Dialogism in Research Article Introductions Written by Iranian Non-Native and English Native Speaking Writers

Subject Areas : All areas of language and translation

Moharram  Sharifi ¹ (Department of English, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran)
Biook  Behnam ² (Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, Department of English, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran)
Saeideh  Ahangari ³ (Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, Department of English, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran)

Received: 2020-06-24 Accepted : 2020-06-24 Published : 2020-04-01

Keywords: Engagement, Introduction, Heteroglossic, Monoglossic,

Abstract :

Despite a growing interest in the study of the introduction sections of research articles, there have been few studies to investigate how academic writers engage with other voices and alternative positions in this academic genre. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to show how native-speaking (NS) and nonnative-speaking (NNS) writers take position and stance in research article introductions. For this purpose, engagement resources based on the appraisal framework were investigated in 60 articles written by English NS and Iranian NNS writers published in journals of applied linguistics. It was found out that the mean occurrences of heteroglossic items in both corpora was larger than those of monoglossic items but comparing the means of monoglossic engagements between the two corpora, it was revealed that NS writers’ corpus had larger mean occurrences of monoglossic engagements than NNS writers’ corpus implying the natives’ stronger authorial stance in the texts. The results also revealed that there was no significant difference in the use of contractive and expansive engagements by NS writers (t = -0.995, p > 0.05), indicating a balanced use between the two options. However, the higher mean occurrences of expansive options compared with contractive options in the NNS corpus may suggest that NS writers open up more dialogic room for alternatives positions in the introductions. The findings of this study may help writers to better perceive the creation of a strong authorial position using appropriate engagement resources in research article introductions.

References:

Ansarin, A. A., & Tarlani-Aliabdi, H. (2011). Reader Engagement in English and Persian Applied Linguistics Articles. English Language Teaching, 4(4), 154-164.

Babaii, E., Atai, M. R., & Saidi, M. (2017). Are Scientists Objective? An Investigation of Appraisal Resources in English Popular Science Articles. Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research, 5(1), 1-19.

Becher, T. (1990). The counter-culture of specialisation. European Journal of Education, 333-346.

Brooke, M. (2014). Attribution and authorial (Dis) endorsement in high-and low-rated undergraduate ESL students’ English academic persuasive essays. English Linguistics Research, 3(1), 1-11.

Coffin, C. (2009). Historical discourse: The language of time, cause and evaluation: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Feak, C., & Swales, J. M. (2009). Telling a Research Story: Writing a Literature Review (Michigan Series in English for Academic Professional Purposes). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Flowerdew, J., & Peacock, M. (2001). Issues in EAP: A preliminary perspective. Research perspectives on English for academic purposes, 824.

Fryer, D. L. (2013). Exploring the dialogism of academic discourse: Heteroglossic Engagement in medical research articles English corpus linguistics: Variation in time, space and genre (pp. 183-207): Brill Rodopi.

Halliday, M. A. (1994). An introduction to functional grammar (2nd ed.).

Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd ed.).