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Part of
Intercultural Perspectives on Research Writing
Edited by Pilar Mur-Dueñas and Jolanta Šinkūnienė
[AILA Applied Linguistics Series 18] 2018
► pp. 59–79

Chapter 3
The power of English

I and we in Lithuanian, Lithuanian English and British English research writing

| Vilnius University

The use of I and we in research writing has been acknowledged as one of the most powerful means to mark author stance, however there are substantial differences in personal pronoun preferences depending on the disciplinary and cultural background of the writer. This chapter investigates the use of personal pronouns in linguistic research articles written by Lithuanian scholars in English and in Lithuanian, and by British English speakers in English. The results suggest that most Lithuanian scholars choose a more explicit author stance expression when they write in English, even though the frequencies and some functions of I and we in the English speakers’ texts tend to be different from those in the Lithuanian scholars’ articles.

Keywords: personal pronouns, research articles, cross-linguistic study, inclusive we, exclusive we, Lithuanian, English, intercultural rhetoric
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Personal pronouns in research writing
  • 2.Data and methods
  • 3.Results and discussion
    • 3.1General frequencies of personal pronouns I/aš and we/mes and their forms
    • 3.2I/aš and its semantic and pragmatic profile
    • 3.3We/mes and its semantic and pragmatic profile
  • 4.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aals.18.03sin
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