TITLE:
A Diachronic Analysis of Self-Mention and Its Rhetorical Functions in Academic Writing across Four Disciplines
AUTHORS:
Hongyu Tao
KEYWORDS:
Self-Mention, Rhetorical Function, Diachronic Analysis, Interdisciplinary Differences
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.9 No.7,
July
16,
2021
ABSTRACT: In
recent decades, self-mention expressions which explicitly show academic
writers’ participation in the research process have yielded a lot of attention.
Substantial studies have explored the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary differences
in the use of self-mention, yet few studies have been conducted on the
diachronic changes in frequency of self-mention in academic writing. Based on
Walková’s classification of the rhetorical functions of self-mention personal
pronouns, the authors investigated the interdisciplinary disparities and diachronic changes of the deployment of
rhetorical functions of self-mention personal pronouns. The disciplines
explored in this paper are applied linguistics, sociology, electronic
engineering and biochemistry & molecular biology. By investigating the use
of first person pronouns I, we, me, us and determiners my, our in 108 research
articles published over the past 40 years, this study shows that applied
linguistics is the only discipline that has seen a decline in the use of first
person pronouns. The chi-square analysis also indicates that there is a significant
difference in the use of rhetorical functions among the four disciplines.