“The goal of this analysis …”: Changing patterns of metadiscursive nouns in disciplinary writing

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Jiang, Feng Kevin and Hyland, Ken (2021) “The goal of this analysis …”: Changing patterns of metadiscursive nouns in disciplinary writing. Lingua, 252. ISSN 0024-3841

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Abstract

The last 50 years have seen considerable changes in both research and publication practices in international English-medium arenas, and also witnessed a shift in argument styles in academic texts over these years (e.g. Hyland & Jiang, 2019). However, little attention was given to the rhetorical roles of nouns in diachronic studies of professional research writing. This is surprising since academic writing is an extremely noun-heavy register and novice writers often find nominal expressions difficult. In this study, we examine what are called metadiscursive nouns, a type of unspecific abstract nouns, in our diachronic corpus of disciplinary research writing to see whether they have increased in recent decades. It is found that this N pattern is most frequent overall, but hard scientists made increased use of quality nouns to promote the value of their research outcome while writers in the soft disciplines prefer evidential nouns for factual support to their knowledge claims. All these point to the need to include metadiscursive nouns into the rhetorical repertoire of metadiscourse and to emphasise their functions in the course of using English for research and publication purposes.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: metadiscursive nouns,academic persuasion,diachronic change,textual interaction,disciplinary writing,academic persuasion,textual interaction,disciplinary writing,diachronic changes,metadiscursive nouns,language and linguistics,linguistics and language ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1200/1203
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Education and Lifelong Learning
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Language in Education
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 12 Jan 2021 00:55
Last Modified: 21 Apr 2023 00:54
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/78156
DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2020.103017

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