| The social and interactive nature of academic discourse (AD) has been gaining wider and wider acceptance in recent years and most scholars now seem to acknowledge with the truth that the ultimate goal of AD lies in selling viewpoints and promoting stance rather than merely stating knowledge and the truth. Under such circumstances, stance studies of AD also start to draw more and more attention. However, most of these studies have chosen journal articles of either one language or one field as research objects. There is a sever lack of contrastive stance studies on AD across languages and fields based on dissertations.Thus the conclusion parts of twenty Chinese and English Ph.D. dissertations from soft-pure field, soft-applied field, hard-applied field, and hard-pure field have been selected as data and studied within the framework of Brown and Levinson's face theory and Hyland's model of academic interaction so as to examine the overall frequency of authorial stance markers (ASM) in AD, compare the similarities and differences in the use of ASM across languages and fields with the help of Chi-square test in SPSS17.0, and explore the possible reasons behind such differences. The major findings yielded in the present study are as follows:Firstly, as for the overall frequency of ASM in AD, it does appear to be quite high (about2509times per100000words), which indicates that the authors are fully aware of the social and interactive nature of AD and the need to save both readers'and their face. As for the groups of ASM, hedges and boosters are more frequently used than attitude markers and self-mention, indicating the authors' respect for the objectiveness of AD and their preference to show stance and presence in an implicit way. Differences also exist in the sub-groups of ASM. Although the frequency of first person self-mention and third person self-mention is similar, accuracy-oriented hedges, certainty-indicating boosters, and judgemental markers have been found to be preferred over commitment hedges, fact-asserting boosters and emotive markers, indicating the authors' emphasis on precision rather than evasion of responsibilities, certainty rather than the factuality of propositions, and their avoidance of direct personal emotion exposure. In other words, it has suggested that the authors prefer to hide subjective emotions, stay as cautious and objective as possible and are willing to initiate an author-reader dialogue either explicitly or implicitly and take responsibilities for the propositions in their desperate promotion of claims and beliefs.Secondly, among AD across languages, except for accuracy-oriented hedges, the frequency of ASM in Chinese AD are all significantly lower than that in English AD, indicating that foreign scholars are more active in promoting their stance than their Chinese counterparts. Regarding to their similarities, both of them favor hedges and boosters over attitude markers and self-mention, certainty-indicating boosters over fact-asserting boosters, and judgemental markers over emotive markers, which is in accordance with the general features of ASM in AD. The difference mainly lies in the fact that the former prefers accuracy-oriented hedges and third person self-mention, while the latter prefers commitment hedges and first person self-mention. What is also worth noticing is that, in the use of first person, Chinese corpora use first person plural more frequently than first person singular, while it is opposite the case in English corpora.This is most probably due to the academic culture of the two language communities. In their culture, foreign scholars emphasize individualism, interaction and negotiation, while Chinese scholars emphasize collectivism, objectivity and authoritativeness. And that is probably why foreign scholars are more ready to reveal confidence, highlight originality, make speculations, initiate direct interaction with the readers by showing presence and shoulder independent responsibilities in promoting their stance, while Chinese scholars tend to indicate modesty and caution, highlight collective efforts, avoid vagueness and guesses, guide readers implicitly by hiding presence and claiming disciplinary membership so as to identify with the readers.Thirdly, as for ASM in AD across fields, there are similarities and differences between hard fields and soft fields and between pure fields and applied fields.The similarities of all fields lie in the fact that they all favor hedges and boosters over attitude markers and self-mention, certainty-indicating boosters over fact-asserting boosters, and judgemental markers over emotive markers, which is in accordance with the general features of ASM in AD.Regarding to the differences between hard fields and soft fields, the general frequency of ASM in hard fields is significantly higher than that of soft fields. Referring to the subgroups of ASM, except for the frequency of emotive markers and first person self-mention, the frequency of the other subgroups in soft fields are all significantly lower than that of hard fields. Besides, soft fields prefer accuracy-oriented hedges while hard fields favor commitment hedges. In the use of first person self-mention, soft fields prefer to use first person singular while hard fields favor the use of first person plural.As for pure fields and applied fields, their differences mainly lie in the fact that the general frequency of ASM in applied fields are significantly higher than that of pure fields. Referring to the groups of ASM, although there is no significant difference in the frequency of hedges and attitude markers between them, the frequency of boosters and self-mention in applied fields is much higher than that of pure fields. Besides, in the use of self-mention, pure fields prefer first person over third person while it is opposite the case in applied fields. And in the use of first person, applied fields tend to use first person singular while pure fields tend to use first person plural.Such differences most probably result from the nature of these fields. AD in hard fields are mostly research trials, in which a large amount of unproven speculations and bold guesses have been made based on quantitative data, while in soft fields, AD are mostly analytical studies which are more subjective and less clear-cut. Thus, authors of hard fields can more easily become the target of criticism and loose face than those of soft fields due to the nature of their researches. So there is no wonder that compared with soft fields, hard fields use ASM much more frequently. Besides, their preference of commitment hedges and first person plural over accuracy-oriented hedges and first person singular is mainly due to their hope of avoiding criticism, protecting face and promoting stance through softening claims and emphasizing collective effort.AD in pure fields and applied fields are also different. Most of studies conducted in pure fields are theoretical ones which do not necessarily have a tight connection with daily life. Thus they prefer to start a direct dialogue with the readers, negotiate the claims with them and guide them through the discourse. Compared with AD in pure fields, AD in applied fields involve more necessity in the application of research findings in real life, thus the authors are at a higher risk of intruding the readers' negative face in persuading them to put their results into practice. Therefore, it is wise for the authors of applied fields to hide presence by using third person so as to avoid accusation and initiate a direct author-reader dialogue to negotiate with the readers by using first person singular when necessary so as to get their stance promoted.The present study can give a more comprehensive view of the social and interactive nature of AD, promote the research on evaluation, provide guidance for academic writers and lead to smoother academic exchange. |
PDF Full Text Request