = 0.05, N = 2 × 50 = 100. Table B-10. Results of the Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test of differences between language subcorpora in economics Mean ranks z p 40.46 73.60 32.96 51.76 45.96 49.88 –3.461* –7.999* –6.046* –0.434 –1.565 –0.214 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 > 0.050 > 0.050 > 0.050 eng 48.34 29.98 61.84 33.80 44.96 48.58 no 52.66 71.02 39.16 67.20 56.04 52.42 –0.745 –7.106* –3.909* –5.756* –1.910 –0.662 > 0.050 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 > 0.050 > 0.050 fr 39.40 58.53 39.65 31.36 40.44 47.66 no 61.60 42.47 61.35 69.64 60.56 53.34 –3.826* –2.768* –3.740* –6.597* –3.468* –0.979 < 0.001 < 0.010 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 > 0.050 Engecon vs frecon eng fr 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref 60.54 27.40 68.04 49.24 55.04 51.12 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref Engecon vs noecon Frecon vs noecon Two-tailed test, α = 0.05, N = 2 × 50 = 100. 304 Academic Voices Table B-11. Results of the Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test of differences between language subcorpora in linguistics z p 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref eng 61.62 26.02 70.66 49.06 41.27 66.64 Mean ranks fr 39.38 74.98 30.34 51.94 59.73 34.36 –3.833* –8.442* –6.961* –0.496 –3.182* –5.563* < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 > 0.050 < 0.005 < 0.001 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref eng 40.34 29.98 62.62 36.14 35.08 56.26 no 60.66 71.02 38.38 64.86 65.92 44.74 –3.502* –7.078* –4.178* –4.950* –5.315* –1.985* < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.050 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref fr 32.54 63.10 39.76 37.58 42.86 40.03 no 68.46 37.90 61.24 63.42 58.14 60.97 –6.191* –4.343* –3.715* –4.453* –2.633* –3.609* < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.010 < 0.001 Engling vs frling Engling vs noling Frling vs noling Two-tailed test, α = 0.05, N = 2 × 50 = 100. Appendices 305 Table B-12. Results of the Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test of differences between language subcorpora in medicine z p 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref eng 57.32 29.82 59.28 55.59 47.49 60.46 Mean ranks fr 43.68 71.18 41.72 45.41 53.51 40.54 –2.352* –7.807* –3.619* –1.754 –1.038 –3.433* < 0.050 < 0.001 < 0.001 > 0.050 > 0.050 < 0.001 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref eng 49.42 27.62 58.89 41.56 38.10 50.68 no 51.58 73.38 42.11 59.44 62.90 50.32 –0.372 –8.468* –3.493* –3.082* –4.274* –0.062 > 0.050 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.005 < 0.001 > 0.050 1st p subj Indef subj Metatext Negation Advers Bibl ref fr 42.92 42.04 50.68 36.94 38.72 40.80 no 58.08 58.96 50.32 64.06 62.28 60.20 –2.615* –2.919* –0.100 –4.674* –4.060* –3.344* < 0.010 < 0.005 > 0.050 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 Engmed vs frmed Engmed vs nomed Frmed vs nomed Two-tailed test, α = 0.05, N = 2 × 50 = 100. Index A absolute frequency 40, 41, 172, 173 abstract 6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 19, 32, 33, 35, 37, 38, 67, 72, 73, 82, 114, 126–137, 153–157, 183, 188, 193–196, 198, 201, 267, 269 adversative 3, 4, 51, 53, 54, 59–61, 64, 65, 210, 216–218, 222, 223–226, 242, 243, 247, 250, 255, 257, 260, 263, 265, 270, 291, 293 analysis of variance (see Kruskal–Wallis test, Scheirer– Ray–Hare extension) ANOVA (see Kruskal–Wallis test, Scheirer–Ray–Hare extension) arguer 67, 82, 84, 85, 88–95, 101, 102, 127–133, 137–139, 142, 143, 147, 152, 155, 157, 241, 253, 256, 257, 267, 270 author role (see arguer, evaluator, researcher, writer) authorial ‘we’ 68, 105, 108, 154 B bibliographical reference (see non-integral, partly integral, semi-integral, fully integral) body (of article) 7, 12–15, 41, 71, 123, 139, 141, 144, 157, 219, 230 Bokmål 4, 73, 222 C citation 27, 36, 82, 216, 217, 220, 226, 229, 231, 234, 237 concession 216, 243, 247–250, 270 concessive 37, 195, 217, 218, 223, 224, 242, 243, 247–251, 253–255, 270 connective 34, 37, 177, 195, 216–218, 223-224, 229, 242, 243, 249, 250, 252, 255, 257, 270 contrastive linguistics 46 convince 30, 48, 95, 178 culture 2, 5, 14, 16–18, 20, 23, 28, 48, 51, 169, 221, 225, 266, 269 D dependent variable 40, 44 directive 171-173, 177, 180 discipline factor 43, 54, 76, 78, 162, 167, 220, 222, 225, 238, 257, 260, 267, 291 discourse community 1, 2, 17, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 37, 117, 120, 124, 125, 138–141, 142, 143, 146, 191, 202, 217, 237, 268 E encoding 12–14 enunciation 31–34, 38 evaluator 67, 82, 84, 85, 89, 91, 92, 95, 127, 147, 152, 157 exclusive ‘we’ 96, 98, 100–102, 104, 106, 107, 109, 179 exploratory 46, 83, 221 F factor (see discipline factor, interaction, language factor) first person plural 40, 68, 69, 74, 76–78, 82, 95, 96, 98, 101, 104, 107, 108, 113, 139, 143, 147, 148, 171, 200, 243, 254, 264, 267 first person singular 40, 45, 67–70, 73–75, 81–83, 90–93, 95, 101, 106, 113, 127, 133, 147, 264 frequency (see absolute frequency, relative frequency) fully integral reference 227, 229, 231, 256 G gender 23, 24, 40, 44, 55, 76, 79–81, 138, 162, 163, 221, 223, 226, 248, 265 genre 1, 2, 5, 17, 22–25, 27, 29–32, 46, 67, 110, 112, 115, 116, 118, 124, 126, 133, 157, 178, 180, 243, 244, 259, 268 grammatical subject 4, 40, 42, 72, 73, 79, 101, 147, 218, 226, 231, 260 H high context 169 hypothesis/hypotheses 2, 5, 6, 41, 44, 45, 58, 70–72, 74, 76, 78, 79, 82, 124, 126, 160, 181, 184, 192, 213, 217, 220, 221, 230, 255, 256 I identity 1–3, 6, 11, 16–20, 23, 24, 51, 266–267, 269 IMRAD (IMRD) 12, 13, 22, 24, 31, 166, 167, 182, 262 inclusive ‘we’ 68, 96–102, 104–107, 109, 178 308 Academic Voices indefinite pronoun 42, 51, 54, 55, 57, 59, 63, 67, 72, 73, 79–80, 110–113, 138, 196, 202, 240, 260, 261, 264, 291, 293, 300 independent variable 40, 44, 267 interaction (of factors) 43, 54, 55, 74, 161, 219, 222, 224, 291, 294, 295 intercultural 18, 23, 28, 266 interpersonal 4, 29, 154, 160, 170 K Kruskal–Wallis test 43, 44, 74, 291–296, 298–299, 300–301 L language factor 43, 54–55, 67, 76, 78, 156, 161, 212, 221, 222, 223, 225, 238, 257, 260, 291 ‘let me’-imperative 73, 170, 178, 206–209 ‘let us’-imperative 46–48, 106, 107, 169–180, 205–209, 210, 261, 262, 264, 267, 270 locutor 33, 34, 37–39, 81, 109, 111, 113, 114, 161, 230, 234, 238, 242, 243, 245, 250, 251–253 low context 23, 169 M Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test 43, 44, 52, 74, 76, 80, 163, 172, 221, 223, 226, 292, 295, 296–305 mean rank 53, 55–64, 79, 293, 296–305 metadiscourse 26, 154, 159–161, 163, 167 metatext 2, 4, 6, 30, 34, 40–42, 48, 49, 51, 54, 55, 59, 61, 63, 65, 85, 87, 89, 90, 105, 116, 118, 119, 122, 144, 155, 157, 159–170, 173, 177, 184, 187, 202–206, 208–213, 260–267, 269, 271, 291, 293, 294, 296–305 metonymy 98–100, 104, 115, 212 mother tongue 1, 10 multivoiced 3, 4, 32, 36, 215, 241, 251, 269 N negation 2, 3, 4, 6, 37, 38, 42–44, 51, 52, 54, 55, 59–61, 64, 65, 174, 195, 198, 201, 210, 216–218, 222–223, 225, 242–247, 250–255, 257, 260, 263, 265, 266, 270, 291, 293, 294, 296–305 neutral 1, 3, 81, 92, 189 non-integral reference 226– 227, 231, 256 non-parametric statistics 42, 44–46, 291, 293 normal distribution 45 Nynorsk 4, 7, 73, 146, 171, 222 O other-dimension 3, 6, 29, 48, 67, 124, 215, 217, 218, 238, 240, 255, 259, 266, 270, 271 P parametric statistics 44–45, 293 partly integral reference 227, 228, 256 person (see first, second, third person) personal pronoun 73, 96, 113, 114, 131–133, 147, 150, 184, 204, 245, 264 person manifestation 3–5, 17, 29, 156, 157, 215, 259, 260, 269 persuasion 19, 141, 181, 193, 267, 271 pilot study 4, 110, 161, 167, 223 point of view (pov) 34–38, 72, 108, 110, 117, 216, 217, 243, 244, 248–249, 251–254, 257, 270 polyphony 29, 32, 34–39, 72, 81, 91, 95, 108, 110, 111, 117, 161, 215– 218, 223, 224, 230, 234, 238, 242, 243–259, 265, 269, 270–271 pov (see point of view) Q qualitative 4, 41, 46-49, 52, 81, 116, 127, 161, 182, 183, 186, 191, 201, 217, 223, 226, 255, 257, 259, 269 quantitative 11, 39-45, 46, 51-65, 73-81, 82, 104, 161163, 182, 183–192, 217–218, 218-226, 230-231, 240, 243, 255-256, 259, 260-265 quote 7, 14, 37, 216, 227-238, 256, 270 R rank 41, 52-53, 55-64, 79 reader 1, 3, 18, 29, 37, 39, 48, 52, 68, 69, 72, 82, 84-85, 92, 95, 97–110, 111, 117,–127, 133, 138–143, 146, 148, 152, 154, 156, 159–161, 163, 165, 167–169, 169-171, 173-174, 177–179, 181, 193, 195, 198, 200-202, 204–207, 209, 213, 215, 217, 227, 229, 242, 246, 250, 254, 259, 261–264, 269-270 referencing 217, 233, 237, 240, 255 relative frequency 42–45, 51–55, 58, 60-61, 65, 69-71, 74-80, 104–105, 115, 139, 161-162, 172, 180, 202, 210, 219-224, 230-231, 243, 257, 260, 264, 291-301 representativity 9–11, 45, 53 researcher 67, 82-83, 85, 8892, 94, 95, 100-102, 127-133, 137, 138-140, 142-144, 146, 147, 150-151, 153-155, 157, 232-233, 239, 256, 270 S Scheirer–Ray–Hare extension 43, 293–295 search 12, 14-16, 40-41, 47, 73, 79, 134, 163, 166-167, 170, 183-185, 222-223 second person 96, 170, 215 self-dimension 3-6, 29, 34, 48, 67, 118, 124-125, 143, 147, 159, 215, 217-218, 234, 237240, 250-251, 256-257, 259, 266, 270-271 Index 309 semi-integral reference 227, 229, 231, 256 significance 43-44, 52-55, 5960, 63-65, 74, 76, 78-81, 105, 112, 115, 148, 162, 167-168, 172-173, 219-226, 243, 251, 265, 291-297, 299-301 statistics 4, 40-45, 53, 59, 74, 172, 259 subcorpus 7-9 subjective 21, 85, 91 sublevel 43-44, 55, 61, 292293 superlevel 43, 55, 61, 291-292 T tags 12-14 third person 3, 29, 34, 38, 69, 72, 97, 111, 113, 117, 156, 170, 179, 206, 215, 238, 259, 270 U utterance 29-39, 82, 89, 108110, 114, 161, 177, 180-181, 230, 242, 244, 248-249, 270 V variable 39-40, 44-45, 243 variance 43–45, 54-55, 74, 78–80, 102, 156, 161, 212, 219, 222, 224, 291–295, 298–300 verb group 83–87, 90 W writer 67, 82-83, 85, 87-94, 95, 127, 129-133, 138-140, 142, 144, 146-147, 149-150, 157, 256, 270 Pragmatics & Beyond New Series A complete list of titles in this series can be found on the publishers’ website, www.benjamins.com 151 SUZUKI, Satoko (ed.): Emotive Communication in Japanese. v, 233 pp. + index. 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Formalising structures in a controlled language. 2005. ix, 230 pp. 135 ARCHER, Dawn: Questions and Answers in the English Courtroom (1640–1760). A sociopragmatic analysis. 2005. xiv, 374 pp. 134 SKAFFARI, Janne, Matti PEIKOLA, Ruth CARROLL, Risto HILTUNEN and Brita WÅRVIK (eds.): Opening Windows on Texts and Discourses of the Past. 2005. x, 418 pp. 133 MARNETTE, Sophie: Speech and Thought Presentation in French. Concepts and strategies. 2005. xiv, 379 pp. 132 ONODERA, Noriko O.: Japanese Discourse Markers. Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis. 2004. xiv, 253 pp. 131 JANOSCHKA, Anja: Web Advertising. New forms of communication on the Internet. 2004. xiv, 230 pp. 130 HALMARI, Helena and Tuija VIRTANEN (eds.): Persuasion Across Genres. A linguistic approach. 2005. x, 257 pp. 129 TABOADA, María Teresa: Building Coherence and Cohesion. Task-oriented dialogue in English and Spanish. 2004. xvii, 264 pp. 128 CORDELLA, Marisa: The Dynamic Consultation. A discourse analytical study of doctor–patient communication. 2004. xvi, 254 pp. 127 BRISARD, Frank, Michael MEEUWIS and Bart VANDENABEELE (eds.): Seduction, Community, Speech. A Festschrift for Herman Parret. 2004. vi, 202 pp. 126 WU, Yi’an: Spatial Demonstratives in English and Chinese. Text and Cognition. 2004. xviii, 236 pp. 125 LERNER, Gene H. (ed.): Conversation Analysis. Studies from the ﬁrst generation. 2004. x, 302 pp. 124 VINE, Bernadette: Getting Things Done at Work. The discourse of power in workplace interaction. 2004. x, 278 pp. 123 MÁRQUEZ REITER, Rosina and María Elena PLACENCIA (eds.): Current Trends in the Pragmatics of Spanish. 2004. xvi, 383 pp. 122 GONZÁLEZ, Montserrat: Pragmatic Markers in Oral Narrative. The case of English and Catalan. 2004. xvi, 410 pp. 121 FETZER, Anita: Recontextualizing Context. 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