Authorial Identity Construction In English Abstracts Of Research Articles

Recent research on academic discourse attaches great importance to authorial identity.Traditionally, academic writing is viewed as objective and neutral, thus author’s personal stance as well as emotional penetration should be avoided(Geertz, 1988). Growing research, however,indicates that academic writing is a social act with high involvement of the author(Hyland,2000). Abstracts, as the miniature of RAs(Research Articles), play a central role in academic writing. It is not just an expeditious means for searching paper, but a manifestation of the interaction between the author and the audience. Consequently, in the process of abstract writing,the author inevitably draws upon specific language strategies to propagate their academic achievements, indicate their stance and reveal their identity. Research on construction of authorial identity in academic discourse, however, pays more attention to the pragmatic functions of the first personal pronouns. Some other linguistic resources are relatively overlooked.In this study, the writer aims to investigate the ways RA authors in Linguistics and Chemistry construct an identity. Hyland and Tse(2012) discussed identity construction in article bio statements through the combination of Moves in Genre Analysis and Transitivity Processes in Systemic Functional Linguistics, this study takes their framework as analytical framework.There are two corpora in this study: Linguistics RA abstracts and Chemistry RA abstracts, with each containing 40 abstracts, 80 in total, selected randomly from the core journals in CNKI(China National Knowledge Infrastructure) published from 2005 to 2014. This research is intended to address the following questions:(1) What are the distributional features of moves and transitivity processes in Linguistics and Chemistry RA abstracts? Are there any differences of moves and transitivity processes in Linguistics and Chemistry RA abstracts? If yes, what are they?(2) How do authors in the two disciplines construct their identities through moves and transitivity processes?Major findings of the present study are shown as follows:Firstly, there are significant differences in moves between Linguistics and Chemistry RA abstracts. Authors in Linguistics give greater weight to Move 1(Background Move), Move 2(Purpose Move) and Move 5(Conclusion Move). Meanwhile, the four-move structure M2-M3-M4-M5 is preferred by authors in Linguistics. However, authors in Chemistry make considerably greater use of Move 3(Methodology Move) and Move 4(Results Move). Moreover,M2-M3-M4 is the popular three-move structure in Chemistry.Secondly, with regard to the distribution of transitivity process types, there are five processtypes both in Linguistics and Chemistry RA abstracts. They are material process, relational process, mental process, verbal process and existential process, among which material process and relational process have won the authors’ favor. Compared to Chemistry RAs, however,authors in Linguistics use more mental process and verbal process.Besides, the distribution of process types in each move takes on some similarities as well as differences. Material process dominates in each move of Linguistics and Chemistry RA abstracts.In Background Move, Methodology Move and Results Move, authors in Linguistics use more mental processes. While, in Purpose Move and Methodology Move, verbal processes are frequently used by authors in Linguistics.All of these differences mirror RA authors’ unique ways of constructing their identities.Firstly, authors in Linguistics lay stress on building solidarity with the audience and attempt to represent themselves as a credible guide; while authors in Chemistry foreground their role as a conductor and an active discourse-organizer. Secondly, authors in Linguistics prefer to highlight their responsibilities in academic discourse. Authors in Chemistry, however, put more emphasis on readers’ responsibilities in discourse. Furthermore, authors in Linguistics focus on the reflection and cognition of the discourse and try to construct an arguer or a discusser image;authors in Chemistry emphasize self-promotion of the research results and portray themselves as an authoritative narrator.This study offers us fresh insights into authorial identity construction in RA abstracts.Meanwhile, the findings of this study have implications for RA abstracts writing and the teaching of RA abstracts writing.