Research Gap 2

Australian Journal of Linguistics
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cajl20
How do we make ourselves heard in the writing of

a research article? A study of authorial references
in four disciplines
Mohsen Khedri & Konstantinos Kritsis
To cite this article: Mohsen Khedri & Konstantinos Kritsis (2020) How do we make ourselves
heard in the writing of a research article? A study of authorial references in four disciplines,
Australian Journal of Linguistics, 40:2, 194-217, DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2020.1753011
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2020.1753011
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AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS
2020, VOL. 40, NO. 2, 194–217
https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2020.1753011
How do we make ourselves heard in the writing of a research

article? A study of authorial references in four disciplines
Mohsen Khedri and Konstantinos Kritsis
Sohar University and University of Cyprus
ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This study examined the use of personal (exclusive first-person Accepted 19 March 2020
plural pronouns) and impersonal (abstract rhetors, periphrastic
passives and it-clauses) authorial references in a corpus of 160 KEYWORDS
[Im]personal authorial
research articles in applied linguistics, psychology, environmental references; discourse
engineering and chemistry. The aim was to see if personal and functions; metadiscourse;
impersonal authorial references, as realized by the rhetorical research articles; disciplinary
options chosen, are predisposed to differences across disciplinary variation
rhetorical cultures. The results indicated disciplinary variations in
both the frequency and use of personal and impersonal authorial
references, especially when the disciplines were compared for
contrasting effects. While the applied linguistics and psychology
writers favoured the use of exclusive first-person plural pronouns
to construct their authorial persona, the environmental
engineering and chemistry writers preferred a more detached
interpersonal style by opting predominantly for periphrastic
passives. Also, the results showed differences in the incidence of
use of personal and impersonal authorial references across
discourse functions, which could be attributed to the adoption of
different interpersonal strategies within the disciplines. The
present results are expected to extend our understanding of
disciplinary variations towards the use of authorial references in
tandem with discourse functions in research articles in the
selected disciplines, particularly in the relatively unexplored
disciplines of chemistry and environmental engineering.
1. Introduction
Present attitudes towards academic communication consider writing as a social activity
and the conveyance of knowledge as the product of a collective substantiation of argu-
ments. Social discourse is conceived as playing a key part in constructing knowledge in
writing. As a consequence, discourse analysts have paid due attention to the interpersonal
attribute of academic communication, studying authorial stances in the use of language to
argue in favour of their opinions and to elicit recognition.
This study reasons that the rhetorical structure of objectivity is worthy of consideration
when it comes to interpersonality in written academic discourse. A number of studies have
shown that the adoption of an impersonal and objective style to compose allegations lies
in disciplinary epistemological norms (cf. Becher & Trowler 2001; Hyland 2000; Hyland &
CONTACT Mohsen Khedri mkhedri@su.edu.om

© 2020 The Australian Linguistic Society
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS 195
Tse 2005). This adoption may, however, be owing to authorial obligation to comply with
community-based rhetorical conventions (Shaw 2003; Shaw & Vassileva 2009; Vassileva
2000; Yakhontova 2006). In both cases, adopting an objective mode seems a rhetorical
option which is more related to how scholars portray a situation than to how it ‘actually’
is. Thus, framing one’s standpoints in objectivity could be regarded as a persuasive strat-
egy resulting from societal considerations.
Existing frameworks to scrutinize the interactional aspect of language appear to be only
partly apt for explaining socially generated linguistic features used to express objectivity.
One problem with such frameworks is that they deal to a large extent with the articulation
of subjectivity rather than with how objectivity is articulated. The work on evaluation in
language, for example, focuses on the manifestation of the author’s stance, which is poss-
ibly identified in texts through the identification of “signals of comparison, subjectivity,
and social value” (Hunston & Thompson 2000: 13). Likewise, the work on appraisal deals
with “the subjective presence of writers/speakers in texts as they adopt stances towards
both the material they present and those with whom they communicate” (Martin &
White 2005: 1).
Another problem concerns the focus of frameworks, such as metadiscourse, which prior-
itize the explicit ‘manifestation’ of interpersonality, that is the description of a writer’s
attempt to construct a discursive or pragmatic effect at the surface level of the text
(Hyland 2005: 28). Hence, some objective lexico-grammatical features expressing interper-
sonality, such as periphrastic passives and it-clauses, may not fit into current analytical fra-
meworks since they lack an actor/agent indication.
An approach to examine the interactional function of objective constructions is likely to
choose a reference point such as the metaphor of ‘interpersonality’, which by no means
confines it to particular semantic domains or systemized features in the text, but covers
all communicative qualities that might indicate links between the author and a specific
social identity. In the present study, we adopt the metaphor of ‘interpersonality’ (after
Molino 2010) in order to find out how the use of objectivity and subjectivity is balanced
in research articles (RAs) in applied linguistics (AL), psychology (Psy), environmental engin-
eering (EE) and chemistry (Che).
To be specific, this study aims to investigate how academics conceal or make explicit
their presence in articles. Authorial presence in academic writing can be materialized
through various personal and impersonal rhetorical options, such as first-person pronouns,
metonymies, passives, it-clauses, etc. Therefore, in this study, the qualifications ‘personal’
and ‘impersonal’ are added to ‘authorial references’. When we speak of ‘personal authorial
references’ we are referring to exclusive first-person plural pronouns (we and its corre-
sponding forms), and when we speak of ‘impersonal authorial references’ we are referring
to objective structures as used to refer to events carried out by authors. In this investi-
gation, the bounds of impersonal constructions are mapped as the following: metonymies
acting as ‘abstract rhetors’ (e.g. this article; see Hyland 1996), it-clauses (e.g. it is supposed
instead of I/we suppose), and passive voices or so-called ‘periphrastic passives’ (i.e. this was
not found in … , PCs were found in …).
Needless to say, clause-initial it has various structural roles. In this study, we do not con-
sider structures in which the clause-initial it acts as a ‘dummy’ or ‘prop’ it (i.e. it is snowing),
or as a ‘place holder’ in cleft sentences (i.e. it was through rigorous contextual analysis that
such discourse functions were found). Instead, the focus is only on it-clauses used to
196 M. KHEDRI AND K. KRITSIS
depersonalize a writer’s knowledge claims (e.g. it has been recently studied that rather than
we have recently studied (an indication of self-citation); it was noticed that instead of we
noticed that). These objective constructions help scholars save their authorial persona by
detaching themselves from their claims.
Overall, this study aims to: (i) compare RAs in the four selected disciplines to determine
to what extent authors make their presence in the text explicit using personal authorial
references; (ii) scrutinize the utilization of impersonal authorial references to see
whether they are prone to variation across the disciplines; and (iii) investigate the
context within which academics belonging to different disciplinary communities choose
subjective over objective constructions and vice versa, in order to ascertain whether
any cross-disciplinary differences in the occurrence of personal and impersonal authorial
references are related to the adoption of different strategies of interpersonality.
2. Past studies
Previous research has demonstrated that first-person pronouns, which are central to aca-
demic writing, enable authors to accentuate their contribution to the field and build an
authoritative ethos across a variety of rhetorical purposes (e.g. Khedri 2016; Kuo 1999;
Molino 2010; Mur-Dueñas 2007; Sheldon 2009; Tang & John 1999). Personal authorial refer-
ences have been investigated across different genres (Hyland 2002a; 2003) as well as cul-
tures and languages (e.g. Breivega et al. 2002; Fløttum et al. 2006; Vassileva 2000;
Yakhontova 2006). Another important line of inquiry has been the cross-disciplinary study
of personal authorial references (e.g. Harwood 2005a; 2005b; Hyland 2001; 2002a; 2002b;
2003; 2005; McGrath 2016; Tse & Hyland 2008), which have been found to vary across dis-
ciplinary rhetorical cultures in terms of both their frequency and range of uses.
A closer look at cross-disciplinary studies reveals that while personal authorial refer-
ences have been scrutinized in RAs within different fields of knowledge, such as applied
linguistics, sociology, marketing, philosophy, microbiology, electrical engineering,
physics and mechanical engineering (e.g. Hyland 2001; 2002b; 2003; 2004; 2005), comput-
ing science, physics, business and management, and economics (e.g. Harwood 2005b;
2005c), biology and philosophy (e.g. Tse & Hyland 2008), as well as anthropology and
history (e.g. McGrath 2016), three of the four disciplines included in the present study,
namely Psy, EE and Che, have not been explored previously. This study, then, is a substan-
tial attempt to plug this lacuna in the field to see how academics belonging to these dis-
ciplinary communities intrude into their writing.
Despite authorial references having been important foci of analysis for the study of rhe-
torical orientations across different academic communities, little appears to be known
about the way(s) in which authorial presence is shaped by impersonal constructions in
RA writing across disciplines. Due to the increasing literature on understanding knowledge
as a social construct, scholars have gradually shifted their initial focus on impersonal struc-
tures, like passives, to other textual devices, such as ‘reporting verbs’ (e.g. Hyland 2002a;
Thomas & Hawes 1994) and ‘hedges’ (Hyland 1998a), which signpost the rhetorical
nature of written academic discourse. It might, however, be said that using impersonal
forms is no less rhetorical in force than adopting overt stances fashioned by first-person
pronouns. As suggested by Rundblad (2007), impersonal constructions, including metony-
mic and passive structures, help authors to “signal credibility, reliability, objectivity, and
ultimately authority to their readers and the research community” (251). Moreover, a
writer’s choice not to make their presence explicit may rest on the need to create a
piece of writing which complies with the expectations of a specific discourse community
regarding authorial [in]visibility. Thus, a functional investigation into the use of impersonal
authorial references, merged with an analogous study of personal forms, may shed further
light on how academics (i) situate their authorial status in the community in which they are
members, and (ii) interact with readers to build up a relationship.
3. Method
3.1 Disciplines
Academic disciplines are language using communities with a wide spectrum of rhetori-
cal features at a writer’s disposal. However, they require writers to conform to discipline-
specific convictions when producing knowledge-based content. This study considered
authorial presence in view of personal and impersonal structures in different disciplinary
rhetorical cultures. The topic was studied in the context of journal articles within four dis-
ciplines along the soft–hard division. The disciplines are said to vary in particular aspects.
Characteristic of soft science disciplines, such as AL and Psy, is that they share features
with social sciences and humanities, in the sense that the substantiation of concepts is
rather ingrained in personal inference and reasoning. Typical of hard science disciplines,
EE and Che, however, is the display of features which are reflective of knowledge claims
resting upon mathematical models, scientific criteria and procedures that are non-
aligned with subjective attributes. The different disciplinary traditions, and especially
the dearth of contrastive rhetorical studies, were the main reasons that led to the
present investigation of the way(s) in which article writers in the selected disciplines
project themselves into the text.
3.2 Journal selection

Journal selection was made by consulting an insider-specialist in each discipline. Every
attempt was made to choose journals which publish RAs in the same sub-fields and,
where possible, articles addressing the same readership. Finally, three journals were
chosen from each discipline. The AL journals consisted of the Journal of Pragmatics,
English for Specific Purposes and Journal of English for Academic Purposes. The Psy journals
included the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Behavior Research and Therapy and
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry. The EE journals constituted the
Journal of Hazardous Materials, Building and Environment and Water Research. The Che jour-
nals included the Journal of Molecular Structure, Microchemical Journal and European
Polymer Journal. All the selected journals are English-medium international journals of
prestige in each discipline. They are indexed by the ISI Web of Science (2011), have a
high impact factor, can be easily accessed online and fulfil Nwogu’s (1997) criteria for
representativity and reputation. These journals are comparable in terms of the size of dis-
course community in which they function; the large scope of topics covered within each
discipline; the articles being widely read and cited by experts in the field; and being repre-
sentative of the discipline with respect to content and style. Following Bazerman (1994:
Table 1 Data description

Sub-corpus No. of RAs per discipline No. of words Average no. of words per RA
AL 40 315,736 7,893
Psy 40 302,076 7,552
EE 40 273,748 6,844
Che 40 286,772 7,168
TOT: 160 TOT: 1,178,332
131), the selected RAs are considered to have “expert performance” and be “situationally
effective” in their message delivery.
3.3 Article selection

The corpus for analysis consisted of 160 RAs (about 1,180,000 words; 40 per discipline; see
Table 1) sourced from journals in AL, Psy, EE and Che.
The articles were mainly selected using a stratified random sampling method. Also, the
following external criteria (Biber 2004) were preferred so as to ensure tertium comparatio-
nis, that is “a common platform of comparison or shared similarity between texts” (Connor
2004: 292). All of the 160 RAs were:
(a) multi-authored allowing for a comparison across the corpus of the frequency of exclu-
sive first-person plural pronouns (we and its corresponding forms);
(b) published during the period 2010–2018; and
(c) full-length empirical research studies conforming to an Introduction, Method, Results
and Discussion (IMR&D) layout – a widely accepted conventional format proposed by
Swales (1990).
Given that different sections perform different rhetorical functions, which are indexed
by a variety of lexico-grammatical features (Dorgeloh 2004; MacDonald 2002; Salager-
Meyer 1994; Swales 1990), focusing on particular parts of RAs further enabled us to
observe the disciplinary trends in the distribution of personal and impersonal authorial
references across the sections. Thus, the present investigation focused only on the
IMR&D sections of each article and excluded other parts, such as abstracts, conclusions,
stand-alone quotations, excerpts of data, endnotes, footnotes and reference lists, which
each merit further work.
The data size was justified by adopting a mixed-methods research approach containing
a description of personal and impersonal authorial references, a discussion on possible dis-
ciplinary rhetorical factors as well as the presentation of quantitative data. While the study
is limited in the generalizability of its findings due to the moderate corpus size, the sys-
tematic analysis and the cross-disciplinary perspective into the use of the aforementioned
subjective and objective interpersonal strategies have yielded interesting findings that
could be helpful to discipline-specific writing practices.
3.4 Data analysis

Once the data were compiled, a search to identify personal and impersonal authorial refer-
encing features was made using WordSmith Tools – a set of operative text analysis
programmes used to identify language features in electronically-saved texts (Scott 2004).1

Since authorial references are an open-ended category of identification and may be com-
positionally complex, the automatic search was then followed by a contextual manual
analysis to (i) ensure the references identified by the computer-driven search were
indeed referring to the authors themselves and not to other parties, such as their partici-
pants, and (ii) identify the writers’ discourse functions for constructing their authorial
persona.
To identify the discourse functions, we started by analyzing the corpus guided, in part,
by a compilation of the previously identified functions in other studies (cf. Harwood 2005b;
Hyland 2002b; 2003; Kuo 1999; Molino 2010; Mur-Dueñas 2007; Tang & John 1999). In
Hyland’s attempt to scrutinize authorial selves in 64 final year undergraduates’ reports
compared with a large corpus of expert articles (Hyland 2002b) and in abstracts versus
the body of articles (Hyland 2003) in a variety of knowledge-making communities, he dis-
covered several pragmatic acts of authorial use of self-referencing pronouns: announcing a
goal or purpose; explaining a procedure; expressing results or claims; stating self-benefits; and
elaborating an argument. Also, in his study of self-promotional devices (I and we) mapped
onto different disciplinary discourses, Harwood (2005b) identified three main discourse
functions: stating personal opinions and knowledge claims; describing experimental pro-
cedures and research designs; and constructing the discourse and guiding readers along it.
Recently, in her study of personal and impersonal authorial references in Anglo-American
and Italian RAs, Molino (2010) identified three discourse functions characterized by per-
sonal constructions (stating assumption; providing definitional clarifications; and making
claims and elaborating an argument), two by impersonal structures (stating results and illus-
trating data) as well as a further three by both personal and impersonal forms (announcing
goals or purposes; explaining procedures; and referring back to the text).
Although reference was made to these previously identified discourse functions, in the
present study a data-driven approach was taken, with the functional analysis of writers’
uses of personal and impersonal authorial references being derived from the selected
texts for analysis (see §5). All cases of use which occurred in at least one of the four dis-
ciplinary datasets with at least one instance per 10,000 words were considered to be
‘main’ discourse functions. In addition, since writers can utilize discoursal features other
than simply authorial referencing options, such as pronouns, to construct a promotional
tenor (cf. Harwood 2005a; 2005b), cotext was also considered for its contributive role.
Cotext refers to “the immediate linguistic environment in which a unit of discourse …
occurs … in a discourse sequence” (Janney 2002: 458) and it, to a great extent, works in
concert with authorial references (Harwood 2005b). Together they facilitate the realization
of purposes for which an authorial voice is made. Extracts in which the cotext plays a key
part will be discussed in more detail in the following section.
In order to reduce the risk of randomness and demarcate the precision of the analytical
approaches taken at an adequately high level of consensus, a consistent method to data
coding was essential. Therefore, although the corpus was mainly analyzed by the
1
As regards the automatic search for impersonal authorial references, the authors initially prepared an inventory of
common research act reporting verbs (e.g. describe, examine, demonstrate, investigate, etc.), ‘material process [doing]
verbs’ (e.g. select, compute, use, collect, perform, analyze, etc.), research related terminologies (e.g. study, article, paper,
population, experiment, analysis, sample, corpus, data, etc.), and passive and it-clause constructions ([it] + auxiliary +
past participle).
researchers, it was decided to improve on the coding of the texts through inter-coder
agreement. The RAs were first coded sentence by sentence and a sheet of analysis was
appended to each one for systematic comparison. A small subset of the corpus – 20
RAs (five from each disciplinary sub-corpus) – was analyzed by two PhD graduates who
had done their dissertations on metadiscourse. They received several training sessions
along with a coding manual containing descriptions and instances. Once the corpus
was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, the researchers went through the texts
with the coders to identify any conflicting results. Slight conflicts in the identification of
the writers’ discoursal functions of the use of personal and impersonal authorial references
were found and ironed out through discussion. Inter-coder reliability was measured using
Cohen’s kappa, with the resulting value of 0.87 signalling a strong level of agreement.
4. Frequency analysis
4.1 Personal authorial references
Because of the substantial difference among RAs in the corpus – the shortest with a total of
3,529 words [EE] and the longest with 9,982 [AL] – raw frequencies of the use of both per-
sonal and impersonal authorial references were normalized to a text length of 10,000
words. Table 2 presents the rate of incidence of the first-person plural pronouns in the
corpus.
As can be seen, they occurred much more densely in the AL (29.6 cases per 10,000
words) and Psy (19.7 cases) texts compared to the Che (12.4 cases) and EE texts (11.5
cases). Although this finding cannot be directly compared with those from previous
studies, because of the dissimilarity of the disciplines investigated, Hyland (2001) also
observed a much more frequent use of subjective authorial references in the soft-disciplin-
ary texts in a corpus of 240 RAs from eight disciplines.
The low proportion of personal authorial references in EE and Che can be justified by
the nature of research in these disciplines which typically involves experimental
problem-solving, often-used methodologies, largely expected outcomes and rather well-
grounded standards of acceptability (cf. Becher 1989). It would seem that EE and Che
writers prefer to tone down their own research role so as to underline the subject in ques-
tion, the replicability of experimental procedures and the generalizability of the outcomes.
By opting for a less personal or intrusive style, they imply that their findings are indepen-
dent of research agents, reinforcing the impartiality of their claims (see Hyland 2001).
The more personal style of the AL and Psy RAs, on the other hand, indicates a rhetorical
stance of a different nature as research variables in soft science disciplines are usually less
homogenous, clear-cut and accurately measurable (cf. Hyland 2001). This makes it necess-
ary for writers to build a suitably authorial persona and engage effectively with their read-
ership. Self-mentions facilitate the construction of a trustworthy, confident, engaging and
Table 2 Incidence of use of the first-person plural pronouns: raw and normalized frequencies per
10,000 words
AL sub-corpus Psy sub-corpus EE sub-corpus Che sub-corpus
Raw Norm Raw Norm Raw Norm Raw Norm
First-person plural pronouns 936 29.6 596 19.7 340 12.4 332 11.5
Table 3 Incidence of use of personal forms

Personal forms Raw % Raw % Raw % Raw %
We 624 66.6 432 72.4 204 60 184 55.4
Our 276 29.4 156 26.1 116 34.1 128 38.5
Us 36 3.8 8 1.3 20 5.8 20 6.0
TOT 936 100 596 100 340 100 332 100
perceptive scholar by projecting an authorial persona complying with disciplinary

convictions.
The frequency analysis of personal references further revealed that all personal forms
occurred in the dataset. Table 3 shows that the first-person subject pronoun we dominated
the subjective presence of writers across the corpus.
This dominance may be because of the key communicative purpose of RA writers in
conveying their subjective attributions of findings and assertions, and thus flagging
their work among others. As an operative marketing option, we facilitates promoting
one’s competent scholarly identity and securing credibility for one’s work.
The following extracts underscore the substantial role of cotext in constructing this
effect. Consider the use of new, innovative, not only – but also, efficient in (1a–d) to draw
attention to novelty in the areas of inquiry.
(1) a. We believe our study to be innovative in a number of ways: firstly, because it is con-
ducted in a relatively new study context known as internationalization at home
(Nilsson, 2003), where most … . [AL5]2
b. We not only explored the possible detrimental effects of aversive and appetitive
cues on responding to aversive movements, but also focused on the possible inter-
ference or facilitation of environmental cues with appetitive movements. [Psy5]
c. We think that the direct application of a water-soluble metal-porphyrin catalyst may
hence represent an innovative and rather efficient method to reduce the excessive
soil contamination in aged industrially polluted soils. [EE14]
d. We have developed new microparticles that allow surface–protein interaction with
high level of bioactivity preserved upon immobilization. [Che12]
The possessive adjective our was by far less often used than we. Whereas it occurred in
each disciplinary sub-corpus, it was more favoured by the AL and Psy writers. They appear
to attach themselves to their subjective standpoints, implications, methodological pro-
cedures and findings to underscore their ownership of work and opinion raised. As
shown in (2a–d), the self-promotional tenor running through the extracts was generated
by connecting the possessive with research-related terminologies (e.g. population, analy-
sis, work) and interpersonal metadiscursive options (e.g. ‘boosters’ like revealed in (2c) and
demonstrated in (2d), and in ‘hedged’ phrases like suggesting in (2b); see Crismore et al.
1993; Hyland 2005).
2
The code in square brackets refers to the sampled article from which the excerpt was taken.
(2) a. Our population consists of 51.5% males and 48.5% females, with a mean age of 47.03
years and an average of 13.16 years […]. [AL7]
b. Our power analysis was based on previous trials (Grilo & Masheb, 2005) suggesting
8% of participants in the CBT þ GN condition would have achieved at least a 5%
weight loss. [Psy13]
c. Our work revealed that the RPC sensor has favorable recoverability without significant
changes in […]. [EE20]
d. Our laboratory has been involved for more than a decade in the purification, isolation
and understanding the biological activities of […]. Further, our research group has
also demonstrated that antiproliferative activity of limonoids is […]. [Che17]
As for the other personal options, the object pronoun us rarely appeared in the four sets
of data, especially in the Psy sub-corpus. The possessive pronoun ours was absent from the
whole corpus, which arguably implies that this denotative form seems less formal in aca-
demic writing. In general, although the present investigation differs from others regarding
selected disciplines and corpus size, the results relating to the most and least often occur-
ring first-person plural pronouns are seemingly compatible (cf. Hyland 2001; Mur-Dueñas
2007).3
The results further indicated varied disciplinary trends in the subjective presence of
writers across the various sections of the texts. The ‘post-method’ rhetorical sections, i.e.
Results and Discussion, were focal sections for using personal strategies in EE (78.3%)
and Che (60%); it is at points in these two sections where contentions could be considered
to be highly risky and face-threatening, with readers potentially raising objections (as in
(3); cf. Harwood 2005a; 2005b).
(3) a. Our study highlights some weaknesses in the procedure, which is currently insuffi-
ciently described. In particular, our results show that the adhesive strength essentially
depends on the […]. [EE4]
b. We found a significant increase in the wavenumber of C=O and PO2– groups for all
MLVs in the gel and the liquid crystalline phases. [Che3]
Such a subjective, intrusive style might: (i) indicate the distinctiveness of research out-
comes in hard science disciplines; (ii) signify authors as the ‘authority’ and ‘originator’ who
are liable for arguments; and/or, more notably (iii) convey an empiricist thought that
suggests that both the authors and their arguments are worth taking notice of.
Instead, the AL and Psy academics often presented themselves in Introductions and
Methods (see (4) below) at points where their intrusion seems to have been fairly low-risk:
(4) a. As far as we know, there have been no studies to date of the effect of […]. In the
present study, we aimed to redress this deficit by […]. [AL18]
3
While Kuo (1999) did not differentiate exclusive from inclusive plural pronouns in his quantitative analysis, he also found
far more incidences of we, followed by our and then us in his corpus of physics, computer science and electronic engin-
eering journal articles written in English.
b. To our knowledge, only a few studies experimentally manipulated pre-sleep affect.

To do this, and before […], we conducted a pretest for which we created 19 […]. Our
procedure allowed us to […]. [Psy11]
By shedding light on some lacunae in the research field that require occupying, subjec-
tive expressions occurring at the beginning parts of the article appear to help draw atten-
tion to the legitimacy, relevancy and originality of the study presented. When appearing in
Methods, personal self-representation devices can help writers demarcate the research
procedure as their own, laying emphasis on its exclusivity. This, in Harwood’s (2005b)
terms, helps them “state where they stand immediately, rather than arguing their case
and stating their position near the end of the research article” (1217). As such, authors
appear to market their research by fronting it with a striking argument.
As illustrated in (4a–b), the most noticeable marketing options were flagged up using
personal references (we aimed to redress this deficit; our procedure allowed us to), exactly in
line with Law & Williams’ (1982) view that the introductory section of RAs is an important
component of the promotional packaging as it can be used to alert the readership to orig-
inality in ideas (see also Harwood 2005b). The personal strategy in which authorial subjec-
tive presence appears in a self-promotional manner entails the use of personal pronouns
that publicize writers and their work, resulting in the capturing of an image of uniqueness
and newsworthiness. This marketing tactic clearly prevails in the initial part of RAs.
4.2 Impersonal authorial references

Table 4 presents the raw and normalized frequencies of impersonal authorial references
identified in the corpus.
In contrast to the prominent use of personal forms in the AL and Psy texts, impersonal
structures were more frequently found in the EE and Che sub-corpora. The EE and Che
writers preferred to subsume their authorial voice in lieu of disciplinary convictions and
value more the highlighted mention of the research activity than the fronting of the
agent/doer. This abundant use of impersonal constructions can be interpreted in light
of the nature of experimental sciences, such as EE and Che, in which replication and fal-
sification are essential (cf. Vande Kopple 1994). By adopting impersonal constructions,
writers can focus on research particulars, which in turn “help de-emphasise discreteness
of scientific experiments” (Ding 2002: 137; see also Hyland 1996).
Among impersonal constructions, periphrastic passives occurred most frequently by far
in the four sets of data, with the EE and Che academics using them at least twice as often
as their peers in AL and Psy (see Table 4). Considering the fact that passive constructions
can reduce the level of directness, the higher frequency of agentless structures in the EE
Table 4 Impersonal authorial references: raw and normalized frequencies per 10,000 words
Impersonal forms Raw Norm Raw Norm Raw Norm Raw Norm
Periphrastic passives 1,164 36.8 1,416 46.8 2,244 81.9 2,048 71.4
Abstract rhetors 164 5.2 172 5.7 152 5.5 132 4.6
It-clauses 88 2.7 64 2.1 308 11.2 376 13.1
TOT 1,416 44.8 1,652 54.6 2,704 98.7 2,556 89.1
and Che sub-corpora appears to be a stronger disciplinary rhetorical preference to back-

ground personal intrusion in order to foreground the issue(s) presented. The results further
showed that passives appeared mostly in the Method section of the articles in the corpus
at hand. Arguably this can be explained by the very nature of this section as it is where
writers commonly favour to be less rhetorically visible when describing or recounting
the research process. The following extracts are typical:
(5) a. The measure of minimum frequency was used to ensure that the words (lemmas)
should be of high frequency. [AL13]
b. Participants were told that they would be given 10 cue words. They were asked to
retrieve a specific personal memory in response to each word […]. [Psy17]
c. The content of carbon and nitrogen was evaluated by Fisons EA 1108 Elemental Ana-
lyzer. [EE14]
d. A frequency of 1 Hz, amplitude of 20 μm and heating rate of 2°C/min from –100 to
150°C were used. [Che7]
The other two impersonal forms, abstract rhetors and it-clauses, were much less numer-
ous in the corpus. While abstract rhetors were found at a similar frequency in all sets of RAs
(around five instances per 10,000 words), their distribution across the disciplines was mark-
edly varied. The AL and Psy writers seemed to prefer to use metonymies acting as abstract
rhetors in order to depersonalize their introductory discourse through assigning an article
agency (amounted to 70% of total incidences; see (6a) below). However, their peers in EE
(96 out of 152 cases) and Che (76 out of 132 cases) employed such impersonalization
options to background their involvement in expressing findings and raising personal
opinions for the sake of promoting the study itself (see (6b) below). The following excerpts
are prime examples of allowing the study to announce the goal and express findings,
although it is quite clear that the authors are still the agents achieving the speech acts
of ‘focus on’ and ‘reveal’.
(6) a. The current study focused on SFON as a domain-specific predictor of […]. [Psy8]
b. This case study however has revealed that the heat savings are substantially limited to
14.6 K beyond 6½ hours of time lag […]. [EE12]
As for it-clauses, they similarly occurred in all four sets of data, although most often in EE
and Che RAs. Likewise, they frequently occurred in the Results and Discussion sections of
the articles in the corpus, which again is arguably attributable to the aim of these sections,
which is to facilitate the impartial presentation and interpretation of the research findings.
Below are some illustrative examples:
(7) a. It was observed that the inclusive pronouns of we and our were among the highly
frequent tokens in both speeches […]. [AL4]
b. It was demonstrated that the degradation of Br-DBPs by SO4– was first order in kinetics
(r 2 = 0.99). [EE10]
c. From the experiments it was found that the Ar dimer ions were effectively suppressed
when CH4 was used as […]. [Che13]
In sum, the quantitative study indicates that there is pronounced variation in frequency
of both personal and impersonal authorial references across the corpus, and this can be
taken as a distinguishing feature of different disciplinary rhetoric, with an explanation
for such variation lying in different disciplinary rhetorical cultures and research practices.
5. Functional analysis
5.1 Personal authorial references
The main discourse functions performed by the first-person plural pronouns within the
present texts are listed in Table 5. In what follows, we provide a description of each use,
accompanied by extracts sampled from the corpus.
One use of first-person plural pronouns in the present data was explaining method and
research procedures, which largely occurred in the Method section of the RAs. This use was
observed in all four sets of data, but dominated personal authorial references in the rheto-
ric of the AL and Psy texts, especially in the former (13.5 cases) where it occurred more
than twice as frequently as in the latter (5.7 cases). As shown in (8a–d), the pronouns
often occurred alongside ‘material process [doing] verbs’ (e.g. select, compute, use,
collect, perform, analyse; see Halliday 1994) and research-related terminologies (e.g.
sample, study, participants), thus helping authors describe their research method and/or
procedures and, more importantly, draw attention to their ownership of the work.
(8) a. It is important to note the development of the new medical vocabulary list was a two-
step process. In step 1, we selected target words from […]. Then, in step 2, we checked
the frequencies of […]. [AL13]
b. Our full sample of participants was composed of four non-overlapping groups of
observers. We recruited a total of 36 adults, […]. [Psy2]
c. So, in our study, we used three doses of 15, 75 and 150 mg/kg/day which are […].
[EE16]
d. After various attempts, we selected the program of Budil et al. since it allowed us to
compute the spectra at both […]. [Che16]
In addition, the cotext surrounding the methodological pronouns helps writers high-
light their distinctive contribution to the research field and market their assets as research-
ers in the community. For instance, the phrases unlike most prior studies (9a), we created
Table 5 Discourse functions of the first-person plural pronouns: raw and normalized frequencies per
10,000 words
Discourse function Raw Norm Raw Norm Raw Norm Raw Norm
Explaining method & research pro. 428 13.5 172 5.7 32 1.1 40 1.4
Presenting the work 276 8.7 132 4.3 – – 48 1.6
Stating personal opinions 64 2.0 60 1.9 96 3.5 88 3.0
Expressing results 92 2.9 68 2.2 168 6.1 124 4.3
Expecting results – – 56 1.8 – – – –
Other 76 2.4 108 3.5 44 1.6 32 1.1
TOT 936 29.6 596 19.7 340 12.4 332 11.5
(9b), while we have defined (9c) and we developed a new (9d) could alert the readership to
methodological innovations.
(9) a. Unlike most prior studies, we tested the (in)felicity of under-informativeness using
visual displays rather than […]. This has several advantages […]. [AL2]
b. We created artificial faces using commercial software so that 3D face shape and pig-
mentation could be manipulated independently. [Psy2]
c. It is noteworthy to state that Button (1985) have defined the parameter describing
specific affinity, denoted as aOA , as having the units of L/g cells-hr while we have
defined aOA as in […]. This parameter is particularly well suited for describing the
[…]. [EE18]
d. Previous SNARC studies used parity judgment tasks to investigate the development of
number–space associations, but successfully judging the parity status of numbers
requires formal math schooling and, therefore, might be suboptimal for testing
young children at the beginning of primary school and earlier. To avoid this meth-
odological limitation, we developed a new magnitude-irrelevant SNARC paradigm
requiring an easy binary classification task. [Psy9]
Also, methodological pronouns were sometimes placed in the context of tricky research
decisions to avoid possible methodological pitfalls, thus helping promote the writers as
groundbreaking problem solvers and market the advantages of their innovative research
procedure. As can be seen from the excerpts in (9d) and (10), the immediate linguistic
environment surrounding we is instrumental in creating such promotional effect.
(10) Since nanocrystals have limited solubility in various alcohols, we actually select the
mixture of water and various alcohols as the solvent for nanocrystals. [Che19]
Excerpts were detected in our corpus in which contextual evaluative terms were
employed to accentuate the difficulty of the obstacles the writers faced when ensuring
that the selected method is sound. In (11), for example, while describing a particular pro-
cedural step, the writers flagged up a methodological pitfall by the intensifier very which
led them to evaluatively regard it as an undesired problem. Notwithstanding this difficulty,
the pronoun we in but we trusted the procedure can be seen as self-promotional,
suggesting how the writers were able to address the problem in the phrase and we
could perform the simulation, so that any negative effects were minimized.
(11) Since we also wanted to compare the spectral intensities to verify if strong spin–spin
interactions decrease the intensity itself, the spectra were all recorded in the same
experimental conditions, that is, […]. The problem in such procedure is that the
spectra at the lowest Cu(II) concentrations were very noisy, but we trusted the pro-
cedure if the magnetic components were recognizable and we could perform the
simulation. [Che16]
When presenting the work, the writers reported on their study purposively and/or
descriptively, as in (12).
(12) a. In the current study, we chose to examine how expertise considered in terms of
both […]. [Psy2]
b. This study represents an attempt to extend the findings of the original study. First,
we addressed some of the methodological weaknesses of […]. Second, we
improved the system used to classify […]. [AL9]
c. In the present study, we, for the first time, tested the effect of TAM on different lipid
membranes which have […]. [Che3]
d. The current experiment was set up to investigate the impact of environmental cues
on pain-related responding. For this purpose, we created an experimental set-up fol-
lowing […]. Our design is however also conceptually different from […]. We incor-
porated both pain and reward […]. [Psy5]
e. In what follows, we first provide contextual information on […]. We then describe
the method […]. In the next section, we provide the results of the study […]. At
the end of this paper, we suggest pedagogical implications for […]. [AL9]
f. The findings of this study will be presented in accordance with the three research
questions formulated. Thus, we will begin by focusing on the results regarding
student final grades and then move on to findings related to […]. [AL5]
They raised the readers’ consciousness to the research objectives (12a–d), methods
and processes (12d), and the structure of the article/section (examples 12e–f). In these
uses of personal references, the pronouns were typically placed with ‘research act
reporting verbs’ (e.g. describe, examine, demonstrate, investigate; cf. Hyland 2002a;
Thomas & Hawes 1994). Also, the writers intruded into the discourse with metadiscoursal
features. In (12b) and (12e), for instance, they packed in information using sequencers
(e.g. first, second, then, next) to categorically situate themselves as experts who are
expected to direct novice readers. Altogether, these uses were mainly detected
towards the end of the Introduction section of the articles. In some cases, however,
the writers chose to use the devices in the beginning and/or end of a section in the
main body of their article (see (12c), the first sentence taken from the Results and Discus-
sion section). In either circumstance, the writers basically chose to use personal pro-
nouns in ‘local metatextual references’ (see Bunton 1999) for which the segment of
discourse referred to was within the same section.
The data in Table 5 show substantial disciplinary variation relating to the use of per-
sonal forms for the purpose of informing readers of the research aim and procedure.
While presenting the work was found to be the second most frequent discourse function
in the use of first-person plural pronouns in the AL (8.7 cases per 10,000 words) and Psy
articles (4.3 cases per 10,000 words), only 1.6 cases were observed in the Che texts, with
no instances found in the EE sub-corpus. The Che and EE writers seemed less willing to
lay emphasis on their overt role as author in introductory sections when outlining how
their argument would unfold in the sections to come.
Pronouns can help identify authors as an “Opinion-Holder” and “Originator” of original
notions (Tang & John 1999: 28–29), accounting for Vassileva’s view that pronouns typically
accompany “‘verbs of thinking and emotion’, such as hope, feel, believe, argue, think” (1998:
170). In the analysis presented here, the discourse function of stating personal opinions,
comprising authorial knowledge claims and explicit arguments, attests to this point (see
(13a–d)).
(13) a. In this way we hope to shed new light on the crystallisation of RA abstracts as a sep-
arate, full-fledged genre in academic discourse […]. [AL8]. Nonetheless, we argue
that the Results, Discussion and the merged Results and Discussion section may
all contain […]. [AL14]
b. We propose that our color judgment task optimally allowed highlighting these
spatial effects because […]. [Psy9]
c. We presume that the BRS can initiate the halogenation of NOM in a similar way and
generate Br-DBPs. [EE10]
d. Based on the above analyses, we believe that the influence of solvent mainly comes
from […]. [Che19]
The normalized figures in Table 5 show that while stating personal opinions was one of
the least frequent discourse functions of personal reference in the AL and Psy writings
(normalized frequency of approximately two), it registered as the second most frequent
discourse function in the EE (3.5 instances) and Che (three instances) texts. The writers
in the latter disciplines seemed more eager to be apparent with their authorial voice at
points where subjective presence carries a much greater threat to face (i.e. making a
claim; elaborating an argument; suggesting an approach or a theory). These are potentially
the points at which writers are more exposed to being attacked by dissenting voices and
objections.
The remaining discourse functions of subjective authorial references are expecting
results (see (14a–b)) and expressing results (see (15a–d)).
(14) a. Based on the literature review, we hypothesized that, according to results found in
previous adult studies, adolescents suffering from SAD would report NSI more fre-
quently, more vividly, and more distressing than […]. [Psy18]
b. We expected the following to be observed in this study. First, we anticipated that the
estimations would exhibit the signature of […]. [Psy6]
(15) a. […], our results indicate that although the level of coercion is similar in the two con-
texts, the rhythm of questioning is faster in the courtroom. [AL9]
b. Our findings on related events suggest that the memory itself was described as
more distressing and vivid by […]. [Psy18]
c. Importantly, we found that at the end of 28 days, there was a significant increase in
the absolute and relative liver weights of the […]. In fact, we have shown that 2,4-D
causes sub-acute hepatotoxicity. [EE16]
d. Our results reveal that the interaction of TAM with lipid MLVs depends markedly on
the […]. [Che3]
While expecting results was scattered across the introductory section of the articles,
expressing results, as the phrase suggests, occurred primarily in the post-method rhetorical
sections of the RAs. Although these two uses can help researchers persuade readers that
both the findings and the authors need to be taken seriously, the latter assigns more
accountability to researchers for the originality of their findings. The distribution of
these two discourse functions shows further variation across disciplines represented in
the corpus. Expecting results was mostly found in the Psy articles with a normalized fre-
quency of 1.8, as opposed to less than one instance per 10,000 words in the other
disciplinary texts. In contrast, expressing results occurred most frequently in the EE articles
(normalized frequency of 6.1). This greater use may be grounded in the nature of research
practices in the discipline, in which researchers basically work to achieve a much more
objectively designed methodology with apparent measurable empirical entities following
quantitative laboratory-based methods. Therefore, attained results should seem to be
much more concrete and, consequently, researchers may feel a need to attach themselves
obviously to the results, thus drawing attention to the ownership of the work through the
use of self-referencing pronouns. As illustrated in (15c–d), revealed, found, significant, mark-
edly, importantly – termed ‘certainty markers’ or ‘boosters’ by metadiscourse researchers
(cf. Crismore et al. 1993; Hyland 2005) – were observed in the EE and Che articles. They
arguably intensify the authorial attitude toward arguments, helping underline the signifi-
cance and interestingness of results as well as serving to ward off or suppress any adver-
sarial comments.
In sum, the functional analysis of personal authorial references suggests that the ten-
dency of writers in a particular discipline to use more personal references than their
peers in the other disciplines concerns all major discourse functions, albeit to a different
extent. This situation is particularly evident for the discipline-specific function of expecting
results in the Psy sub-corpus. Another case in point is the higher frequency of the discourse
functions of expressing results and stating personal opinions in the EE and Che texts and
presenting the work and explaining method and research procedures in the AL and Psy
writings.
5.2 Impersonal authorial references

The discourse functions of impersonal authorial references via objective rhetorical struc-
tures – periphrastic passives, abstract rhetors and it-clauses – are listed in Table 6. As
shown in §4.2, a periphrastic passive construction was by far the most common means
for expressing impersonal authorial reference, ranging from 78% to 91% of the total imper-
sonal references across the four disciplines in the corpus. Correspondingly, the most fre-
quent construction used to express each of the discourse functions in Table 6 was
found to be a periphrastic passive.
As can be seen, writers across the four disciplines used impersonal resources primarily
to explain method and research procedures, with the highest rates of frequency occurring
mostly in the EE (46.3 instances) and Che (40.8 instances) RAs. Text examples include:
Table 6 Discourse functions of impersonal authorial references: raw and normalized frequencies per
10,000 words
Discourse function Raw Norm Raw Norm Raw Norm Raw Norm
Explaining method & research pro. 512 16.2 720 23.8 1,268 46.3 1,172 40.8
Expressing results 396 12.5 484 16 752 27.4 664 23.1
Illustrating data 84 2.6 52 1.7 204 7.4 268 9.3
Back-/forwarding to text 244 7.7 192 6.3 44 1.6 60 2.0
Presenting the work 108 3.4 156 5.1 184 6.7 108 3.7
Self-citation – – – – 152 5.5 200 6.9
Other 72 2.2 48 1.5 100 3.6 84 2.9
TOT 1,416 44.8 1,652 54.6 2,704 98.7 2,556 89.1
(16) a. As one of the main objectives of this project was […], quantitative values were first
taken into consideration. [AL1]
b. Self-monitoring of eating behavior was used to […]. [Psy13]
c. The SEM Control V 7.07 software was used for […]. [EE3]
d. For this study, indoor dust samples were nonetheless collected from […]. [Che9]
Other functions materialized by objective structures in the data were: expressing results,
illustrating data, back-/forwarding to text, presenting the work and self-citation. While expres-
sing results was the second most frequent use of impersonal constructions across each of
the disciplines in the corpus, attested mainly in the Results and Discussion sections of the
articles (see (17a–d)), this particular function together with illustrating data were most
often detected in the EE and Che sub-corpora.
(17) a. The findings of the study also indicated that compared with Obama, Bush tried to
[…]. [AL4]
b. At the end of treatment, no differences were found for patient satisfaction […].
[Psy13]
c. In this research it was demonstrated that the anammox process can be successfully
[…]. [EE3]
d. It is observed that the response to magnetic field is directly proportional to […].
[Che10]
As regards illustrating data, the cotext analysis revealed that writers, especially in EE and
Che, used a fairly large number of periphrastic passives to point to exemplificatory content
and visual aids, such as figures and tables (termed “endophoric markers” by Hyland & Tse
2004) that help describe findings (see (18a–d)).
(18) a. As can be seen in Table 2, citation density in the two assignments is quite […]. [AL17]
b. Demographic and clinical characteristics are summarized in Table 1. [Psy13]
c. […] different magnifications and cross-view SEM image of the film were shown in Fig.
1d, e and f. [EE20]
d. Structures of the donor and acceptor molecules discussed in the present study are
given in Scheme 1. [Che2]
One possible explanation for the density of such use is the choice of modality in text
cohesion. Needless to say, the multi-modal trait of scientific argument made by hard-dis-
ciplinary writers reflects their dialogic engagement through constant references to easily
accessed intertextual diagrammatic aids. Although writers in different disciplines may vary
in the extent to which they project metadiscourse as a “dependent stylistic device” (Hyland
1998b: 438) into the text, placing the responsibility for effective interaction on themselves
instead of on their readers appears to be an influencing factor. Particular discipline com-
munities may rely more or less on correlating visual elements to textual information pro-
vided. However, further work is needed to precisely explicate disciplinary orientations in
integrating intertextual visual elements into the discourse.
Unlike the above-discussed functions of impersonal authorial references, back-/forward-
ing to text was the only discourse function which was prevalent in the AL and Psy
sub-corpora (see Table 6), where retrospective metadiscourse comprised full “restate-
ments” (Bunton 2005: 215) of subjects explored, experimental procedures tackled,
results found and arguments elaborated. In these contexts, writers provided information
which required reviewing or previewing at some point in the text. As such, their
primary aim would seem to be to use phrases acting as discourse guides or mediators
between the text and readers, thus orienting readers to salient information given in
another part of the text and encouraging them to read on as well. Below are examples
sampled from the data.
(19) a. […] topic relevance citations, as will be shown later, are used to […]. [AL17]
b. Measures used to assess these outcomes are described below. [Psy13]
c. […] serial dilutions were tested by membrane filtration on Chromocult agar plates as
are detailed ahead. [EE1]
d. […] so differences in the network structure cannot be disregarded, as it will be
shown. [Che14]
Further disciplinary variations were found across the data with regard to the last two
functions, namely presenting the work (see (20a–d)) and self-citation (see (21a–b)). As the
data in Table 6 indicate, the former was dense per 10,000 words in the EE writings (normal-
ized frequency of 6.7), followed by Psy (5.1), while showing a similarly low rate of occurrence
in the Che (3.7) and AL (3.4) texts. As for self-citation, it proved to be exclusive to the EE and
Che RAs. Indeed, this use of impersonal authorial referencing generates promotional impli-
cations. The writers tended to forward themselves as accredited members of the community
in a certain area of research, with an emphasis on several of their accumulated publications.
This indirectly bestows a robust integrity on their study and highlights its merits (cf. Gilbert’s
(1977) view that self-citation of ‘valid science’ fortifies authorization). At the same time, the
reader is made more aware about the on-going and previous contributions made by the
same writer. In (21a), for example, recently conveys a specifically positive meaning in a
speeding discipline, i.e. EE, in which it looks as if it is essential that community members
be cognizant of the latest advances.
(20) a. Besides the variety of markers with frequency and percentage, the current investi-
gation sheds new light on […]. [AL12]
b. The present study evaluated the efficacy of two dietary counseling approaches, when
combined with CBT, to investigate […]. [Psy13]
c. This paper reports the characterization of five ready-mixed clay plasters […]. [EE4]
d. In this paper, a detailed FT-IR spectroscopic analysis of the chemical changes occur-
ring in […] is presented. [Che18]
(21) a. The occurrence of concentration gradients over […] were recently hypothesized as
[…] (Kappeler and Gujer, 1994; Martins et al., 2004a, 2004b; […]). [EE11]
b. It has been previously reported that N,N-dimethylacrylamide is […] [35,23]. [Che14]
In general, the functional analysis of impersonal authorial references found that not
only is the use of impersonal constructions higher in the EE and Che RAs, but that, with
the exception of back-/forwarding to text in AL and Psy RAs, it is also higher across each
of the discourse functions.
6. Personal versus impersonal authorial references

Table 7 indicates similarities and differences within each sub-corpus regarding the allo-
cation of lexico-grammatical features across the discourse functions. Overall, this table
shows that in each set of RAs, impersonal resources articulated the functions explaining
method and research procedures, illustrating data, expressing results and back-/forwarding
to text. Personal references, on the other hand, were primarily associated with stating per-
sonal opinions. The only exception is presenting the work, which was most commonly
characterized by personal forms in AL and by impersonal structures in the other disci-
plines. As regards self-citation and expecting results, the former was only realized by imper-
sonal forms and in the Che and EE sub-corpora, while the latter was solely associated with
personal structures and only in the Psy articles.
In spite of a similar disciplinary orientation to adopt the same interpersonal strategies
across the majority of discourse functions, variations existed in form-function correlations.
A case in point is the function of expressing results. This function was much less frequent in
the AL and Psy writings (15.4 (i.e. 12.5 + 2.9) total incidences per 10,000 words in AL and
18.2 in Psy) than in the EE (33.5) and Che (27.4) articles; however, the correlation between
impersonal authorial references and expressing results was somewhat more acute in the
Psy sub-corpus (88.0%), as in the AL, EE and Che sub-corpora 81.1–84.3% of occurrences
were realized by impersonal constructions. Therefore, it could be argued that compared to
the other groups of writers, the Psy writers tended to comment somewhat less extensively
on their findings and were somewhat less likely to highlight their role as finders by using
subjective expressions.
Another case is back-/forwarding to text, which was articulated by impersonal construc-
tions and occurred more often in the AL (8.6 total cases per 10,000 words) and Psy (7.1)
articles. However, the strength of form-function association was higher in the EE (100%
(1.6 total occurrences per 10,000 words)) and Che (100% (2.0)) texts. One possible expla-
nation for such disciplinary variations could be the absence of personal authorial refer-
ences used to refer back to the text in the EE and Che sub-corpora. Another is the
frequency of retrospective metadiscourse across the corpus. As noted above (see §5.2),
the AL and Psy RAs, more frequently than the Che and EE RAs, included as retrospective
metadiscourse full “restatements” (Bunton 2005: 215) of the subject being explored, the
methodology applied, the data presented and the statements made in the article. While
the four sets of data did not differ in the choice of interpersonal strategy to refer back
to the text, the incidence of use of a retrospective metadiscourse act being made
influenced the overall rate of occurrence of authorial references.
In contrast, if we consider stating personal opinions, this function of personal authorial
references was rather prominent in EE (4.2 total occurrences per 10,000 words), immedi-
ately followed by Che (3.9), as opposed to AL (2.2) and Psy (2.0). Nonetheless, the corre-
lation between the particular function and the use of personal authorial references was
stronger in Psy (95%) and AL (90.9%) versus EE (83.3%) and Che (77%). Such differences
may in part explain the fewer occurrences of personal authorial references in the Che
and EE articles discussed earlier (see §4.1).
Still, a different picture was seen for presenting the work. Not only was this function
extensively found in the AL articles (a total of 12.1 instances per 10,000 words), but the
AL writers seemed to favour opposite interpersonal strategies, i.e. objectivity in EE
Table 7 Personal and impersonal authorial references according to discourse function: normalized frequencies per 10,000 words and percentages
Personal Impersonal Personal Impersonal Personal Impersonal Personal Impersonal
Discourse function Norm % Norm % Norm % Norm % Norm % Norm % Norm % Norm %
Explaining method & research procedures 13.5 45.4 16.2 54.6 5.7 19.3 23.8 80.7 1.1 2.3 46.3 97.7 1.4 3.3 40.8 96.7
Presenting the work 8.7 71.9 3.4 28.1 4.3 45.7 5.1 54.3 0 0 6.7 100 1.6 30.1 3.7 69.9
Expressing results 2.9 18.9 12.5 81.1 2.2 12 16.0 88.0 6.1 18.2 27.4 81.8 4.3 15.7 23.1 84.3
Illustrating data 0 0 2.6 100 0 0 1.7 100 0 0 7.4 100 0 0 9.3 100
Back-/forwarding to text 0.9 10.4 7.7 89.6 0.8 11.3 6.3 88.7 0 0 1.6 100 0 0 2.0 100
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS

Stating personal opinions 2.0 90.9 0.2 9.1 1.9 95 0.1 5 3.5 83.3 0.7 16.7 3.0 77 0.9 23
Self-citation 0.1 25 0.3 75 0.1 33 0.2 67 0 0 5.5 100 0 0 6.9 100
Expecting results 0.6 100 0 0 1.8 100 0 0 0.4 100 0 0 0.1 100 0 0
Other 0.8 32 1.7 68 2.6 68.4 1.2 31.6 1.2 29.2 2.9 70.8 1.0 33.3 2.0 66.7
TOT 29.6 39.8 44.8 60.2 19.7 26.5 54.6 73.5 12.4 11.1 98.7 88.9 11.5 11.4 89.1 88.6
213
(100%), Che (84.3%) and Psy (54.3%) versus subjectivity in AL (71.9%). It appears that com-
pared to their counterparts in the other disciplines, AL writers prefer to intervene to a
greater extent in the article by means of the resources analyzed here in rhetorical
moves introducing their work, which in turn may help them stress their ownership of
the work.
To summarize, the comparison between personal and impersonal authorial references
across the four sets of data showed the spread of adoption of interpersonal strategies that
corresponds to the rate of incidence of particular discourse functions. While it is hard to
generalize with confidence whether a specific function is apt to be more or less prevalent
in one discipline or another due to limitations in sample size, the present data suggest that
even small variations in the preference for one interpersonal strategy over another and a
slightly higher presence of discourse functions in an academic discourse community
might contribute to an overall impression of a more or less objective and detached inter-
personal style in the particular community.
7. Conclusion
This corpus-based linguistic study reported on a cross-disciplinary investigation of per-
sonal and impersonal authorial references as contributing to interpersonality in writing
for academic purposes. Specifically, a comparable corpus of 160 RAs in AL, Psy, EE and
Che was analyzed to bring to light disciplinary variations in the use of (i) first-person
plural pronouns indexing personal authorial references, and (ii) periphrastic passives,
abstract rhetors and it-clauses acting as impersonal references.
Personal references were largely detected in the rhetoric of the AL and Psy writings,
particularly in the AL articles. Also, the results of the functional analysis showed disci-
plinary variations at the level of use of personal references, which were mainly used,
albeit to a different extent, for stating personal opinions and expressing results in the
EE and Che sub-corpora and for presenting the work and explaining method and research
procedures in the AL and Psy sub-corpora. Concerning impersonal references, they
were attested at a much higher rate of occurrence in the rhetoric of the Che and EE
articles, especially in the latter. Still, variations across the disciplines persist at the
level of particular speech acts. For example, impersonal constructions were found to
be more frequent in the AL and Psy texts only for the purpose of back-/forwarding to
text, while they were much denser in the EE and Che texts for other functions, such
as explaining method and research procedures, expressing results, illustrating data and
self-citation.
Comparison between the different authorial referencing styles in each disciplinary sub-
corpus showed that variations in the use of personal and impersonal forms can be attrib-
uted to whether a subjective or objective interpersonal strategy is adopted, coupled with
the extent to which authorial intrusion into the discourse occurs for a particular pragmatic
effect. For instance, although impersonal resources dominated authorial presence in each
set of disciplinary writings, the writers were more inclined to use emphatic personal
authorial references when stating personal opinions (in all the disciplines), expecting
results (only in Psy) and presenting the work (only in AL). The current investigation, there-
fore, accentuates the importance of studying the actual uses of authorial reference in texts
in lieu of simply tabulating total occurrences.
In sum, the present results affirm that writers conformed to their community prac-
tices when transferring knowledge, and chose to construct an authorial persona with
an appeal to the identity of the community so as to market their work as well as them-
selves. More importantly, however, examining authorial self-representation in the rela-
tively unexplored disciplines of Psy, EE and Che has enabled this study to increase our
understanding of uses of authorial references by identifying two additional discourse
functions articulated exclusively by impersonal (self-citation) and personal construc-
tions (expecting results). Indeed, work on authorial referencing in RAs across different
academic communities could provide us with crucial and practical clues to distinguish
discipline-specific socio-rhetorical and discursive norms and conventions. The results of
this study could also be harnessed to improve aspects of language pedagogy, such as
the teaching and learning of writing for academic purposes, especially RA writing in the
fields explored. As authorial referencing constitutes one of the main rhetorical and
pragmatic strategies in language, writing with such guidance could help in learning
not only how to structure prepositional content, but also how to build an interpersonal
relationship in text.
While the corpus of 160 RAs across four disciplines seems to be justifiable considering
the study is a combination of quantitative and qualitative research, it may still be too
limited to provide sufficient results for generalizing about authorial referencing in RAs
in the disciplines investigated. Possible recommendations for more substantive
findings include enlarging the sample size; widening the range of sub-genres of RAs
under investigation (for example, logico-argumentative articles could be taken on
board for the analysis of authorial reference); and broadening the range of features
that are examined (such as including first-person singular pronouns and their associated
contexts).
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dr Jean Mulder and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful com-
ments on earlier drafts of the paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Mohsen Khedri is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Language Studies at Sohar University in
Oman. To date, his publications include contributions to Discourse Studies, Poznan Studies in Contem-
porary Linguistics, Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, and 3L: The Southeast
Asian Journal of English Language Studies. His research covers a wide field centred on the study of
language, ranging from applied linguistics to English for academic purposes, discourse studies, prag-
matics and academic writing.
Konstantinos Kritsis is a Lecturer at the Department of English Studies at the University of Cyprus in
Nicosia, Cyprus. To date, his publications include contributions to the Journal of Research in Applied
Linguistics and Translation & Interpreting. His areas of interest centre on cross-linguistic and cross-cul-
tural discourse studies, English for academic purposes and second language writing.
ORCID
Mohsen Khedri http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9286-4230
Konstantinos Kritsis http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8011-2138
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Australian Journal of Linguistics

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cajl20

How do we make ourselves heard in the writing of

Mohsen Khedri & Konstantinos Kritsis

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2020.1753011

Published online: 21 Jun 2020.

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How do we make ourselves heard in the writing of a research

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

CONTACT Mohsen Khedri mkhedri@su.edu.om

3.2 Journal selection

Table 1 Data description

3.3 Article selection

3.4 Data analysis

programmes used to identify language features in electronically-saved texts (Scott 2004).1

Table 3 Incidence of use of personal forms

perceptive scholar by projecting an authorial persona complying with disciplinary

b. To our knowledge, only a few studies experimentally manipulated pre-sleep aﬀect.

4.2 Impersonal authorial references

and Che sub-corpora appears to be a stronger disciplinary rhetorical preference to back-

5.2 Impersonal authorial references

6. Personal versus impersonal authorial references

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS

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