Evaluated entities and parameters of value in academic research articles

Abstract Expert writers of academic research articles (ARAs) establish an appropriate balance between topic-based discourse and interactive “human face” discourse by providing both linguistic and contextual clues to indicate to the reader the perspective from which their texts should be interpreted. Central to this type of interaction is “evaluation”—the judgement of good or bad. This study looks at the ways in which evaluation works through a text to convey the overall purpose of the writer of the text. A developing corpus of academic research articles, from a variety of disciplines is used: so far, 60 have been analysed in detail. It is of interest to categorize the types of entities in the real world which are evaluated, especially research entities, and to look at the values in terms of which those entities are evaluated. This study shows that the type of evaluation varies according to the type of entity. Two broad categories of research entity are established: those related to “process” and to “product”; in addition generalized scales of values associated with each are established.

[1]  G. Thompson,et al.  Evaluation in the Reporting Verbs Used in Academic Papers. , 1991 .

[2]  Mohsen Ghadessy.  Register analysis : theory and practice , 1993 .

[3]  M. P. Jordan.  Rhetoric of Everyday English Texts , 1984 .

[4]  Russell A. Hunt,et al.  Evaluations in literary reading , 1986 .

[5]  Thomas Hawes,et al.  Reporting verbs in medical journal articles , 1994 .

[6]  Michael Halliday,et al.  An Introduction to Functional Grammar , 1985 .

[7]  Jan Svartvik,et al.  A __ comprehensive grammar of the English language , 1988 .

[8]  R. Quirk.  A Grammar of contemporary English , 1974 .

[9]  Angela Downing,et al.  A University Course in English Grammar , 1992 .

[10]  Malcolm Coulthard,et al.  Advances in Written Text Analysis , 1994 .

[11]  Geoff Thompson,et al.  Introducing Functional Grammar , 1996 .

[12]  Susan Hunston.  Evaluation in experimental research articles , 1989 .

[13]  K. Hyland,et al.  Hedging in academic writing and EAF textbooks , 1994 .

[14]  Angela Tadros.  Prediction in text , 1985 .

[15]  Paul L. Simpson.  Modality in Literary-Critical Discourse , 1990 .

[16]  David J. Young.  The structure of English clauses , 1980 .

[17]  Greg Myers,et al.  The pragmatics of politeness in scientific articles , 1989 .

[18]  Philip Shaw.  Reasons for the Correlation of Voice, Tense, and Sentence Function in Reporting Verbs. , 1992 .

[19]  Paul Simpson,et al.  Language, Ideology and Point of View , 1993 .

[20]  A. Tadros.  Predictive categories in university textbooks , 1989 .

[21]  Françoise Salager-Meyer,et al.  Hedges and textual communicative function in medical English written discourse , 1994 .