Evaluative Functions of Reporting Evidentials in English Research Articles of Applied Linguistics

Yang, Linxiu

doi:10.4236/ojml.2013.32016

Cited by 16 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…smatrati 'consider' showed 8% of the occurrences. Both English and Croatian findings conform to the results of previous research on the distribution of semantic verb classes used in research article writing in applied linguistics (Hyland 2004;Yang 2013). For instance, Hyland's (2004) findings show the congruent ranking of the use of semantic categories of the reporting verbs in the equivalent disciplinary corpus, with the discourse-based verbs showing the highest frequencies (59%), followed by the reporting verbs denoting research (30.5%) and cognition (10.5%).…”

Section: Croatian Sub-corpus English Sub-corpussupporting

confidence: 78%

“…Despite different preferences towards the use of individual lexical verbs across the two sub-corpora, the findings point to congruent tendencies of English and Croatian writers towards the use of the same semantic verb classes (Hyland 2004;Yang 2013). Thus, the findings show that English writers used mostly discourse-based reporting verbs (e.g.…”

Section: Croatian Sub-corpus English Sub-corpusmentioning

confidence: 66%

“…This format allows integration of reported information into the structure of one's argumentation without taking an explicit stance towards it and consequently assuming responsibility towards it, which largely matches rhetorical purposes of writers in both language groups (Yang 2013). However, the findings that merit closer attention refer to the use of inanimate subjects, which were shown to be particularly favored by English writers.…”

Section: Raw Freq N/1000mentioning

confidence: 77%

“…Though motivations for the preferred status of this citation type should be further investigated, as stated earlier, writers seem to use this pattern as it allows them to convey the reported information without explicit subjective involvement (Yang 2013). This rather impersonal reporting style appears to be in line with the predominantly impersonal and non-evaluative characterization of the Croatian scientific writing style (Silić 2006).…”

Section: Raw Freq N/1000mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Instead, they make a more frequent use of adjunct agents as compared to English writers, as illustrated by the following example: As can be seen, the adjunct reporting structure allows writers to drop a reporting verb and consequently omit adopting explicit evaluative stance towards the reported information, leading to a more distant position towards it (Yang 2013). However, the extent to which the given structure is a salient citation format in the Croatian academic writing as opposed to others would require further corpus-based disciplinary research.…”

Section: Raw Freq N/1000mentioning

confidence: 99%

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English and Croatian citation practices in research articles in applied linguistics: a corpus-based study

Varga¹,

Gradečak-Erdeljić²

2017

KLB

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As a mandatory constituent of academic writing, citation allows writers to acknowledge other scholarsʼ work and to position their research against it, showing thus both contribution to previous knowledge and research novelty (Hyland 2004). Previous research has documented not only cross-disciplinary (Hyland 2004) but also crosscultural variations, with a general tendency of Anglo-American writers to use more citations than writers of some other cultural backgrounds (Hyland 2005;Mur Dueñas 2009). By exploring the frequency, preferred types, and reporting structures of citations in two comparable sub-corpora of research articles in applied linguistics in English and Croatian, the present study aimed to provide an insight into the patterns of cross-cultural similarities and differences in the use of academic citation. The corpus comprised 32 research articles that were sampled from the representative English-and Croatianmedium publications in applied linguistics and analyzed manually. The extracted instances of citations were categorized according to the pre-established taxonomies of the citation types (Swales, 1990) and reporting structures in academic writing (Thomson & Tribble 2001). The frequency analysis showed that the English writers used more citations as opposed to the Croatian writers, which is in line with previous cross-cultural research on the use of citations (Fløttum, Dahl & Kinn 2006;Mur Dueñas 2009). In both sub-corpora writers used more non-integral than integral citations, with the highest 154 frequencies reported in the Introduction section of research articles. The overall findings point to the saliency of the congruent types of reporting structures in both citation formats across the two sub-corpora, with the human subjects being most frequently used in integral citations and non-reporting being the most frequent reporting structure in nonintegral citations. However, in non-integral citations English writers used non-human subjects at a significantly higher frequency than Croatian writers, which suggests that in the English citations investigated more importance is placed on research activities than human agents. Whereas similarities in the use of citations between English and Croatian writers may be accounted for by the congruent disciplinary variable, the differences seem to be related to the specifics of a wider socio-cultural background in which academic writing is embedded.

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Section: Croatian Sub-corpus English Sub-corpussupporting

confidence: 78%

Section: Croatian Sub-corpus English Sub-corpusmentioning

confidence: 66%

Section: Raw Freq N/1000mentioning

confidence: 77%

Section: Raw Freq N/1000mentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Raw Freq N/1000mentioning

confidence: 99%

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