Rhetorical Hype And Author Identity Construction Process In Second Language Academic Writing

The process of writing academic discourse is the process by which the author asks questions,makes hypotheses,makes empirical analysis,and finally reaches a conclusion.Therefore,academic writing process can also be seen as a process in which the author enters information to the reader.In the process of academic writing,the author is consciously or unintentionally constructing his own identity,which has a subtle influence on the reader,thereby transforming the reader from the opposite of reading the article to a unified position with the author to reach consensus.Even if academic papers require the use of neutral and objective words as much as possible,it is inevitable that some words will be used for rhetorical hype in the author’s writing process,that is,in the process of identity construction.As a type of interactive meta discourse,rhetorical hype is an important language resource for authors to express opinions,evaluate judgments,and communicate and interact,and plays an important role in the construction of authorship.Based on the Hyland’s interactive meta discourse classification framework,this study screens out rhetorical hype vocabulary,selects 60 papers from Elsevier authoritative English academic journals that are completely completed by first language authors and second language authors,through self-built corpus,the similarities and differences in the frequency and distribution of various rhetorical hype vocabulary in the two types of papers are analyzed,and the types of authorship constructed by first language authors and second language authors using rhetorical hype vocabulary and the communicative needs of identity construction embodied in them are analyzed.The study found that while there were similarities in the frequency and distribution of the use of rhetorical hype between the two types of papers,there were also differences.Academic discourse written in second languages tend to use boosters in the abstract section to reflect the certainty of opinion.In academic discourse written by first language writers,authors are more willing to use attitude markers to highlight their presence in the discourse,while introducing readers into the discourse.In terms of identity construction using rhetorical hype,in academic discourse of second language writers,the author usually uses emphasis in the abstract section to establish a confident image as a researcher.In academic discourse of first language authors,when introducing the background in the introduction to justify the research,the author uses more self-referential to construct his image as a wise researcher.This study has certain theoretical and practical significance.Theoretically,in this study,the academic writings of first language and second language authors are used as a corpus for comparison,and it reveals the difference between the academic discourse of first language authors and second language authors in the use of rhetorical hype for identity construction.Practically,it explores the different modes of identity construction through rhetorical hype in journal papers of first and second language authors,which raises pedagogical implications for teaching English academic writing.