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Dialogicity in Written Specialised Genres
Edited by Luz Gil-Salom and Carmen Soler-Monreal
[Dialogue Studies 23] 2014
► pp. 1–20

Introductory chapter

Dialogue, community and persuasion in research writing

| The University of Hong Kong
The expression of personal opinions and assessments is a ubiquitous feature of human interaction and, despite its apparently impersonal facade, also central to academic writing. In scholarly genres argument involves presenting a position on things that matter to a discipline in ways that disciplinary members are likely to find familiar and persuasive. Beneath its frozen surface, an academic text is seeking to build an appropriate relationship between the writer and the reader by anticipating the audience’s likely interests, knowledge, reactions and processing needs. We can, then, see academic writing as essentially dialogic as writers seek to engage and persuade their readers. In this introductory chapter I explore some of the ways that this is achieved. Based on an analysis of 240 published research papers I show how features of stance and engagement, such as hedges, self-mention, directives and reader pronouns, are not simply dry textualisations but elements of persuasive craftsmanship which help construct a disciplinary view of the world while simultaneously negotiating a credible persona for writers.
Published online: 10 July 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ds.23.02hyl
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2023. Changes in Research Abstracts: Past Tense, Third Person, Passive, and Negatives. Written Communication 40:1 ► pp. 210 ff. DOI logo
Martín-Laguna, Sofía
2023. Metadiscourse Learning Trajectories in Multilingual Learners: A Focus on Attitude Markers and Hedges. In New Trends on Metadiscourse, ► pp. 105 ff. DOI logo
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Phillips Galloway, Emily, Paola Uccelli, Gladys Aguilar & Christopher D. Barr
2020. Exploring the Cross-Linguistic Contribution of Spanish and English Academic Language Skills to English Text Comprehension for Middle-Grade Dual Language Learners. AERA Open 6:1 ► pp. 233285841989257 ff. DOI logo
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2019. Chapter 14. Promoemotional science?. In Emotion in Discourse [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 302], ► pp. 357 ff. DOI logo
Sancho Guinda, Carmen
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Bondi, Marina
2018. Dialogicity in written language use. In From Pragmatics to Dialogue [Dialogue Studies, 31], ► pp. 137 ff. DOI logo
Bondi, Marina & Carlotta Borelli
2018. Chapter 10. Publishing in English. In Intercultural Perspectives on Research Writing [AILA Applied Linguistics Series, 18], ► pp. 217 ff. DOI logo
Rozumko, Agata
2017. Adverbial Markers of Epistemic Modality Across Disciplinary Discourses: A Contrastive Study of Research Articles in Six Academic Disciplines. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 52:1 ► pp. 73 ff. DOI logo

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