Categoricalness in Scientific Discourse

Panchenko, Nadezhda; Volkova, Yana

doi:10.17516/1997-1370-0740

Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities &Amp; Social Sciences

2021

DOI: 10.17516/1997-1370-0740

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Categoricalness in Scientific Discourse

Nadezhda Panchenko

Yana Volkova

Abstract: The article views categoricalness as a communicative category functioning in the scientific discourse and adversely affecting the process of scientific communication. The results of the discourse and contextual analysis of categoricalness revealed its correlation with the communicative categories of politeness, authoritativeness, confidence, subjectivity, and emotionality. The analysis of the texts of scientific reviews, oral discussions, and disputes allowed the authors to conclude that Russian scientific com… Show more

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Cited by 4 publications

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Russian lexical and syntactic hedges in dissertation reviews

Boginskaya

2023

Rusistika

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The author analyzes Russian lexical and syntactic hedges as a rhetorical strategy for mitigating the negative evaluation of the reviewed research. The relevance of the study is due to the ongoing attempts to reconceptualize the nature of academic discourse, which is increasingly viewed both as an interactive space and an information environment. This approach determines the need to study metadiscourse as an effective strategy for constructing a harmonious dialogue between the reviewer and the author of the dissertation under review. The purpose of the study is to identify lexical and grammatical categories of hedges and their rhetorical functions in the thesis reviews. A corpus of 90 dissertation reviews published on the websites of Russian dissertation councils in 2019-2022 was used as research materials. The object of the study was the genre of a dissertation review, where for the first time the linguistic means of mitigating negative evaluation on two linguistic levels were identified. This determines the scientific novelty of this study. To analyze the lexical and syntactic realizations of the hedging strategy, the methods of quantitative and interpretive analysis were used. The quantitative analysis revealed that the hedging strategy is mainly verbalized with the help of verbs, adverbs and introductory constructions. The interpretive analysis showed that hedges perform a wide range of communicative functions: shifting the communicative focus; modal mitigation of criticism; deintensification. The research contributes to linguistics disciplines such as pragmalinguistics, text theory and discourse analysis. The prospects of the research are an analysis of lexical and grammatical categories of other metadiscursive strategies.

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Russian lexical and syntactic hedges in dissertation reviews

Boginskaya

2023

Rusistika

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Metadiscursive Boosting in Russian Courtroom Discourse: Enhancing Persuasiveness in Defense Speeches

Boginskaya

2024

PDC

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Recent studies are revealing new aspects of courtroom discourse, examining its generation and applying novel analytical methods. Yet, despite their significance and complexity, the use of metadiscursive tools remains scarce. These tools offer substantial promise for analyzing discursive practices, increasingly seen as not just informative but also interactive and impactful. The inherently interactive and persuasive nature of courtroom discourse underscores the need for metadiscourse as a potent analytical instrument. Such an instrument encompasses mechanisms for expressing attitudes toward the propositional content and for drawing the recipient into a dialogue with the speaker. This article addresses the metadiscursive dimension of defense speeches as a distinct genre within courtroom discourse. The study uses quantitative analysis on a corpus of Russian-language courtroom texts, innovatively applying metadiscursive analysis to identify linguistic elements that enhance the persuasiveness of defense speeches, with a focus on the technique of boosting. Throughout the study, five types of boosters were identified – markers of certainty, evidentiality, intensity, solidarity, and superiority – each serving one of five pragmatic functions: to show the speaker’s confidence in the truth of their assertions, to point to the credibility and reliability of the source, to amplify the emotional impact of the statement, to denote the upper bounds of a continuum, and to reference commonly known facts or shared experiences of events or situations. The study reveals that boosting at the lexical level is predominantly achieved through the use of evidential verbs and nouns, adverbs of measure, degree, and time, as well as superlative adjectives. Additionally, the frequent use of first-person plural pronouns was observed. The findings suggest that adept use of boosters in courtroom discourse is indicative of a lawyer’s pragmatic competence and is crucial for effective communication with the court and the jury.

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Tentativeness vs Assertiveness: Metadiscourse Choices of Russian Engineering Writers

Boginskaya

2023

jour

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The communicative features of academic discourse have been explored from different perspectives. However, these studies have been predominantly carried out on English-language material. Little is known of how rhetorical elements, including stancetaking markers, are used in Russian academic prose. The сurrent study assumed that in order to ensure effective communication academic writers use a repertoire of stancetaking features. The theoretical basis of the study is Hyland’s model of stance markers which is frequently used in studying interactional strategies found in academic discourse. As research material the articles by Russian engineering scholars derived from six academic journals were used. The analysis revealed a large number of stance items with a predominance of boosters in the article introductions selected to build the corpus. It is suggested that the differences in the employment of stance markers identified in the study reflect discipline-specific writing peculiarities of the engineering academic community, while the discursive choices made by engineering writers are constrained by discursive conventions and depend on the level of the writers’ language proficiency. Despite some data limitations, the research results can be seen as a starting point for the future research of stancetaking in Russian research articles from different perspectives.

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Categoricalness in Scientific Discourse

Cited by 4 publications

References 3 publications

Russian lexical and syntactic hedges in dissertation reviews

Russian lexical and syntactic hedges in dissertation reviews

Metadiscursive Boosting in Russian Courtroom Discourse: Enhancing Persuasiveness in Defense Speeches

Tentativeness vs Assertiveness: Metadiscourse Choices of Russian Engineering Writers

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