A cross-cultural analysis of conjuncts as indicators of the interaction and negotiation of meaning in research articles
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2016 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Topics in Linguistics |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/topling-2016-0004 |
| Field | Linguistics |
| Keywords | Anglophone writers; conjuncts; cross-cultural analysis; Czech and Slovak writers; interaction; negotiation of meaning; style conventions; written academic discourse |
| Description | In the process of increasing internationalization of all scholarship the role of English as a global lingua franca of academia has become indisputable although the majority of writers and readers of scholarly texts are non-native speakers of English. Therefore it is questionable whether there is any justification for imposing the style conventions typical of the dominant Anglophone discourse community on all scholarly texts written in English. Recommended style conventions usually comprise qualities such as clarity, economy, linearity and precision in communication (cf. Bennett 2015) which can be achieved, among other means, by certain overt guiding signals including conjuncts (Quirk et al. 1985). Accordingly, the aim of the paper is to reveal cross-cultural variation in the use of these important text-organizing means because it is believed that conjuncts can enhance the interaction and negotiation of meaning between the author and prospective readers of the text. The paper investigates which semantic relations holding between parts of text tend to be expressed overtly by conjuncts and which semantic classes, such as appositive, contrastive/concessive, listing and resultive conjuncts, contribute most to the dialogic and interactive nature of written academic discourse. The data used for the analysis are research articles (RAs) selected from two journals, one representing academic discourse written by native speakers of English for the journal Applied Linguistics and the other representing academic texts written in English by Czech and Slovak speakers of English for the journal Discourse and Interaction. |