Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

Also by Susan Hood ACADEMIC ENCOUNTERS: LIFE IN SOCIETY (with Kristine Brown)

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing Susan Hood University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

© Susan Hood 2010 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–55349–1 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hood, Susan, 1952– Appraising research : evaluation in academic writing / Susan Hood. p. cm. Summary: “This book is an exploration of how writers take an evaluative stance in academic writing from the point of view of Appraisal theory. It focuses on introductions to research articles in English across a range of disciplines” – Provided by publisher. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–230–55349–1 1. English language – Rhetoric – Study and teaching – Evaluation. 2. Academic writing – Evaluation. 3. Report writing – Evaluation. 4. Interdisciplinary approach in education. I. Title. PE1404.H66 2010 808⬘.042071—dc22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

2009046784

For Jim

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Contents Acknowledgements

viii

List of Figures and Tables

ix

1

Evaluation in Academic English

1

2

Establishing a Warrant for Research

30

3

Writing with Attitude

73

4

Attitude and Field in Academic Writing

109

5

Prosodies of Attitude

141

6

Legitimising Space for New Knowledge: Disciplinary Differences

171

References

211

Index

225

vii

Acknowledgements I would like to thank a number of friends and colleagues who have provided me with inspiration, encouragement and support in the writing of this book. A close interest in academic discourse tracks back to my years at Hong Kong Polytechnic University and I want to thank my colleagues in Hong Kong for the opportunity to learn more about academic English from them and with them, especially to Liz Hamp-Lyons, Gail Forey, and Ken Hyland. I am also greatly indebted to the Systemic Functional Linguistics community in Sydney, for the many opportunities to listen to and engage with truly inspiring colleagues who work at the cutting edge of linguistic theory and at the same time are passionate about educational applications. Thanks to Jim Martin, Peter White, Bev Derewianka, Clare Painter, Susan Feez, Sally Humphrey, David Rose, John Knox and so many more. Thanks too to my friend and colleague Karl Maton in Sociology at the University of Sydney for making working across disciplines not only possible but exciting. Much of the research that underpins this book began in my doctoral studies, and so special thanks are due to my supervisor, Jenny Hammond, for her support throughout that process, and to my colleagues and most importantly my postgraduate students here at the University of Technology, Sydney, who have made me think deeply about how better to understand and to teach academic writing. Finally thank you to the staff at Palgrave Macmillan, to Jill Lake for her support of the original proposal and especially to Jill Lake and Priyanka Gibbons for their positive support and assistance from the original proposal through all stages in the production of the manuscript.

viii

List of Figures and Tables Figures 1.1 The move structure of the RA introduction (from Swales 1990: 141) 1.2

Modelling of language in context adapted from Martin & White (2005)

9 23

1.3 Model of APPRAISAL from Martin & Rose (2007)

24

1.4 Example of the principle of delicacy in ATTITUDE

27

2.1

Teaching-learning cycle modelling literacy pedagogy (Rothery & Stenglin 1994: 8)

71

Sub-categories of ATTITUDE as affect, judgement, and appreciation

78

3.2(a)

Building a system network of GRADUATION

87

3.2(b)

Building a system network of GRADUATION

88

3.2(c)

Building a system network of GRADUATION

89

3.2(d) Building a system network of GRADUATION

99

3.1

3.2(e) Extended network of GRADUATION as FORCE and FOCUS

103

3.2(f)

The network of GRADUATION as FORCE and FOCUS

105

4.1(a)

Dichotomising attitude

132

4.1(b)

Relativising attitude

132

4.2(a)

The field of research projecting the object of study

136

4.2(b)

The field of the object of study projected by the field of research

136

4.3

Multiple research voices ‘authorising’ the object of study

137

4.4

Research voices representing contested positions on the object of study

138

ix

x

List of Figures and Tables

5.1 Propagating values in a clause

143

5.2 Coupling of ideational and interpersonal meanings

143

5.3 Coupling and lexical relations

144

5.4 Coupling interaction and importance

146

5.5 Building community around a coupling

146

5.6

Lexical relations propagating prosody across two sub-fields

148

5.7 Expanding prosody of positive affect

150

5.8 Expanding prosody of positive appreciation

151

5.9

Higher level periodicity and prospective and retrospective prosodies

155

6.1 The system network of appraisal (Martin & White 2005)

172

6.2 Hierarchical knowledge structure integrating knowledge

174

6.3 Segmented languages of a horizontal knowledge structure (from Maton 2007)

174

6.4 Segmented languages with stronger verticality

175

6.5 Legitimation codes of specialisation (from Maton 2007)

176

6.6 The field of research projecting the object of study

182

6.7 The system network of GRADUATION as FOCUS

186

6.8 The system of ENGAGEMENT in appraisal (from Martin & White 2005: 134)

189

6.9 Layers of projection

192

6.10 A temporal causal process in the integration of knowledge 6.11

Spatial mapping of field of research into disadvantage of EAL scholars publishing in English

205 207

Tables 4.1 Differentiating two fields of discourse

123

4.2 Exclusively reporting on the object of study

123

List of Figures and Tables xi

4.3 Exclusively reporting on other research 4.4 4.5

124

Dynamic shifting from one field to the other in the social sciences

125

Dynamic shifting from one field to the other in the sciences

126

4.6 Field and attitude in the social sciences

127

4.7 Field and attitude in the sciences

128

4.8

Preference for invoking attitude towards other research

129

4.9 Field and invoking vs inscribing attitude

130

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1 Evaluation in Academic English

1.1 The challenges of academic expression The level of technicality and abstraction associated with representations of academic knowledge can often present challenges for those who are novices in the register. While this is to some extent at least acknowledged and accounted for in the pedagogic design of learning of the content in a field, there is another area of challenge that is typically less overtly addressed, that of managing what we can refer to as the ‘subjective’ or interpersonal meanings of academic discourse, that is, how we position ourselves in interaction with knowledge. Where explicit guidance is given in the management of interpersonal meaning in academic writing, it is often to discourage overtly subjective positioning. A writer may be advised, for example, to avoid explicit subjective projection of ideas as in ‘I think / in my opinion the causes lie elsewhere’, perhaps to be replaced with more objective expressions of modality as in “it is likely that the causes lie elsewhere”, or with bald factual claims. Writers may also be encouraged to depersonalise by avoiding the use of first person pronouns in self-reference, or to edit out lexical intrusions from more informal spoken registers, as in ‘they did the research in Hong Kong’ or “Actually there appears to be a discrepancy”. The control of objectivity by such means is frequently taken as an indication of competence in the register. However, at the same time as emphasis is given to objectivity in expression a parallel concern is often voiced about the difficulties that novice academic writers face in adequately expressing a critical or evaluative stance in their written texts. Reference is made, for example, to the inadequacy of the ‘annotated bibliography’ (e.g. Swales & Lindemann 2002; Hart 1998) as a model for constructing a literature review. Writers 1

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Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

are criticised for summarising the contributions of others without indicating a position in relation to those ideas. In other words, there is a sense in which the personal or the subjective is missing. So, on the one hand we have encouragement towards objectivity and on the other a requirement to engage critically. This might be considered somewhat contradictory advice. Yet it can be argued that both ‘objectivity’ and critique are relevant in gaining control of written academic registers, and a key aim of this book is to resolve the apparent contradiction. We begin then with an understanding that whatever the level of objectivity expected for the presentation of knowledge in academic research writing, such texts need to be persuasive. Academic writers need to take an evaluative stance in relation to a number of specific and generalised phenomena. In writing the introduction to a research paper, for example, they need to persuade the readership that their research topic has some significance, that there is space for new knowledge around the topic, and that they can make a contribution to knowledge. In this book I draw on Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) theory and in particular on the theorisation of evaluation as appraisal (Martin & White 2005). This theoretical framework underpins a detailed analysis and explanation of the dynamic process by which academic writers construct an evaluative stance towards other knowledge and other ‘knowers’ in the introductions to their research articles. I consider the ways in which writers reconcile objectivity and critique in the process of creating space for new knowledge and how the strategies they employ respond to the generic structures of their texts as well as to their disciplinary context.

1.2

Pedagogic contexts for academic English

Interest in academic discourse has expanded rapidly over recent decades with an explosion in published research and pedagogic texts in print and online. This extraordinary level of interest can be attributed to a number of factors. It is no doubt in part a consequence of the expansion in many communities of undergraduate places. Shifts in the demographics of undergraduate students from a traditional, relatively small base of middle-class school leavers to one that is numerically larger and socially broader have brought into focus the expectations and demands of academic study at undergraduate level. From a linguistic perspective, there is a growing appreciation that the genres and registers of academic discourse require students to take on new roles and to engage with knowledge in new ways, constructing texts which constitute

Evaluation in Academic English 3

unfamiliar, unlearnt language for many students, including those who are native speakers of the language of instruction. In the context of academic English, a second key factor is the growing number of students internationally who are undertaking studies in English as a second or foreign language, at undergraduate or at postgraduate level. This includes students from language backgrounds other than English who choose to study abroad or take distance degrees through universities based in English-speaking communities, or who attend institutions in non-English-speaking communities where the medium of instruction is English. Here the issue is not only one of unfamiliar genres and registers, but of negotiating and constructing these texts in a second or foreign language. And while the academic language support needs of the student body are often emphasised (e.g. Ravelli & Ellis 2004; Bunton 2002), similar issues frequently confront a rapidly expanding number of academics internationally who want to, or feel pressure to, publish their research in English language publications (Flowerdew 1999, 2001; Burrough-Boenisch 2003). The project here is to analyse evaluative discourse in the context of academic research writing in English in order to make the nature of the discourse more apparent and accessible. However, the aim is not simply to explicate texts in order for novice writers to be able to reproduce them more readily. A further objective is to make the discourse more transparent, to be able to reveal the ways in which academic argument and academic knowledge are socially constructed in and through discourse in dialogue with other knowledge and other knowers. In other words the aim is to further our understanding of what it means to mean in an academic sense. I argue a need for a clearer understanding of what meanings are at stake in valuing, promoting or privileging particular kinds of academic literacy practices over others in the context of constructing academic knowledge. A pedagogic motivation for this book becomes a reference point to which I return periodically in the concluding sections to chapters, as I consider implications of these ways of conceptualising evaluation. I begin in this introductory chapter with some context for the approach that I take to the study of evaluation in academic discourse. In the first instance I discuss what is meant by academic discourse. Then I review a range of alternative perspectives on the concept of evaluation, especially as they have been applied in analyses of academic language. This includes a brief introduction to a discourse perspective on evaluation drawing on SFL and in particular on appraisal theory. This theory is further elaborated as it is applied in subsequent chapters. For a detailed explanation of

4

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

appraisal readers are also referred to Martin & White (2005). I conclude this chapter with a preview of the structure of the subsequent chapters.

1.3 What disciplinary discourse/s? We frequently talk about academic English or academic discourse in general terms. This is, however, a contentious position. On the one hand we might argue that a generic descriptor of ‘academic English’ is valid to the extent that we denote language that recontextualises experiences or observations from an everyday and commonsense world into a world of abstraction and/or technicalised meanings. Such a label can then function as an effective way to highlight significant common characteristics and significant ways in which such discourse differs from commonsense ways of meaning (Bizzell 1992). On the other hand, within the field of academic discourse, one of the key concerns at present is the issue of disciplinarity and the extent to which the discourses of the academy vary from one disciplinary field to another (Hyland 2000a, 2002b; Hyland & Hamp-Lyons 2002; Flowerdew 2001; Kaldor & Rochecouste 2002; Hood 2007). To date, research on variation in academic writing has dominantly focused on descriptions of difference in form and/or context of language use. From a more formal perspective, corpus-based studies commonly identify distribution patterns of grammatical structures or lexical choices and so readily present generalised descriptions of difference in academic genres across disciplinary sites. Hyland (1999) identifies variations in reporting structures as well as preferences for particular reporting verbs across disciplines. Charles (2003) examines the distribution of ‘nouns which are preceded by sentence initial deictic “This” ’ in corpora of politics/international relations and materials science. Resulting descriptions from corpus-based analyses of difference provide a basis for intuiting explanations with reference to context, as in: Disciplinary differences are seen in the choice of noun, with higher frequencies in the politics corpus of both metalinguistic nouns (e.g. ‘argument’) and nouns that are inherently marked for stance (e.g. ‘confusion’). It is argued that this variation is due to differences between the disciplines in research practices and the construction of knowledge. (Charles 2003: 313) or as in: ... the greater use of reporting verbs in the soft fields also reflects the more discursive character if these disciplines. (Hyland 1999: 359)

Evaluation in Academic English 5

This interest in the different ways in which disciplines represent themselves in their texts connects with work outside of linguistics, particularly in the sociology of knowledge (Bernstein 1999, 2000; Maton & Muller 2007; Christie & Martin 2007). Bernstein theorises the different ways in which disciplinary knowledges are structured, contrasting what he describes as a horizontal knowledge structure represented, for example, in a discipline such as cultural studies (Maton 2000a, 2002), with a hierarchical knowledge structure characteristic of the sciences. As horizontal knowledge structure disciplines accumulate knowledge in a process of adding new segmented perspectives and topics, whereas in hierarchical knowledge structures knowledge builds through integration of knowledge in theory building and generalisation. This notion of knowledge structures and of their implications for disciplinary discourses is revisited in more detail in Chapter 6. There, connections are made between the different ways in which writers introduce their research and the kinds of knowledge structures this serves to enact and construct (see Hood 2007). While Chapter 6 focuses in detail on the issue of discipline and discourse, this is also something that is accounted for in most chapters. Throughout the book examples are drawn from a variety of disciplines in the humanities, social sciences and natural or physical sciences to illustrate strategies and resources for expressing an evaluative stance. Comparisons are made in terms of the kinds of evaluative resources used, and so in the kinds of evaluative meanings expressed. The range of texts drawn upon in this study also functions to highlight the variations that are evident within as well as across disciplines as writers manage the specific demands of positioning their own individual studies in changing fields of interaction. The point is not to establish generalisable ‘rules’ for any disciplinary area, but rather to focus on the meanings at risk, the choices available and the strategies for and potential consequences of enacting those choices in constructing an evaluative stance. 1.3.1

What genre/s?

Other research from within linguistics extends the study of disciplinary difference to language at the level of genre. Samraj (2002), for example, maps variations in genre across related fields of wildlife behaviour and conservation. The term genre is of course interpreted differently even within applied linguistics (see Hyon 1996; Martin & Rose 2008). However, studies of genre tend to shift the focus towards mapping social practices, with more or less emphasis on practice as social semiosis (e.g. Martin & Rose 2008) or as description of interaction (e.g. Berkencotter & Huckin 1995; Orlikowski & Yates 1994; Millar 1994; Bazerman 1994).

6

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

A further important question to consider is that of what genres to focus on in a study of evaluation in academic discourse. My choice here is to focus on published academic research articles. The research article represents a high-stakes text type across all disciplines, constituting the primary means by which academic knowledge is disseminated. Research articles also tend to be heavily represented as core readings at all levels of academic study and are frequently drawn upon as source texts, if not models, in the production of student essays, proposals, dissertations and theses. The research article itself is not of course a single genre. It constitutes what Martin & Rose (2008) refer to as a macro-genre, being composed of a series of linked segments each of which may be described differently in terms of its generic structure. We typically (or canonically) divide a research article into segments along the lines of these variations in genre, so distinguishing, for example, the procedural recount of a methodology segment from a report on findings. Some of these segments can themselves constitute a macro-genre. In this book I have chosen to focus specifically on the introductory stages of research articles. In writing their introductions writers typically construct an evaluative representation of one or more fields of knowledge, as they present a case for the worthiness of their research project. They establish the grounds for their own study and for their own contributions to knowledge, in what I describe in Chapter 2 as a research warrant. The research warrant is a discursive context in which writers both report and persuade, so a context in which we can anticipate that both objectivity and critique are at risk. The construction of this macro-genre of the research warrant is analysed in detail in Chapter 2.

1.4

Different approaches to an exploration of evaluation

The assumption that a written report of academic research constitutes an entirely objective representation of empirically derived facts is one that is now unlikely to be made within any discipline or research tradition. The rhetorical nature of the academic research article from whatever disciplinary base is broadly acknowledged. The research article is understood to function not merely as a conduit of knowledge, but rather as constitutive of knowledge where knowledge is constructed in the process of text construction. This recognition continues to drive forward an impressive body of analytical research in applied linguistics exploring dimensions of evaluation in academic discourse (see e.g. Ventola & Mauranen 1996; Hunston & Thompson 2000; Hyland 2000a; Gotti

Evaluation in Academic English 7

2009, and the very many recent papers published in specialist journals in applied linguistics). Broadly speaking, we could consider evaluation as incorporating all aspects of interpersonal meaning encoded in texts and functioning to construe stance or point of view. Along these lines, in the introduction to their influential volume, Evaluation in text: Authorial stance and the construction of discourse, Thompson & Hunston (2000: 5) define evaluation as: the broad cover term for the expression of the speaker or writer’s attitude or stance towards, viewpoint on, or feelings about the entities or propositions that he or she is talking about. This brief definition points to a complexity of underlying functions, which in turn suggests the implication of a considerable range of linguistic resources. Needless to say the mapping of this territory of interpersonal meaning has been approached in many different ways, with the diversity being a product of divergent theories of language, divergent research interests, and diachronic developments in research and theory. It is an impossible task therefore to try to reconcile the many models of evaluation, their categorisations and labelling. Nevertheless some comparison of the ways in which the territory of evaluation is mapped is a useful means to capture the breadth and complexity of evaluative meaning-making, and in addition to provide a background to and rationale for the theoretical model drawn upon in this study, namely appraisal theory. Here I consider studies of language as evaluation from the perspectives of genre, grammar, lexis, and discourse. 1.4.1 Evaluation as genre One lens on evaluation is from the point of view of genre. We can consider, for example, the extent to which a text is oriented to instructing, explaining, describing or persuading, and if describing, whether describing specific entities or classes of phenomena, and if persuading whether it is persuading ‘that’ or persuading ‘to’, and so on (Martin 1985; Martin & Rose 2008). We can anticipate that different genres may well implicate resources of evaluation in different ways. Expositions, for example, aim to align readers to a point of view through a series of arguments to support a thesis. Such texts are intrinsically evaluative in their social purpose. However instances of the genres of reports and descriptions can also be characterised by considerable evaluative language. I attend more closely to the question of the genre of introductions to

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

research articles and implications for evaluation in Chapter 2. However, some brief discussion of different theorisations of genre is useful here to clarify the approach that is taken in this book. Hyon’s frequently cited paper in TESOL Quarterly (Hyon 1996) reviews three main perspectives on genre: the New Rhetoric position, associated primarily with North American scholars (e.g. Millar 1994; Freedman & Medway 1994; Coe 1994; Coe, Lingard & Teslenko 2002); the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) approach, represented, for example, in the work of Swales (1990), Dudley-Evans (1994) and Bhatia (1993); and what Hyon refers to as the ‘Sydney school’ where genre is positioned within the broader theory of SFL (Martin 1992a; Christie & Martin 1997; Martin & Rose 2008). I will not elaborate here on the New Rhetoric position where interest is predominantly in social activity, seen as impacting on, but fundamentally outside, language as system itself. However, I will spend a little time in a discussion of commonalities and differences that characterise the ESP tradition with an SFL perspective on genre. This is especially relevant given the dominance of the ESP orientation in the teaching of English for Academic Purposes. Within the ESP tradition, Swales defines genre as: a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognised by the expert members of the parent discourse community, and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style. (Swales 1990: 58) The ESP tradition of genre studies has taken a strong text focus. This has resulted in a significant volume of work in academic discourse with more or less attention paid to grammar. Studies of genre within ESP include analyses of sections of academic journal articles such as introductions (Swales 1990; Crookes 1986), abstracts (Salager-Meyer 1992; Hyland 2000a), literature reviews (Swales & Lindemann 2002) results sections (Hopkins & Dudley-Evans 1988), discussion sections (DudleyEvans 1994) and the transition from results to conclusions in research articles (Yang & Allison 2003), as well as submission letters to academic journals (Swales 1996), grant proposals (Connor & Mauranen 1999), and oral language genres such as conference presentations (Thompson 1997; Richards 2009; and Ventola, Shalom & Thompson 2002 who include an SFL perspective).

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8

With respect to the ESP school on genre as it is applied to the introductions of research articles, the most influential work is that of John Swales. In fact Swales’ early work on introductions to research articles (Swales 1987, 1990) has informed all the work in ESP genre studies cited above. Swales uses the term ‘moves’ to describe the ways in which genres function progressively to achieve the social purpose of a text. In this case he identifies the social purpose as one of ‘creating a research space’, referred to as the CARS model. The moves, and sub-moves or ‘steps’ that characterise the introductions to research articles identified in Swales (1990) are represented in Figure 1.1. ESP genre studies offer a text-oriented perspective, one that is compatible on many levels with a modelling of genre in SFL theory. In common is a recognition of genres as enacting social purposes, perhaps more exclusively enacted in language in an ESP tradition, and increasingly seen as enacted multimodally in an SFL tradition, where language is understood as one, albeit the most complex and well explicated, semiotic system. There are nonetheless some differences that ought to be noted. Within an ESP tradition, validation of claims about the interpretation of meanings in discourse are not made with reference to a theory of language as systems of meaning, that is, as a social semiotic (Halliday 1978). Validation is instead sought via other means. One common means is

Move 1: Establishing a territory - Claiming centrality, and/or - Making topic generalizations, and/or - Reviewing items of previous research Move 2 : Establishing a niche -

Counter-claiming, or Indicating a gap, or Question raising, or Continuing a tradition

Move 3 : Occupying the niche -

Outlining purposes, or Announcing present research Announcing principal findings Indicating RA structure

Figure 1.1 The move structure of the RA introduction (from Swales 1990: 141).

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Evaluation in Academic English 9

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

with reference to ‘ethnographic’ studies of one sort or another (see Swales on textography). This may involve commonsense (as in un-theorised) interpretations of practices and/or seeking out the commonsense interpretations of participants in a field. Such a strategy is problematic from a social semiotic perspective to the extent that ‘ethnographies’ constitute actions, texts and other semiotic resources, all of which constitute additional semiotic data, in other words data that needs therorised analysis. A second means for validation relies on corpus-based searches to provide quantitative descriptive accounts of similarity and difference generalised for categories, for example for the register of academic English. Neither strategy, however, addresses the question of the meaning potential of linguistic choices and how they realise the social purpose of the genre or the stages or moves within. In general the notion of generic stage or move within an ESP tradition connects to language in terms of a post-hoc description of a range of formal grammatical constructions. In other words, while a connection of genre to social purpose is made explicitly in ESP explanations of genre (as in Swales 1990), a social theory of language does not extend beyond genre itself. That is, discussions of grammatical realisations of generic stages are predominantly in formal, structural terms, and structural categories are then attributed with pragmatic explanations of meaning. Grammatical choices themselves are not seen as systematically meaning-making. In the absence of a functional theory of language, problems inevitably arise in a move analysis of genres. The function of moves must be analysed and validated from the intuitive perspective of the reader. Swales (1990: 58) notes that ‘[t]hese purposes are recognised by the expert members of the parent discourse community, and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre’. However, on this basis consistency in analysis can be difficult to arrive at. Bloor (1998: 60) acknowledges that ‘anyone who has tried to identify moves in texts will realise that it can be a difficult and contentious activity. Experienced readers often fail to agree on the interpretation of moves’. Hyland (2002a: 116) also suggests that ‘analysts have not always been convincingly able to identify the way these shifts are explicitly signalled by lexico-grammatical patterning’. Further problems can arise in finding commonalities in the move structures of texts that are generally understood to share a common general rhetorical function. In discussing the structuring of literature reviews (LRs) in research papers, Swales & Feak (2000) suggest that [p]erhaps the most important rhetorical characteristic of LRs is that they are different from most other academic genres in one crucial

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Evaluation in Academic English 11

While the template of move structure for research article introductions is widely used as a useful pedagogic tool, and has value in enhancing metalinguistic awareness on the part of students, the lack of an underlying functional explanation of language choices limits its potential to account for variations, for example across disciplines, across related discourses, or for that matter across genres. This means that these variations can only be listed rather than related in terms of meanings. In acknowledging the degree of variation that abounds in the realisations of the genre of research articles across cultural locations (e.g. Mauranen 1996; Ahmad 1997; Duszak 1997) and in relation to different kinds of research spaces, Swales (2002: 73) humorously suggests that his CARS (create a research space) model could be supplemented with alternative models which might include OARO (open a research option) or PART (present a research topic) even TOTE (take on the establishment). Where there is no systematic reference to language as social semiotic we can only proliferate descriptions. A further issue in the analysis of genres that remains pertinent to this study relates to the division and labelling of stages. In any labelling of generic stages in a text, the orientation is to particularise meanings, that is, to represent them as part–whole structures. This kind of structuring reflects an ideational orientation to meaning (Halliday 1994; Martin 1992a). From an SFL perspective this can be interpreted as an overdetermination towards just one of the three metafunctions or ways of meaning that are a fundamental tenet of SFL theory, that is, a preferencing of ideational meanings over interpersonal and textual meanings. Early SFL work on genre in the 1980s also tended to favour ‘simple constituency representations of genre staging’ (Martin 1997: 16). This was in part to account for the structuring of longer pedagogic texts as ‘macro-genres’, and to model the internal logico-semantic links between the genres that made up the macro-genres. More recently though there has been a greater recognition of the different types of structuring principles associated with the three metafunctions, the three complementary perspectives in meaning fundamental to SFL theory, namely the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual. As Martin (1997: 17) explains, ‘[t]he basic division is between particulate, prosodic and periodic structures’.

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respect. They do not easily fall into those stages or ‘moves’ (...) that have proved helpful in structuring abstracts, conference posters, introductions, discussions, and so forth. In effect, as we shall see, the range of options for structuring a LR is much greater. (Swales & Feak 2000: 122)

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

Ideational meaning constructs representations of an objective reality in particulate structures that ‘organizes text segmentally’; interpersonal meaning expresses a subjective reality of relationships and values in a prosodic structuring that is super-segmental and ‘spreads itself across a text’; and textual meanings organise a particular sense of the message in a periodic structuring that ‘organizes a text into a rhythm of peaks and troughs, as the demands of information flow prescribe’ (see also Halliday 1979; Matthiessen 1988, Martin 1992a). Martin (1997: 17) explains that ‘[i]t follows from this factoring of kinds of structure that genre structure is best interpreted simultaneously from the perspective of particulate, prosodic and periodic representations’. This multifunctional perspective on the structuring of genres is taken up in the first instance in Chapter 2 and revisited in subsequent chapters. A further variation in the two ways of modelling genre is in the relative emphasis on rule or resource. From an SFL perspective genres are understood as meaning-making potentials in a culture, in other words as ‘resources for meaning’ rather than ‘systems of rules’ (Halliday & Martin 1993). Martin (2002b: 264) makes the point that ‘we need to distinguish genre (system) from text (instantiation) – to distinguish recurrent configurations of meaning immanent in our culture from the textual instances that draw on one or more of them or reinforce these configurations or nudge the culture along’. Instances of textual realisation vary within culturally configured systems of social functioning. In the discussion above I have made reference to a number of key aspects of SFL theory, in particular the notion of metafunctional meaning and the concept of genres as mapping the meaning potential of a culture rather than as sets of descriptions of texts. Other key principles underlying SFL theory will be introduced in relation to subsequent considerations of evaluation as grammar, as lexis and as discourse. In summary, genre studies have contributed to an understanding of the underlying persuasive nature of much academic writing and in particular the writing of research articles. Different orientations to the study of genre give greater or lesser attention to the activities and relationships characterising the context of production of the texts, or to the texts themselves. Where the focus is predominantly on texts they may be seen as fundamentally reflective of practices in the discourse community, or as simultaneously reflective of and constitutive of those practices. The current study draws on SFL theory of language and is therefore aligned with the latter interpretation. In other words, texts are seen as meaning-making in terms of both content knowledge and in terms of the construal of relationships. An analysis of texts is therefore

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Evaluation in Academic English 13

seen as an essential aspect of understanding the nature of the discourse communities within which they are constructed.

It is generally agreed in most recent linguistically oriented studies of evaluation that evaluation has to do with valuing and taking a position in relation to both entities and propositions. This basic distinction between valuing entities and valuing propositions is made by a number of key scholars in the field: Hunston & Thompson 2000; Bybee & Fleischman (1995); and by Fairclough (2003) – although both Bybee & Fleischman, and Fairclough use the label evaluation for the ‘evaluation’ of entities, and modality for propositions. Modality for Fairclough refers to an author’s commitment to ‘what is true and what is necessary’ and evaluation refers to an author’s commitment to ‘what is desirable or undesirable, good or bad’ (Fairclough 2003: 164). In earlier work Fairclough (1992) also uses the term stance to refer to the ‘point of intersection in discourse between signification of reality and the enactment of social reality’ (1992: 160). At the time he likened this, in SFL terms, to the intersection of the ideational and the interpersonal (p. 160), but perhaps stance could be reinterpreted, in Fairclough’s more recent work, to refer to the intersection of evaluation and modality. This seems in line with his more recent reference to the realisations of meanings of evaluation and modality as a ‘texturing of identities’ (Fairclough 2003: 164). Conrad & Biber (2000) and Biber & Finegan (1989) make similar categorical distinctions to those above, but refer to kinds of stance as epistemic stance incorporating modality and also attribution to other sources, and attitudinal stance referring to feelings and value judgements. They also include a third category, that of style stance, where the writer provides a comment on the way the proposition is presented. Sinclair (1981) too, distinguishes between evaluation oriented to the proposition as a whole and that oriented to the world being written about, and refers to these as two planes of discourse, the interactive and the autonomous planes (see Hunston 2000). The functional complexity of evaluation inevitably draws into play an extensive range of linguistic and non-linguistic resources, which may be made more or less explicit depending on the focus and linguistic orientation of the research. Thompson & Hunston (2000) make the point that each kind of evaluation (that is, of entities and of propositions) draws differently on resources of grammar. They suggest that entities are typically evaluated through adjectives, and propositions are evaluated through more grammatical categories such as modal

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1.4.2 Evaluation as grammar

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

verbs. Labov (1972) very broadly considers evaluation to be ‘anything that is represented as other than the norm’. His notion of evaluative devices and the grammatical and non-grammatical means of expression include: intensifiers, e.g. expressive phonology, repetition, gesture; comparators, e.g. imperatives, questions, negatives, modals; correlatives, e.g. progressive verbal tense, and explicatives, e.g. qualifications such as ‘because’, ‘so’ ( Labov 1972: 378). Stubbs (1996) also includes as potentially evaluating, choices in mood, modality, tense, logical connection, vague language and sourcing propositions. Given the diversity of grammatical resources implicated in evaluative stance, it is not surprising to find that much research focuses on the evaluative functioning of just one or a small number of linguistic resources, for example, Nwogu (1997) and Thompson & Zhou (2000) on conjunctive relations; Conrad & Biber (2000) on adverbials; Hoey (2000) on the positioning of evaluation in Given or New; Groom (2000), Hawes & Thomas (1997) and Hyland (1999) on citation structures; Thompson & Ye (1991), Hyland (1999) and Hunston (1995) on reporting verbs. Such studies are dominantly corpus-based. Bednarek (2008) in a more comprehensive corpus-based exploration of emotional language across several registers including academic discourse, reports on a study of the lexicogrammatical patterns around a sub-set of affective terms. She concludes that ‘a common function of emotion terms in academic discourse is to evaluate research findings or to provide other kinds of evaluations. Non-authorial affect is commonly hedged, hypothesized or predicted, rather than simply stated, presumably to maintain the “objectivity” of scientific discourse’ (Bednarek 2008: 131). A general consensus throughout the research literature on evaluation as grammar is that while evaluation may be concentrated at particular points or phases in the text, it is nonetheless encoded throughout texts through the deployment of a wide range of grammatical resources. 1.4.3 Evaluation as lexis Research on evaluative language has also been approached from the perspective of lexis. Once again, corpus-based studies are dominant here. Bednarek (2008) also makes generalised comparisons of frequencies of the lexical encoding of emotion across the five registers of her study using the British Register Corpus (BRC). She notes, for example, that the ten most frequent emotion terms in the academic discourse in the corpus (excluding want, sorry and like) are feeling, fear, concern, anxiety, expectation, desire, stress, love, hope and concerned (Bednarek

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2008: 36), and identifies their distribution as nouns, verbs and adjectives. Not surprisingly perhaps, given the extent of nominalisation in the register, academic discourse prefers the expression of emotion in nouns (Bednarek 2008: 37). Another body of work focuses in particular on the use of imprecise or vague lexis. In her study of vague language, Channell (1994) included the use of vague words and additives such as loads of, heaps of, something like that. Her explanations are oriented to the representation of truth-values and commitment to propositions (epistemic), but, as she explains, the reasons for this vagueness may include a range of social goals. Myers (1996) also studied expressions of what he calls ‘strategic vagueness’ in academic texts, and again considers the functioning not only in epistemic terms, but also in terms of ‘the negotiation of complex boundaries’ and ‘the mediation of apparently conflicting interests’ (Myers 1996: 3). Both Channell and Myers contribute to our understanding of the role of the vague evaluation of entities in construing social relations. Myers (1996: 4), for example, claims that ‘vagueness can be used strategically to allow a written text to take on a range of meanings for different audiences with different interests’. He argues that ‘this kind of vagueness is particularly important in academic writing, in which the success or failure of claims may turn on the negotiation of their specificity and breadth’. Both Myers and Channell move from general statements of the functions of vagueness to articulating the grammatical resources that are seen to constitute vagueness in the terms they establish for their studies. In a somewhat different research take on similar linguistic resources, Biber & Conrad (2001) also discuss the rhetorical functioning of lexical resources that encode vagueness or that modify meanings. They report on a register variation study of ‘downtoners’ such as pretty, somewhat and slightly, finding that such terms were distributed differently across registers. In particular they found that in conversational language downtoners are most frequently used to modify evaluative terms, whereas they are used with a much wider range of descriptive adjectives in academic prose. Biber & Conrad (2001: 178) suggest that ‘[m]any of the downtoner + adjective collocations in academic prose have to do with marking the extent of comparison between two items (e.g. slightly smaller, somewhat lower)’. In other words, in academic prose the downtoners are used to grade non-evaluative lexis, an issue that is explored in depth in Chapter 3. These notions of ‘vague language’ and of ‘downtoners’ are considered from the theoretical framework of SFL as an aspect of appraisal, in

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Evaluation in Academic English 15

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

particular as graduation. The model as articulated in Martin (2000), Martin & White (2005) and Hood & Martin (2007) systemises the semantic options of graduation, as including choices for grading as force or as focus and then identifies further semantic options within force to include grading as intensity and quantity. Approaching an analysis of discourse from a semantic perspective of graduation allows for the integration of various kinds of graduated meanings, including those discussed above as ‘vagueness’ and as ‘downtoners’, and most importantly accounts for the realisation of these meanings across a range of grammatical systems. Graduation provides, therefore, a framework for exploring the multiple ways in which academic writers grade meanings strategically in their writing. The system of graduation applied in this book is extended through its application to analyses of academic discourse, as detailed in Chapter 3. Channell (2000) also focuses on evaluative lexis from yet another perspective, that of the covert evaluative functioning of lexical terms (see Sinclair 1991; Stubbs 1996). Studying concordances for a range of words or expressions such as self-important, regime, and fat, she is able to determine whether they associate with positive or negative values in large corpora of texts. Her study points to the need to consider the typical association of words in understanding their evaluative potential. A word may convey a negative meaning by association if that word typically associates with negative meanings, even though the word itself is not overtly evaluatively coded. Channell (2000: 39) claims the necessity of corpus-based studies to determine such associations. She argues that corpus-based studies ‘go beyond what intuition can achieve’. Covert associations of this kind are referred to in the pragmatics literature as ‘semantic prosody’ (e.g. Stubbs 1996; Stewart 2009). It should be noted, however, that this is a very different use of the term ‘prosody’ from that associated with a Firthian tradition (Palmer 1970). More closely associated with the study undertaken in this book is Thetala’s (1997) research into the evaluation of entities in research articles, where she distinguishes importantly between topic-oriented evaluation (TOE), and research-oriented evaluation (ROE). Thetala’s corpus of texts includes research articles from four discipline areas, and in an analysis of the ‘ascribed value’ for entities in ROE, she concluded that there was overwhelming evidence of no significant differences among the four disciplines in terms of the kinds of evaluated entities and ascribed values, as well as the lexical realizations of such values. This indicates that values of research are the same in different disciplines and therefore predictable. (Thetala 1997: 115)

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She did, however, find differences in the frequency and distribution of values, and ‘differences among disciplines in terms of the balance of TOE and ROE in a text’ (1997: 116). Thetala’s distinction between evaluated entities that are topic-oriented and those that are research-oriented is an important consideration in the analyses of evaluation as attitude in this book, where similar field distinctions are identified. In summary, studies of attitudinal lexis and the evaluation of entities have received comparatively less attention in research than have studies of the grammar of evaluative language, and there have been few attempts to model the semantics of attitude, especially in the context of academic discourse. An analysis of lexical choices in the evaluation of entities is a significant aspect of this book. 1.4.4

Evaluation as discourse

Hyland (2002a) notes an expansion of work in genre studies with a focus on realisations of meanings at the level of discourse. Important work in this regard focuses on textual meaning as in Theme choice (Drury 1991; Mauranen 1996; McKenna 1997; Ravelli 2004; North 2005). However there is now a growing body of work attending to interpersonal meaning, including studies of reference systems (e.g. Kuo 1999 on personal pronouns), and analyses of appraisal resources as interpersonal Theme (e.g. Coffin & Hewings 2004 on IELTS essays). Some studies of the linguistics of evaluation arguably sit at the intersection of grammar and discourse. Within this category I include studies in pragmatics that are concerned with the functioning of discourse, but which focus predominantly on identifying language choices at the level of grammar. In such studies of text, rhetorical strategies are intuited on the basis of aggregations of grammatical forms. I include a review of such studies under a section on discourse (rather than grammar) in that the motivation is the identification of rhetorical strategies, but also on the grounds that they are likely to be so positioned by the researchers themselves. One group of studies on the linguistics of evaluation focuses predominantly on the evaluative resources of modality with varying degrees of alignment to Halliday’s category of modalisation (Halliday 1994). Stubbs’ (1996) concept of modality, for example, addresses grammatical resources of modalisation but also includes other resources of vague language and some diminutive forms of address. Chafe’s (1986) concern is also with the evaluation of propositions (i.e. modalisation) but he uses the term evidentiality to refer to language that expresses attitude towards knowledge. Barton (1993) relates evidentiality to metadiscourse,

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Evaluation in Academic English 17

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

or rather, drawing on Vande Kopple (1985) identifies two types of metadiscourse that constitute evidentiality. These are validity markers identified as hedges, emphatics and attributors, and attitude markers, vaguely exemplified as what would be comment adjuncts in SFL theory, for example, surprisingly. Validity markers and attitude markers construct epistemological stance for Barton (1993: 746). In her study of comparisons in the use of evidentials in expert and student texts, she focuses on four specific rhetorical strategies used in academic argument: problematisation, persona, citation, and argument. She assigns a particular kind of evidential to each and articulates the most frequent constructions for realising that strategy. The strategy of ‘problematization’, for example, is realised in evidentials of contrast the most frequent being sentenceinitial conjunction. The strategy of ‘persona’ is constructed through evidentials of belief including first-person reference with mental processes of cognition, such as I believe. Arguably the most influential work on the evaluative functioning of modality within the EAP literature is that undertaken under the term hedging (e.g. Hyland 1998, 2000b; Myers 1989; Salager-Meyer 1994). For Hyland, ‘ “hedging” refers to any linguistic means used to indicate either a) a lack of complete commitment to the truth value of an accompanying proposition, or b) a desire not to express that commitment categorically’ (Hyland 1998:1). Emphasis is given once again to the dual functions of valuing epistemologically and interpersonally, the former having to do with encoding the writer’s perceptions of the natural world in terms of accuracy and certainty about knowledge claims and the latter to do with respecting the institutional constraints and expectations imposed by the scientific community. Hyland maintains this distinction in hedges between those that orient to the proposition and those that orient to the reader, although he acknowledges that ‘in actual use the epistemic and the affective functions of hedges are often conveyed simultaneously and that this indeterminacy prevents the formation of discrete descriptive categories’ (Hyland 1998: ix). Hyland also distinguishes between hedging and boosting, although grammatically this distinction too is difficult to justify in that resources of modality constitute a cline, in other words, they ‘take the form of continuous variables instead of discrete terms’ (Halliday 2002: 399), which does not support a dichotomous distinction between positive and negative. Halliday argues that ‘even a high value modal (‘certainly’, ‘always’) is less determinate than a polar form: that’s certainly John is less certain than that’s John ... In other words, you only say you are certain when you are not’ (Halliday 1994: 89). In that sense high certainty is hedging in

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contrast to representing something as fact. The boosting/hedging distinction does, however, make sense in the context of discourse analysis where a distinction can be drawn between rhetorical strategies that are deployed to open up or to close down space for other voices in the discourse, as is modelled in appraisal as engagement (see White 2003a, 2003b; Martin & White 2005). This is addressed in Chapter 6. From a non-linguistic perspective the dual orientations of evaluation to assigning a value and to positioning with consideration to the audience, can also be discerned in Dascal’s (2001) distinction between the two pragmatic motivations in academic discourse of reputation and refutation. Refutation is epistemologically oriented, to do with truth and value, and reputation links to pragmatic concepts of face and politeness (Brown & Levinson 1987). Dascal explains the resultant negotiation of these potentially conflicting forces in texts as a process of ‘conflict management’, requiring an application of a ‘communicative epistemological Principle of Charity’. He suggests that ‘[t]he more an author is reputed, the more careful must be the critique and the eventual rejection of his position, and the more careful the alleged refutation of his position’ (Dascal 2001: 14). One problem with the distinction made in analyses of hedging in texts between writer commitment to the truth-value of propositions (epistemic modality), and writer acknowledgement of audience, is that these are neither discrete decisions nor discrete encodings. The encoding of a degree of certainty about a knowledge claim needs to be seen as the writer choosing to attach a degree of certainty to the knowledge claim in a given socio-semantic context. As Dascal (2001: 9) argues, it is impossible to achieve absolute separation of epistemological and interpersonal motivations. ‘[S]ince truth and value are things of this world (...) they do not escape social constraints’ (Dascal 2001: 9). Within the model of appraisal that informs this study, the secondguessing of writer motivation is avoided altogether. The construct of engagement theorises instead the degree of heteroglossic space that is opened up to or closed down to a proposition, proposed by either the writer or other sources (White 2003a, 2003b, 2003c; Martin &White 2005). Unlike pragmatic explanations of hedging, the system of engagement in appraisal does not posit readings of modality as identifying an individual writer’s level of certainty or commitment to a proposition. Rather they are seen as functioning ‘to reflect the process of interaction and negotiations within a text between different socio-semiotic positions’ (White 2003c). In studies of the evaluative functioning of modality, then, the most significant area of difference relates to whether or not a distinction can be made in analysing texts between epistemic

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●

●

●

to construct and maintain relations between the speaker or writer and hearer or reader; to express the speaker’s or writer’s opinion, and in doing so to reflect the value system of that person and their community; to organize the discourse.

This categorisation corresponds closely to Hunston’s (1994) discussion of evaluation as indicating stance, value and significance. The first function, that of establishing and maintaining social relations is studied extensively in pragmatics under the umbrella term of ‘hedging’, often with a distinction made between an epistemic function of hedges and an interpersonal function (Hyland 1998), the former having to do with coding the truth-value of propositions, and the latter with signalling interpersonal relationships of power and/or solidarity. A key grammatical resource is modality, but other grammatical systems are implicated and lexical choices that encode a lack of precision may also be relevant. Other research related to the first of Thompson & Hunston’s categories above focuses on the manipulative power of language. Hoey (2000), for example, considers the structuring of information in a clause in Given or in New position (Halliday 1994) as significant in terms of the manipulative potential of the language. Research with a focus on the second of the functions noted above, namely expressions of opinion, is oriented to analyses of lexical choices, and in relation to the third function of text organisation, research focuses more specifically on discourse systems in language, as the concern is with the location of evaluative resources in texts. Studies indicate the positioning of evaluative lexis as functioning to indicate significance (Hunston 1994) or to signal the point of a section of text (Sinclair 1987). One interesting feature of descriptions of academic discourse in much of the literature is that they represent a dichotomised or at least bifurcated perspective along lines that relate in some way to notions of product (or content) and process (or form). Geisler (1994), for example, following Bereiter & Scardamalia (1987), distinguishes between ‘domain content’ and ‘rhetorical process’ in her description of the discourse of

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modality (i.e. as commitment to truth-value) and interpersonal modality (i.e. encoding social positioning). In most discourse-oriented studies of evaluation to date, evaluation is identified at a functional level, and realised in choices of grammar and/ or lexis. The functions of evaluation are summarised by Thompson & Hunston (2000: 6) as threefold, namely:

professional expertise, and this duality of function is reflected in a great deal of the academic literacy literature (e.g. Bourdieu 1991), and in discussions of approaches to discourse analysis (Fairclough 1992). Candlin (1998) makes the distinction between what he refers to as different orientations of stance, one oriented to ‘current knowledge, other researchers and other practitioners’, corresponding in some sense to what you know, and the other to audience, corresponding to how you present this knowledge. While both aspects are seen here as discursively constructed, in distinguishing between what is known and how it is presented, the latter is sometimes referred to as metadiscourse. Metadiscourse is a difficult construct to pin down in the literature (e.g. Bourdieu 1991; Fairclough 1992; Crismore 1989; Barton 1993; Hyland 2000a, 2005). In part the problem is defining what is meant by metadiscourse in relation to other terms. Geisler (1994) for example refers to both ‘metadiscourse’ and ‘rhetorical process’, which is contrasted to ‘domain content’. She explains rhetorical processes as ‘shaped by the writer’s relationship with the intended audience’ (Geisler 1994: 82), and metadiscourse is similarly defined as ‘discourse about discourse. It is the discourse that calls attention either to the relationship between the author and the claims in the text or to the relationship between the author or the text’s readers’ (Geisler 1994: 11). Crismore (1989) identifies instances of metadiscourse fulfilling interpersonal functions that are to do with assessing certainty, expressing attitude towards a proposition, or directly addressing the audience. In this sense then metadiscourse includes the notion of rhetorical process and is perhaps something more. Fairclough (1992) considered metadiscourse to be a kind of manifest intertextuality where the writer in a sense interacts with her own text. This includes the use of hedging with various kinds of markers of vagueness, as well as some means by which other voices are projected into a text. It should be noted, however, that Fairclough does not use the term ‘metadiscourse’ in more recent work on discourse analysis (2003). The common thread seems to be meanings other than ideational ones, meanings that are predominantly interpersonal but may also be textual. In respect to textual meanings that are taken as instances of metadiscourse, this seems restricted to some readily identifiable resources for calling attention to the text as message such as in the following examples from Bourdieu (1991: 71): ‘if you’ll pardon the expression ...’, ‘off the record ...’. However, other resources identified in a functional theory of language as construing a text as message, such as higher-level thematic choices (Martin & Rose 2007), are not so identified in the meta-discourse literature.

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Evaluation in Academic English 21

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

Some of the lack of clarity in identifying resources of ‘metadiscourse’ seems to derive from an understanding of discourse as primarily about the transmission of information (content). Other functions of the text, that is as doing positioning, politeness or alignment work, or as organising a particular kind of message, then need to be accounted for ‘outside’ the discourse proper in some sense. This interpretation is reflected in Hyland’s (2000a) reference to ‘interpersonal meta-discourse’ and ‘textual metadiscourse’. The notion of metadiscourse can be interpreted as a pragmatic response to recognition of interpersonal meaning at the level of discourse, in the same way that ‘hedging’ is used as a pragmatic label for a set of interpersonally functioning grammatical resources. In other words ‘metadiscourse’ is to text as ‘hedging’ is to grammar. The meanings attributed to a notion of ‘metadiscourse’, as it is used in pragmatics, is accounted for in the metafunctionality of SFL theory. Such meanings can be systematically addressed as options within systems of discourse semantics. Where the term ‘‘metadiscourse’ is used in SFL studies it is restricted to instances of semiotic abstraction that label segments of discourse, as in ‘the following chapter’, in line with the interpretation in Bourdieu (1991). In this review of a range of linguistic perspectives on evaluation, I have mapped a number of approaches that have been important in raising awareness of the significance of interpersonal meanings in so-called ‘objective’ academic writing, including studies of rhetorical structuring of academic genres (e.g. Swales 1990; Dudley-Evans 1994, 1997), studies that focus on the grammar of evaluation (e.g. Hoey 2000; Conrad & Biber 2000; see also Hunston & Sinclair 2000), studies of evaluative lexis (e.g. Channell 1994, 2000; Myers 1996; Bednarek 2008), and studies that attend to evaluative language as discourse. In the latter category I include influential studies of hedging (e.g. Hyland 1998, 2000b) and notions of metadiscourse (e.g. Hyland 2005). In this broad mapping of the linguistics of evaluation I have predominantly referred to studies that represent alternative or complementary orientations to that explicated in subsequent chapters in this book. In the section to follow, I attend more closely to the particular theoretical orientation that underpins the approach I take to discourse analysis and to the theorisation of evaluation in academic writing.

1.5 Evaluation as discourse semantics: appraisal In using the descriptor ‘discourse semantics’, I am positioning this discussion within a particular orientation to SFL theory, that represented in Martin (1992a) and Martin & Rose (2007). The concept of discourse semantics is understood as the most abstracted of the three levels or strata

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of language (namely discourse semantics, lexico-grammar, and phonology/graphology). An SFL model of language in context is modelled diagrammatically in Figure 1.2. The model shows language as multi-stratal, that is, as a hierarchical system in which there is a relationship of realisation from one stratum to another. So language is conceived of as a level of whole-text discourse semantics, which is realised as patterns of choices at the stratum of lexico-grammar, which are realised in patterns of choices at the stratum of phonology/graphology (Martin 1992a). Beyond language, too, the theory identifies a stratified context plane, as abstracted meaning potential, with the more abstracted context plane of genre realised by configurations of register (Martin & Rose 2007). Discourse semantic systems function at a more abstract level than do those of the lexico-grammar, so meanings at the level of discourse semantics can be dispersed across a number of different lexico-grammatical systems, a feature that is addressed in detail in relation to the discourse of evaluation in Chapter 3. In this functional theory of language in context, discourse semantics can be understood as the meaning-making space between genre and lexico-grammar, as modelled in Figure 2.1. Within SFL discourse, semantic studies of academic writing tended initially to focus on information structuring or cohesion (e.g. Drury

genre

field

mode textual

Language as ideational

Discourse Semantics Lexicogrammar

tenor interpersonal

Phonology/ graphology

Figure 1.2 Modelling of language in context adapted from Martin & White (2005).

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Evaluation in Academic English 23

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Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

monogloss projection … heterogloss

modality … concession …

affect …

APPRAISAL

ATTITUDE

appreciation … judgement …

force …

GRADUATION focus …

Figure 1.3 Model of APPRAISAL from Martin & Rose (2007).

1991). While this is still an important focus for research (see Ravelli & Ellis 2004; Forey & Thompson 2009), there has recently been an expansion of work on interpersonal meaning in academic discourse (e.g. Hood, 2004a, 2004b, 2006, 2007; Hood & Martin 2007; Coffin & Hewings 2004; Coffin & Mayor 2004; Lee 2008). This expansion corresponds to developments in the theorising of the potential for expressing interpersonal meaning in the discourse semantics of texts. This is modelled as appraisal, a skeletal outline of which is provided in Figure 1.3. I conclude this chapter with a brief history of the development of appraisal and a description of the three complementary dimensions of appraisal as engagement, attitude, and graduation. Because of the centrality of the theoretical model to the explanations of evaluation in this book, relevant features are further explained in subsequent chapters. 1.5.1 The development of appraisal theory Within SFL theory interpersonal meaning at the level of lexico-grammar is analysed as choices in systems of mood and modality, and as attitudinal lexis (Halliday 1994). Early work on interpersonal meaning

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ENGAGEMENT

beyond the level of grammar, that is, in the discourse semantics of texts, focused initially on exchange structure (Berry 1981; Ventola 1987; Martin 1992a; Martin & Rose 2007). However, as Martin (2000: 144) explains, these approaches to interpersonal meaning within SFL tended to omit a detailed focus on ‘the semantics of evaluation – how the interlocutors are feeling, the judgements they make, and the value they place in the various phenomena of their experience’. In the 1980s, a major renewed interest in evaluative meanings in texts began with Poynton’s (1985/1989) work on tenor especially in expressions of affect and variations in the use of vocatives. Of importance also, are early studies of genre building on Labov & Waletzky’s (1967) work on narrative texts (Plum 1998; Martin & Rothery 1981; and Rothery 1990) with interest in the encoding of evaluation across different stages of the narrative. The emergence of the theory of appraisal (Martin 1997, 2000) traces back to Martin’s (1992b) paper, ‘Macro-proposals: meaning by degree’ in which he explores gradable systems in English and points to the fact that choices in a gradable system of meanings always ‘enter into oppositions concerned with the evaluation of experience’ (1992b: 366). The theory was then further developed in the 1990s in research into a range of discourses in schools and workplaces. Studies have been undertaken on the discourses of science (Veel 1998), history (Coffin 2009), administration (Iedema 2003), and the media (Feez, Iedema, & White 2008; White 2003a, 2003b). Applications of appraisal theory also include studies of evaluation in casual conversation (Eggins & Slade 1997), in narratives and in literary response texts (Rothery & Stenglin 2000; Macken-Horarik 2003) and in popular science (Fuller 1998). Fuller’s (1998) work in particular was foundational for more recent developments of the dimension of engagement in appraisal (White 2003a, White 2003b; Martin & White 2005). Recent comprehensive accounts of appraisal can be found in Macken-Horarik & Martin (2003) and Martin & White (2005). 1.5.2 Dimensions of appraisal theory In brief, the system of appraisal is a multi-dimensional one incorporating the expression of values – as categories of attitude, the manipulation of degrees of values – as graduation, and the introduction and management of voices to whom values are attributed – as options for engagement. In the model of appraisal represented in Figure 1.3 the square brackets represent either/or choices and the curly brackets represent options with the potential to be co-construed. Categories of attitude include affect, appreciation and judgement. These categories of attitude can themselves be sub-categorised (see Martin & White 2005). Attitude can be realised

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explicitly in overtly attitudinal lexis, or it can be invoked through indirect means. Graduation addresses the grading of meanings by adjusting the force of a value, or the focus of a categorical boundary (see Chapter 3 for a detailed explanation of graduation and its potential to function evaluatively). As a model at the level of discourse semantics, the systems of appraisal, including attitude and graduation, are realised across a range of grammatical categories. The third dimension of appraisal as engagement draws on Bakhtin’s (1935 [1981], 1986) notion of heteroglossia and identifies system network options for expanding and contracting space for other voices in texts. The resources drawn upon in introducing other voices and in manipulating the heteroglossic space around those other voices include those of projection, modality, negation, and counterexpectancy. 1.5.3 Situating appraisal in SFL The system network of appraisal introduced in Figure 1.3 constitutes one aspect of the broader theoretical framework of SFL. The broader theory models language choices as realising meanings metafunctionally – as interpersonal, ideational and textual meanings. The metafunctions are understood as complementary dimensions of meaning with the implication that changes in one can implicate changes in another. In analysing discourse for appraisal the focus is on interpersonal meaning, with an understanding that other metafunctions will also need to be addressed as patterns of interpersonal meaning are explored. Reference has also been made to a second aspect of SFL theory, that of modelling language as tri-stratal, that is as discourse semantics, lexico-grammar, and phonology/graphology. In analysing evaluation as appraisal we begin at the stratum of discourse semantics. We are concerned with ‘meaning beyond the clause’ (Martin & Rose 2007), that is, with patterns of interpersonal meaning across whole texts and phases of text. Because appraisal functions as a discourse semantic system, the choices within the appraisal network can be dispersed across a range of lexico-grammatical systems. So, for example, expressions of attitude can be realised congruently as adjectives functioning as epithets in a nominal group as in a clear idea, or as an attribute in a relational process as in it is clear. They can be encoded as a noun functioning as the head of a nominal group as in the clarity of their approach, or as a process, as in clarify their thoughts. If we approach this from the other direction we can say that language choices that are diverse in their grammatical structuring can be related systematically as construing

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common discourse-semantic options. The model facilitates an analysis of discourse that can bring together under a coherent framework a wide range of choices in lexis and constructions in grammar, contributing to a more comprehensive and integrated analysis of rhetorical effect or evaluative positioning. To these theoretical explanations we need to add a further consideration of appraisal as a system network of interpersonal meaning choices. The three domains of appraisal as attitude, graduation and engagement are semantic systems that each open into domains of more delicate semantic choices. As Eggins (1994) explains: ... each system in a system network represents a point at which a choice has to be made. The first choice that has to be made (from the system at the most left-hand side of the system network) is called the least delicate choice. (...) As the network extends to the right, we say we are moving in delicacy. (Eggins 1994: 208) The degrees of delicacy built into the system network enable more general or more delicate distinctions to be made in the analysis of data. The level of delicacy chosen for analysis will depend on the questions asked of particular texts and the kinds of differences and similarities that emerge in comparisons across texts. Movement in delicacy from left to right across networks is illustrated for a segment of the system of attitude within the appraisal network in Figure 1.4. The systems of attitude and graduation will be explored at further levels of delicacy as we proceed. Modelling discourse semantics as systems of semantic choices, as in the segment of the system network of attitude in Figure 1.4, identifies that the meaning of any choice is interpreted in relation to the choices that could have been made but were not (see Halliday & Matthiessen 1999 for this discussion in relation to lexico-grammar).

affect

reaction complexity

ATTITUDE

appreciation

composition

judgement

valuation

balance

Figure 1.4

Example of the principle of delicacy in ATTITUDE .

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1.5.4

A logogenetic approach analysing appraisal in discourse

As I begin to explore in detail how academic writers express stance as attitude in the introductions to research articles, there are a number of questions that need immediate attention. One question that needs immediate attention is that of difference – difference across disciplinary fields, across approaches to the activity of research, or across individual writers and their ‘styles’. What can we say about the notion of stance in academic research articles given the potential for difference arising from these and other variables? While there is a considerable body of corpus-based research currently being produced that generalises about differences associated with specific grammatical features or lexis, this is often done without due consideration of the sameness from which difference emerges, that is, without an appreciation of the systems of meaning potential from which different choices are made. Where that is so, findings remain in the realm of description, and rely on intuition for interpretation. The concern in this book is with the interaction of multiple aspects of evaluative meaning realised dynamically across a web of interrelated lexical and grammatical choices, with how language choices co-articulate with each other across the text in making meaning that is more than the accumulation of the meanings construed in each clause. Appraisal theorises patterns of interpersonal meaning choices across whole texts. Detailed studies of the discourse semantics of individual texts contribute to an understanding of the logogenesis of the discourse, that is, of how meaning evolves progressively across a text. As Martin & Rose (2007) argue: [i]n contrast to some views on analysing discourse, we do believe it is important to analyse instances in individual texts. What is unique about a specific text may be just what matters; we don’t want to lose what’s special by only valuing generalizations across a text corpus. Beyond this, as discourse analysts generalise, the tendency at this stage of our work is to lose sight of how texture is construed as a text unfolds, through its particular logogenetic contingencies. (2007: 312) For this reason, and in the absence of more sophisticated tools for the functional coding of discourse than are currently available (Martin

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In subsequent chapters I progressively explore and illustrate the system network of attitude in the introductions to research articles and consider the distribution, nature and role of expressions of attitude. Throughout the book, I draw on the introductions from a range of disciplines as the context for exploring evaluative strategies.

2002a), the research design is deliberately qualitative and interpretive in approach. The orientation is to an in-depth analysis of instances of texts rather than to a quantitative corpus-based study suited to the exploration of the functioning of a small number of features across a larger data set. Essentially there is a trade-off in the choice of approach in the study of discourse that is one of depth versus breadth, or complexity versus generality, and the challenge in this book is to be able to model the complexity in ways that make language choices and discursive strategies accessible to novice academic writers and those who support them.

1.6 Outline of the book In Chapter 2, I begin with an SFL take on the genres of research article introductions. This provides a principled linguistic framework for considering shifts in function and evaluative strategies within introductions as well as variations across individual instances and across disciplines. Chapter 3 provides a detailed account of the modelling of appraisal, attitude and graduation, identifying the ways in which attitudinal expressions can be dispersed across multiple systems of lexicogrammar, and explaining the ways in which the grading of meanings impacts in the construction of evaluative stance. In Chapters 4 and 5, I analyse patterns of evaluative meanings in the discourse, firstly in a particulate or categorical sense in relation to shifts in ideational meaning, then as interpersonal prosodies that propagate across the discourse. In Chapter 6, I explore the issue of variation across disciplines in the ways in which writers work to persuade readers of the legitimacy of their own study. Difference here is not just a question of variations in field but of variations in the kinds of knowledge structures the disciplines represent. Periodically in the conclusions to the following chapters I make some specific comments on how the issues discussed might be recontextualised into pedagogic activities. I conclude in the final chapter with a sketch of a possible research agenda.

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Establishing a Warrant for Research

2.1 Introduction: What is the genre of a research article? What is it that allows us to recognise a text as an introduction to a research article? Is it just that it constitutes the beginning of an article, in other words, would we recognise its function outside that context? Does the recognition hold for introductions that arise from different intellectual fields and different epistemologies and approaches to research? Is there a common social purpose that we identify, and what role does evaluation play in identifying that social purpose? These questions frame the discussion to follow in this chapter. When we describe the opening stage of a research article as an introduction we are giving some indication of its purpose or function in relation to the whole, albeit in a very general sense. However, there is more to be understood about what the social purpose is of this text and what it means to introduce a research report. We could begin an interrogation of purpose in an intuitive way by asking the writers of academic research papers what they want to achieve in their introductions, or perhaps ask ourselves as readers of academic articles what our expectations are. However, beyond such intuition we also need to examine more closely the kinds of choices that writers actually make, in other words to explore the meaning potential of the texts they construct. Here I begin an interrogation of the language of research article introductions from the point of view of genre: what can we say about the genre of introductions to research articles? Given that the introduction is part of a much longer text, a necessary starting point is to establish the boundaries. The beginning of the text can be unproblematically defined as the beginning of the article proper, that is, beyond any abstract. The end point, however, may be less 30

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readily established. Here I have chosen to include as introduction the text up to but not including the commencement of a detailed description of the research in question, canonically a methodology section. Formatting boundaries such as paragraph breaks and/or sub-headings assist, although such boundaries may not always coincide with shifts in the function of the discourse. In some cases one section of the article may be given a heading of ‘Introduction’, but the portion of the text so labelled may not constitute the complete introduction in the terms stated above. Typically, as we will see, the discourse I will refer to in this book as ‘introductions’ include components of background and literature review, as well as a brief preview of the writer’s study. The text functions to establish a point of departure for a report proper. As discussed in Chapter 1, the concept of genre is interpreted somewhat differently across different research and theoretical traditions in linguistics (helpfully differentiated in Hyon 1996). Within the field of pragmatics there is a considerable literature that focuses specifically on genres in academic discourse, including that of the research article. Much of this work has built on the seminal analysis of John Swales (1987, 1990), and widely applied in such studies is the analytic construct of ‘moves’. A differentiation of moves across an introduction (or any other component of the text) is essentially arrived at intuitively, but can then be described with reference to the distribution of some syntactic features that are interpreted as doing the pragmatic work assigned to a ‘move’. However, when not based on a functional theory of language, this gives rise to a theoretically dislocated relationship of syntactic form to interpreted meaning. In this study, genre is approached from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Within SFL, genres have been defined as ‘recurrent configurations of meanings (...) that (...) enact the social practices of a given culture’ (Martin & Rose 2008: 6). This perspective on genre differs from a pragmatic perspective in a number of ways. Perhaps the most fundamental difference to note is the question of the relationship of meaning and language. In SFL this relationship is theorised rather than intuited. Language is modelled as meaning-making systems of choice. So, to the extent that genres are enacted in language, analyses of genres proceed from an exploration of the meaning potentials realised in language choices in instances of discourse. A second aspect of SFL theory that gives rise to a distinction in the ways genres are analysed has to do with the modelling of language as a tri-stratal system, as discourse semantics, lexico-grammar and phonology/graphology (see Figure 1.3). This stratified model of language enables attention to the space between genre and grammar, that is,

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to a systematic attention to patterning of meanings in the discourse semantics of texts. SFL theory offers a much-enhanced potential for relating language choices to meaning than do pragmatic interpretations of syntax. SFL theory also encompasses a metafunctional perspective on meaning, enabling a consideration of the way genres unfold from three perspectives: as shifts in field, as shifts in tenor and as shifts in mode. This provides us with a richer picture of the structuring of texts than is possible in the less than systematic fusing of these perspectives in the singular construct of ‘move’. At the level of genre then, the identification of a text as realising a particular genre and the identification of stages within a genre are arrived at through analysis of patterns of language choices in the discourse. Finally, genres themselves are modelled as system networks of choices that identify shared and contrasted functions in terms of social purposes (Martin & Rose 2008). Here I begin an exploration of the overall structuring of the introductory sections of research articles by identifying patterns of meanings from a metafunctional perspective. I consider the realisation of ideational meanings, textual meanings, and finally interpersonal meanings. To begin with, one text from the disciplinary field of education will be considered in some detail, both as a way of modelling the analysis and in order to establish a base point from which to explore similarities and differences across an expanding set of examples, and of disciplinary contexts. While an analysis of the text structure of a few texts says nothing about typicality, to the extent that multiple texts display similar structuring patterns realising similar social purposes we can build a common point of reference for exploring the nature and role of evaluation in relation to the discourse of research article introductions. 2.1.1 Genre from the perspective of ideational and textual meanings Given the necessary complexity in analysing the patterning of metafunctional meanings in texts, it is helpful to focus initially on one kind of meaning and to build a more complex picture over several steps. I begin here from the point of view of what the writers are writing about, in other words the field of the discourse construed through choices in ideational meaning. [Note that here and throughout the book I use the term ‘writer’ to refer to the producer of the text, and the term ‘author’ to refer to other sources]. Typically we can identify a number of shifts in field as we move through any introductory section of a research article, and at each stage

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the field is presented to us in a particular way. The text [2/12] represents a highly abridged version of a published paper on online learning. The content remains in the sequence it appears in the original although considerable text has been omitted. The minimal changes to wordings to re-establish clause grammar and cohesion are indicated in square brackets. What we are left with is a format that allows us to examine more clearly some features of the introduction and how it progresses, especially in relation to field. [2/12a] Online instruction is a form of distance education delivered over the Internet. [It] is a major breakthrough in teaching and learning. [I]t facilitates the exchange of information and expertise. [But] online instruction [...] may [also] reduce standards or even devalue university degrees. [T]here is little research to accurately determine the benefits and pitfalls of online instruction [...] when compared to the more traditional face-to-face learning environment. [T]he need for research in this area is not only timely, but also imperative. The primary purpose of this exploratory empirical study was to compare an online course with an equivalent course taught in a traditional face-to-face format. [Johnson et al. 2000] In [2/12a], the opening paragraph constructs a representation of the field of online learning across a string of abstract lexis including online instruction – distance education – teaching – learning –information – expertise – online instruction – standards – university degrees. This string continues across the remaining paragraphs – online instruction – face-to-face learning environment – online course – course – face-to-face format. In analysing field as lexical strings (Martin 1992a) we can consider where such strings begin and end across the text. From this ideational perspective alone we might say that the whole text is about online learning. However, it is also necessary to take into account how these meanings are organised in the discourse. From a textual perspective we can consider what ideational meanings are given topical prominence through their foregrounded positioning in the discourse. We find that the initial thematic prominence given to online instruction in the first paragraph shifts to research in the second paragraph, and then again to the writer’s

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own study (the ... purpose of this ... study) in the third. These shifts in orientation to the general field of online learning are indicated in bold in [2/12b]. The text moves through three shifts in field, from a focus on online instruction as the object of study, to a focus on research enquiry to do with that object of study, and finally to the specific study that has motivated the article. The movement in field focus reflects the advice frequently given to novice academic writers that their introductions should move from the general to the specific context of their study. [2/12b] Online instruction is a form of distance education delivered over the Internet. [It] is a major breakthrough in teaching and learning. [I]t facilitates the exchange of information and expertise. [But] online instruction [...] may [also] reduce standards or even devalue university degrees. [T]here is little research to accurately determine the benefits and pitfalls of online instruction [...] when compared to the more traditional face-to-face learning environment. [T]he need for research in this area is not only timely, but also imperative. The primary purpose of this exploratory empirical study was to compare an online course with an equivalent course taught in a traditional face-to-face format. Having identified some shifts in field focus of the text, I want to extend the analysis to be able to say more about the social purpose of the discourse and about the functioning of the different stages in terms of genre. Here it is useful to reclaim more of the original text. In [2/11] I have restored considerably more of the original wording although it still remains abridged. The sections identified (a) to (c) correspond to the shifts in field identified in the paragraphing in [2/12b]. I will explore the functioning of each section (a to c) in turn. [2/11] (a) Traditional or face-to-face instructional environments [...] encourage passive learning, ignore individual differences and needs of the learners, and do not pay attention to problem solving, critical thinking, or other higher order thinking skills [...]. New advances in Internet-based technology have brought challenges and opportunities to education and training, in particular through online instruction.

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Online instruction is a form of distance education delivered over the Internet. [...] [T]his type of instruction is [...] a major breakthrough in teaching and learning [...] [I]t facilitates the exchange of information and expertise [and] provid[es] opportunities for all types of learners in distant or disadvantaged locations [...]. [O] nline instruction is gaining popularity. [But] it is not free from criticism. Many educators and trainers do not support online instruction [...]. [C]oncerns include the changing nature of technology, [...] the lack of stability in online learning environments, and the limited understanding of how much students and instructors need to know to successfully participate. Online instruction [...] may reduce standards or even devalue university degrees. (b) [T]here is little research to accurately determine the benefits and pitfalls of online instruction [...] when compared to the more traditional face-to-face learning environment. [...] Gaining knowledge about the processes and outcomes of online instruction as compared to traditional face-to-face environments will help educators and researchers make more informed decisions [...]. [...] [T]he need for research in this area is not only timely, but also imperative. (c) The primary purpose of this exploratory empirical study was to compare an online course with an equivalent course taught in a traditional face-to-face format. Comparisons included student ratings of instructor and course quality; assessment of course interaction, structure, and support; and learning outcomes. [Johnson et al. 2000] In (a) of [2/11] the writer orients us to the object of study, firstly in terms of a general field of instructional environments. Initially this field is characterised for us as one of change from the traditional to the new. We are presented with a description of a generalised pedagogic world. This focus is then narrowed to the identification of a particular application of Internetbased technology, online instruction, using a definition to do so (Online instruction is a form of distance education delivered over the Internet). The writer proceeds to describe aspects of this phenomenon of online instruction, informing us through their choice of identifying and attributive processes (being and having verbs) about the kind of ‘thing’ it is/is not: is a form of distance education is a major breakthrough is not free from criticism

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and in causal processes about the impact it can have:

While the general field of Internet-based technology has been narrowed to online instruction, this has not been further specified to particular kinds of or instances of application. The entities remain as abstract (e.g. online instruction – distance education) and generalised (instructional environments – learners – educators – trainers – students – instructors – university degrees). From our analysis of field we can say the genre constitutes a descriptive report about the object of study, unfolding across phases of narrowing identification and description (Martin & Rose 2008: 142). In section (b) of [2/11] where the writer foregrounds the field of research activity, we find a similar pattern. Section (b) begins with a classification of a general field of research activity, that which aims to determine the benefits and pitfalls of online instruction and offers a description of such research activity in terms of: amount: there is little research potential: will help educators and researchers significance: is not only timely; [it is] also imperative What is represented here is a general body of research rather than specific studies. This general focus is evident in the abstract processes and outcomes (research – knowledge) and non-specific participants (researchers). Once again we are presented with a descriptive report of a generalised phenomenon. In section (c) of [2/11] the writer shifts focus from a generalised field of research activity to the specific study they have undertaken (this ... study, an online course – an equivalent course) and proceeds to offer a brief description of that study, in: The purpose [...] was to compare Comparisons included student ratings The shift from description of a generalised category of phenomenon to a specific phenomenon constitutes a shift in genre from descriptive report to description (Martin & Rose 2008: 6).

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To summarise, we can say that the introduction [2/11] begins with a descriptive report on the generalised world of online instruction in which the writer intends to situate their study and which will constitute their object of study. A second descriptive report constructs a picture of research in relation to that object of study. This is followed by a shift into the agnate or related genre of description in which the writer moves from an orientation to a general category of phenomena to a specific phenomenon, their own study. This sequence of reports and description in [2/11] constitute what Martin & Rose (2008: 218) refer to as a macro-genre, in other words a text which is made up of a series of genres, potentially of different kinds although here all agnated to report. Given the common descriptive orientation of the component genres in the macro-genre of [2/11] we could perhaps refer to it as a macro-proposition, presenting information about sets of phenomena to contextualise the more detailed account of the research study to come in the proceeding sections of the article. However, before we settle on such labelling of the genre there is more work to be done. To this point we have applied the metafunctional lenses of ideational and textual meaning, to consider unfolding patterns of information. We have yet to apply the metafunctional lens of interpersonal meaning. As Martin & White (2005) explain: [a]s far as generic structure is concerned, from the perspective of interpersonal meaning we are more interested in the rhetorical organisation of a text than its logic. (Martin & White 2005: 33) 2.1.2

Genre from the perspective of interpersonal meaning

Within the frame of reporting and describing, it is clear that a great deal of evaluative work is going on. The writer in [2/11] is not simply constructing fields in neutral ideational terms, but very much in interpersonal terms. The writer describes online instruction for example, as a major breakthrough, that provid[es] opportunities, but raises concerns about a lack of stability and limited understanding. Research is described as able to help ... more informed decisions and as timely and imperative. What is the function of these expressions of interpersonal meaning? How do they influence our consideration of the genre? Expressions of evaluation such as those italicised in the preceding paragraph function as invitations to align and to build relationships of solidarity. We negotiate our relationships through sharing feelings and values (Martin & White 2005; Martin & Rose 2007). We can argue then that the multiple expressions of evaluation in the descriptive reports in

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[2/11] function to encourage the readership to align around the sets of values expressed. In (a) of [2/11] the evaluative representation functions to align the reader with a negative view of traditional modes of instruction (e.g. encourage passive learning, ignore ... needs of the learners), and with a positive view of new modes of online instruction as interesting for researchers because their value is not fully understood (have brought challenges and opportunities, facilitates ... exchange, reduce standards). The evaluative language in this part of the introduction functions to persuade the readership that the choice of topic is important and interesting, that it is a legitimate or warranted ‘object’ for research on such grounds. That which we have analysed from an ideational perspective as a genre of descriptive report, we can now interpret as also having a persuasive function. This stage of the text is functioning therefore as a kind of metaphor; what Martin & Rose refer to as a contextual metaphor: Contextual metaphors, like grammatical metaphors, operate by offering readers a literal “surface” reading implicating one genre, but providing in addition “other genre” indicators signalling the presence of a “deeper” genre lurking behind with a literal surface reading and an underlying metaphorical one. (Martin & Rose 2008: 248) At a surface level we have a descriptive report, but a report that subsumes what van Leeuwen refers to as the function of ‘legitimation’. In this case it constitutes a legitimation ‘by reference to discourses of value’ (van Leeuwen 2007: 91). Similarly in (b) of [2/11] we also find evaluative discourse in the descriptive report on the current state of research in the field. Once again the evaluation functions to encourage readers to align with the writer’s representation of that research as inadequate (there is little), as able to benefit (help make more informed decisions), and as necessary (timely, imperative). A causal relationship is established in the discourse along the lines of ‘more knowledge will help educators and researchers – so there is a need for more research’. The function is to legitimate the need for more research. Once again we have an instance of a descriptive report functioning to persuade or to align readers with the position that further contributions to research around the object of study are warranted. In (c) of [2/11], where the writer briefly describes their own study, we do not find the same level of evaluative discourse. However the work

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in establishing a warrant for the writer’s own study has in effect been established in (a) and (b). The topic is worthy of research, and further research on that topic is warranted. By implication the writer’s own study on this topic is warranted. Here then, accounting for the evaluative nature of the discourse and its potential to persuade the reader as to the legitimacy of the study, I will refer to the macro-genre as a research warrant. As we will see in subsequent examples and analyses in this and other chapters, such a label will enable us to accommodate a range of other genres that are observed as being co-opted into this function. Before we leave our exploration of this first example of an introduction, there is one more feature to attend to, one that is revealed as we finally encounter the original text in full in [2/1]. 2.1.3

Attribution: whose values are represented?

At this point we can consider the complete original version of [2/1], and note that now several additional meanings can be observed. There is, for example, the addition of a subtitle for a section referred to as the Problem statement, followed by a reiteration of the significance of the object of study. The description of the inadequate state of current research is also fleshed out. In a sense this represents more of the same. There are also more markers of logical relations that pertain between parts of the text (e.g. because, while, also, although), adding to the cohesion of the discourse. But the additional information I want to focus on here is the inclusion of voices other than the writer’s. The underlined wordings draw attention to this feature. [2/1] Traditional or face-to-face instructional environments have been criticized because they encourage passive learning, ignore individual differences and needs of the learners, and do not pay attention to problem solving, critical thinking, or other higher order thinking skills (Banathy, 1994; Hannum & Briggs, 1982). New advances in Internet-based technology have brought challenges and opportunities to education and training, in particular through online instruction. Online instruction is a form of distance education delivered over the Internet. For many, this type of instruction is perceived as a major breakthrough in teaching and learning because it facilitates the exchange of information and expertise while providing opportunities for all types of learners in distant or disadvantaged locations (Hill, 1997; Webster & Hackey, 1997).

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Establishing a Warrant for Research

While online instruction is gaining popularity, it is not free from criticism. Many educators and trainers do not support online instruction because they do not believe it actually solves difficult teaching and learning problems (Conlon, 1997) while others are concerned about the many barriers that hinder effective online teaching and learning. These concerns include the changing nature of technology, the complexity of networked systems, the lack of stability in online learning environments, and the limited understanding of how much students and instructors need to know to successfully participate (Brandt, 1996). Online instruction also threatens to commercialise education, isolate students and faculty, and may reduce standards or even devalue university degrees (Gallick, 1998). While these concerns may be unwarranted, there is little research to accurately determine the benefits and pitfalls of online instruction, particularly when compared to the more traditional face-to-face learning environment. Researchers and educators are unsure how students’ online experiences differ from their experiences in face-to-face learning environments. Gaining knowledge about the processes and outcomes of online instruction as compared to traditional face-to-face environments will help educators and researchers make more informed decisions about future online course development and implementation. Problem statement Although the growth of online programs has been significant in recent years, the capabilities and efficacy of such programs have yet to be fully investigated. Most effort in this area has been devoted to program development while examinations of program quality and effectiveness have been anecdotal in nature. With little empirical knowledge about Internet-based education outcomes, the need for research in this area is not only timely, but also imperative. The primary purpose of this exploratory empirical study was to compare an online course with an equivalent course taught in a traditional face-to-face format. Comparisons included student ratings of instructor and course quality; assessment of course interaction, structure, and support; and learning outcomes such as course projects, grades, and student self-assessment of their ability to perform various ISD tasks. [Johnson et al. 2000] Voices other than the writer’s are at times identified explicitly (e.g. Banathy, 1994; Hannum & Briggs, 1982), and sometimes implied (e.g. have been

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criticised; is perceived as; anecdotal). The sourcing of evaluation will be the focus of more detailed analyses and discussions in Chapter 6. However, here it is important to recognise the multi-voiced or heteroglossic (Martin & White 2005, after Bahktin) nature of the discourse of introductions. The option for attributing evaluations to other voices offers the writer the potential to manage the persuasive impact of the discourse. The presence of other voices can, for example, enable writers to represent evaluative positions without themselves committing to those positions. So when a writer reports that, face-to-face instructional environments have been criticized because they encourage passive learning, this does not in itself reveal the writer’s own position to the reader. Writers can also draw on other voices to add authoritative force to a proposed position. We can refer to this as a kind of ‘authorisation’ (Hood 2006; van Leeuwen 2007), as in: Online instruction also threatens to commercialize education, isolate students and faculty, and may reduce standards or even devalue university degrees (Gallick, 1998). [Johnson et al. 2000] An exploration of evaluative strategies employed by academic writers in the introductions to their research articles is the focus of this and subsequent chapters in the book. The discussion is framed initially around the three sub-genres of the research warrant identified above. I consider the kinds of rhetorical strategies that writers employ in instances of each sub-genre. As is the case throughout the book, the introductions are taken from research articles in different disciplinary domains of the social sciences, humanities and sciences [sources are found at the end of the References section]. In this chapter I draw attention to the role of inscribed attitude in the construction of the rhetorical strategies. In Chapter 3 I extend the analysis to explore the kinds of attitude that are expressed and resources for implying an attitudinal meaning.

2.2 The research warrant in different disciplines I began with questions about a shared social purpose across the diverse instances of introductions to research articles. Returning to this question now we can ask whether the general description of the genre as a research warrant as identified in the analysis of [2/1] holds for other instances? Are there similarities in the construction of ‘surface’ genres, that is, in descriptive reports and descriptions? What, if any, variations on the macro-genre can be identified?

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[2/2] Performance in language test tasks can be influenced by a wide range of features, which can interact unpredictably with characteristics of individual test-takers (O’Sullivan, 2000a). Collectively, these influences can be considered as contributing to task difficulty, a topic that has attracted a lot of interest recently (Iwashita et al., 2001; Bachman, 2002; Brindley and Slatyer, 2002; Elder et al., 2002; Norris et al., 2002; Fulcher and Márquez Reiter, 2003; Tavakoli and Skehan, 2003). There remains an assumption in many language testing contexts that test tasks are interchangeable for all sections of the test population. This article explores the question of whether tasks used may result in bias towards or against particular groups of test takers, in the context of the speaking component of the English version of the Graduating Students’ Language Proficiency Assessment (GSLPA) (Lumley and Stoneman, 2000; Lumley and Qian, 2003). In contrast to previous studies, which have examined speaking tests involving face-to-face interaction, this study considers the issue in a tape-based test delivered in a language laboratory, where no interlocutor is present. [Lumley & O’Sullivan 2005] As with [2/1] above, in [2/2] we can identify a sequence of component genres constituting a macro-proposition. An opening stage is identified as a report offering a description of a generalised field of performance on language test tasks. This field of test-taking activity is then recontextualised as a topic for research that establishes the opening of the second section. The second section constitutes a second genre of report. Finally the thematic choice of this article shifts the genre again into a description of the specific study. This sequence of functions is more readily evident in the re-formatted version of [2/21] [2/21] Descriptive report of the object of study (performance on language test tasks)

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Text [2/2] represents a second example of the introduction to a journal article from the general field of education. Here the particular field is that of language testing. This is a relatively short example and is thus able to be reproduced in full here in its original single paragraph formatting.

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Descriptive report of other research (in terms of amount, currency, assumptions) a topic that has attracted a lot of interest recently (Iwashita et al., 2001; Bachman, 2002; Brindley and Slatyer, 2002; Elder et al., 2002; Norris et al., 2002; Fulcher and Márquez Reiter, 2003; Tavakoli and Skehan, 2003). There remains an assumption in many language testing contexts that test tasks are interchangeable for all sections of the test population. Description of the writers’ study (this article; this study) This article explores the question of whether tasks used may result in bias towards or against particular groups of test takers, in the context of the speaking component of the English version of the Graduating Students’ Language Proficiency Assessment (GSLPA) (Lumley and Stoneman, 2000; Lumley and Qian, 2003). In contrast to previous studies, which have examined speaking tests involving face-to-face interaction, this study considers the issue in a tape-based test delivered in a language laboratory, where no interlocutor is present. There is somewhat less evaluative language in [2/2] compared to [2/1]; nonetheless we are able to identify the persuasive potential in the association of issues of interacting unpredictably and task difficulty in the context of the high-stakes world of language testing. The writer thus establishes an initial warrant for the worthiness of the object of study. References to the volume and currency of other research in the field add further to this warrant. The characterisation of these other studies as based on some assumptions constitutes the warrant for more research activity in the field, setting up through a logical relation of reasonable consequence, that the current study is warranted because of its intentions to undertake this additional research activity. Once again we see a pattern of a surface genre of report functioning at a metaphorical level as a research warrant. Text [2/3] comes from quite a different intellectual field, that of chemistry. While the level of technicality is likely to make detailed comprehension impossible for those who are not specialists in this field, we can

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Performance in language test tasks can be influenced by a wide range of features, which can interact unpredictably with characteristics of individual test-takers (O’Sullivan, 2000a). Collectively, these influences can be considered as contributing to task difficulty,

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Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

[2/3] Descriptive report of the object of study (Catalytically modified proteins) Catalytically modified proteins are one of the tools for increasing the efficiency of electron transfer from the active center of an immobilized enzyme to the electrode surface in various biosensors. Descriptive report of other research (e.g. disadvantages and limitations) Earlier studies demonstrated that covalent attachment of a redox mediator to a protein allowed direct electron transfer from the prosthetic groups of the enzyme to the electrode [1]. At present there are many methods of obtaining such modified enzymes, where the redox mediator is covalently attached to either the surface of the enzyme molecule or the prosthetic group itself [2]. The main disadvantages of the approach involving covalent binding of redox mediators and functional groups of proteins are the limited number of attachment sites and modificationrelated changes of the physiochemical properties of proteins. Description of own study (e.g. promising method, easily) Therefore another approach was proposed: coordinative modification of a protein with metal (e.g., Ru or Os) complexes. Coordination of metal compounds with protein histidine residues is the most promising method of catalytic modification of enzymes because the reaction can be performed in aqueous solutions and the products can be easily isolated. [Fedorova et al. 2006] In the descriptive report of the object of study, the catalytically modified proteins are evaluatively described as tools for increasing the efficiency. Other studies are evaluated as having certain disadvantages. The writer’s current study is also evaluatively described as offering a promising method. Here I discuss just a few expressions of attitude in the text. The theoretical explanations and justification for a detailed analysis of expressions of attitude are provided in Chapter 3.

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nonetheless identify stages of the text that correspond to the generic structuring identified above. Once again we can identify a macro-genre of descriptive reports and description. We can also locate instances of evaluative language (underlined) that function to align us with an interpretation that the research is warranted.

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To this point, we have been able to identify a strong correspondence in the few instances of texts explored: each of them displays a macro-generic structuring that constitutes a set of descriptive reports and descriptions. The boundaries between stages of the macro-genre can be determined on the basis of shifts in field or shifts in what is given thematic prominence in the discourse. A consideration of interpersonal meaning as evaluation adds a second layer to an analysis of the genre, revealing the metaphorical function of persuasion and legitimisation. While some level of commonality in the structure of research article introductions is emerging, this is not to say that there will not be variation across instances. It may be that more weighting is given to one or other component genre, that the metaphoric function of the warrant is realised in other than a report or description genre, that the sequence varies or is reiterated, and that in some cases not all three components are instantiated. One particular variation is worth noting at this time, as it appears to be relatively common in research articles from within some disciplines in the humanities, in cultural studies, for example. In this variation a range of genres other than descriptive report are co-opted into the role of persuading that the object of study is of significance. Most commonly the genres that are co-opted into this role are kinds of story genres. Text [2/4] provides an example of such. The article reproduced here with its original formatting opens with a reproduced headline and what appears to be an abridged news story genre, followed by a short personal anecdote (I awoke one morning to find ...), then a commentary on this (The few words in the headline ...). Taken as a whole it constitutes an instance of the genre of exemplum, with the telling of an incident followed by a judgmental interpretation of the incident. This exemplum functions to establish the import of the object of study in an article that addresses science education in a neocolonial society. [2/4] CURFEW Stay at home say police A dusk to dawn curfew began in the NCD last night UNSER SEIGE 3 students dead PM appeals for calm City at total standstill Schools shut until July 9

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Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

[Ryan 2008] While the nature of the ‘surface’ genre has changed from [2/1] to [2/4], from descriptive report to exemplum, at the level of contextual metaphor both texts function to establish the significance of the object of study, and contribute in similar ways to the construction of the research warrant. There are of course other interesting implications that flow from a writer’s choice to represent their object of study as a report genre on the one hand or as a story genre on the other. There are implications, for example, in terms of the visibility of the writer themselves, especially where the writer is a participant in or an observer of the story that is told. This is an issue that I return to in more detail in Chapter 6 in a discussion of differences across disciplines and across kinds of knowledge structures (Bernstein 2000) and legitimation codes (Maton 2000a, 2007, 2009; Hood 2007). It is evident that there is some variation in the realisation of the research warrant from instance to instance and across disciplines. Nonetheless, the typical structuring of an introduction as a macrogenre of descriptive reports and description functioning as a warrant for the writer’s own study does provide a useful framework for considering variation and for a closer analysis of the role and nature of evaluation in the discourse. In the remainder of Chapter 2, I address the question of how we identify the linguistic resources for expressing evaluation as attitude and reflect on the evaluative strategies these expressions function to construct in the genre of the research warrant.

2.3 Identifying attitude in the research warrant Within appraisal theory there are categorical distinctions made in the semantics of attitude between affect or the expression of feelings, appreciation or the valuing of things, and judgements or the evaluation of human character and behaviour. However, before we are able to identify the kinds of attitude that writers express in the introductions to their research articles, we need to consider how we are able to identify attitude per se. I

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I awoke one morning to find a city in turmoil, and later, to see the images of grief stricken families on the television news. The few words in these headlines demand the recognition of the complexity of human relationships that exist in a society struggling with the constant invasion of new ideas, different values, and other ways of understanding the world.

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begin by considering here only expressions of explicit or inscribed attitude. (In Chapter 3 I consider kinds of attitude and the linguistic resources for expression as well as the question of how we can imply or invoke an attitudinal meaning). In identifying instances of inscribed attitude I am guided by the question: does the expression carry an intrinsic positive or negative value, where that value can be graded up or graded down? So, for example, in the following sentence the expression concerned is identified as encoding a negative value. Here and elsewhere in the book I use bold in text extracts to indicate inscribed attitude. The Government is concerned about the decreasing number of male teachers If I apply the test of gradability to the expression concerned I find that the term can be graded up as: The Government is extremely concerned about the decreasing number of male teachers or, down as: The Government is somewhat concerned about the decreasing number of male teachers Applying this process in an analysis of introductions I begin to explore the role played by attitude in the research warrant, identifying instances in each of the three sub-genres of the ‘research warrant’ identified in texts [2/1] to [2/3], namely: ● ●

●

Descriptive report on the object of study Descriptive report / description of research that contributes to knowledge of the object of study Description of the writer’s own study.

This enables us to investigate more closely the kinds of rhetorical strategies that the writers are constructing. In each case I will consider examples from the three broad disciplinary domains of the social sciences, humanities and sciences. What will become evident is that academic writers from across a broad spectrum of disciplinary domains draw on resources of attitude in constructing a warrant for their research.

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Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

Text [2/5] constitutes an introduction to a research article in the field of education. It investigates the issue of teacher gender and its effect on learning. The three parts exemplify the shifts the writer makes from reporting on the object of study in (a), to reporting on research into that object of study in (b), to describing some aspects of their own study in (c). Instances of inscribed attitude are in bold. [2/5] (a) The Government is extremely concerned about the decreasing number of male teachers and male role models, particularly in primary schools and the possible effect on learning and development of both boys and girls in schools. (b) Although there is a relatively more consistent line of research assessing the hierarchical nature of achievement, there is relatively little that examines the hierarchical nature of motivation and engagement and the issue of class-level motivation in the academic context (Midgley & Urdan, 1995). (c) The present study therefore, not only examines the issue of student and teacher gender in motivation and engagement, but also in the same analysis accounts for the hierarchical structure of the data. Hence, the relative contribution of student and teacher gender can be assessed after accounting for variance at student, class, and school levels. This constitutes a powerful analysis of the contribution of teacher and student gender to motivation and engagement. [Martin & Marsh 2005] Here our focus is specifically on part (a) of [2/5]. In this short descriptive report there are two expressions of inscribed attitude, that is, two expressions that inscribe a positive or negative value that can be graded up or down. These are indicated in bold. In the first instance the value is negative and in the second it is positive. The expression concerned carries a negative value. In this case, it is graded up as extremely concerned, but could have been graded down as somewhat concerned or minimally concerned. This negative evaluation is reinforced in a second instance in which the positive evaluation of teachers as role models is positioned

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2.3.1 Attitude and descriptive reports on the object of study: implying significance

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as a negative evaluation of schooling because they have decreased in number. The writers assess the object of study as problematic, although they project this evaluation through an external authoritative voice (the government). They position their own study as warranted on the basis of the significance of their topic. A review of multiple examples of the phases of introductions in which writers report on their object of study (typically the background or rational sections of longer research reports), reveals a common strategy of encoding multiple instances of explicit attitude in order to establish the importance, significance or worthiness of their chosen topic or object of inquiry. The significance of the role of inscribed attitude in constructing a descriptive report on the object of study becomes more apparent when we consider longer phases of text, as in [2/6]. Here the article introduces a study that aims to investigate aspects of teacher professional development. A glance over this extract reveals multiple instances of inscribed attitude, coded in bold. [2/6] A study by Richards, Tung and Ng (1992) characterises teachers in Hong Kong as professionals who feel under-consulted about issues of curriculum and policy. They teach large classes with few resources within demanding curriculum constraints, have considerable amounts of marking and school meetings, and often work in very cramped conditions (p97). Richards, Tung and Ng (1992) also report that teachers appear to be dissatisfied with their lack of autonomy. An example of this frustration can be seen in the perception that teachers are insufficiently consulted about recent government moves such as the introduction of the new curriculum (...). Similarly, the implementation of benchmarks for Hong Kong’s secondary and primary school teachers is another top-down, government led initiative which has been vehemently opposed by the local teachers’ union, as many teachers feel concerned about what they see as a challenge to their professionalism. [Tinker Sachs 2000] The writer persuades us to appreciate the chosen object of study as one of significance or interest through the insistent expression of mainly negative attitudinal positions. The writer not only inscribes attitude in multiple instances but she also amplifies a number of those instances, as in very cramped conditions, and vehemently opposed. The persuasive power of the discourse relies on two means of loading up the evaluative impact, quantifying the number of instances of negative evaluation

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Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

and amplifying the negative value of individual instances. The report is couched in very negative terms, foregrounding the problematic nature of the context. This then constitutes an aspect of the rationale for undertaking research in the field. It is common in phases of descriptive report such as [2/6] to foreground negative evaluations of the object of study. However this is not always the case. Text [2/7] introduces a study that aims to provide a better understanding of processes and outcomes of online learning as an alternative to face-to-face teaching. Here the field is characterised as one of both problem and potential, and hence the inscribed attitude is expressed in both negative and positive terms. [2/7] Traditional or face-to-face instructional environments have been criticized because they encourage passive learning, ignore individual differences and needs of learners, and do not pay attention to problem solving, critical thinking, or other higher order thinking skills (Banathy, 1994; Hannum & Briggs, 1982). New advances in Internet-based technology have brought challenges and opportunities to education and training, in particular through online instruction. Online instruction is a form of distance education delivered over the Internet. For many, this type of instruction is perceived as a major breakthrough in teaching and learning because it facilitates the exchange of information and expertise while providing opportunities for all types of learners in distant or disadvantaged locations (Hill, 1997; Webster & Hackey, 1997). [Johnson et al. 2000] In [2/7] the problematic nature of the traditional instructional environment is inscribed in multiple instances of negative attitude: passive, ignore, do not pay attention to. The potential for the new positive environment is reiterated multiple instances of positive attitude: advances, challenges, opportunities, breakthrough, facilitates, expertise, and opportunities for ... disadvantaged. In this way the writer is again compelling us to align around their chosen focus on the new environment. A similar strategy is evident in [2/82b] where there are also instances of both positive and negative attitude. However, here the sequence is reversed so that the potential positive value is then problematised. [2/82b] Online instruction is a form of distance education delivered over the Internet. [It] is a major breakthrough in teaching and learning.

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Though it is a less common rhetorical strategy in social science texts, it is possible to find phases of text that report on the object of study in consistently positive terms. In [2/9], for example, the writer explores the phenomenon of e-literature in literacy education. The article opens with a highly positive construction of the field as indicated in the multiple inscriptions of positive attitude. [2/9] The current phenomenal success with young (and older) readers of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books confirms the enduring capacity of literary narratives to engage the enthusiasm of young people in the 21st century. But the interactions of many young enthusiasts with the story world of Harry Potter extends well beyond the covers of the books and their movie adaptations, into the world of cyberspace where today’s young people are so much at home. The plethora of Harry Potter websites, many of which are developed and managed by juvenile ‘webmasters’, demonstrates both profound and playful engagement with the book-based narratives through online chat room discussions, reviews and commentaries, as well as avid exploration of new forms of related game narratives, and the generation of adjunct ‘fan fiction’ and image-focused creations elaborating interpretations of the story worlds. (...) [Unsworth 2004] Similarly in [2/10] the issue to be investigated is that of peer tutoring in second-language classrooms. Again the instances of explicit attitude in bold construct the object of study, in this case a given pedagogic strategy that is to be further researched, in highly positive terms. [2/10] Peer review is a useful technique for encouraging revision in writing. It provides a true incentive for students to revise their work. What is more direct and relevant than a peer saying, “This sentence is not clear to me”, or “I don’t understand this part”? Exposing student writers to readers, who are their fellow students not only broadens the audience, but helps develop their critical thinking skills – both as readers and writers. As readers, students read their classmates’

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[I]t facilitates the exchange of information and expertise. [But] online instruction [...] may [also] reduce standards or even devalue university degrees.

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

drafts carefully, make judgments, and attempt to put across their messages clearly so as to help their peers. As writers, they have to listen to their peers, judge the usefulness and relevance of their comments, and respond accordingly. The process enables the writers to reflect on their own writing, clarify their thoughts, and come to a better understanding of the needs and expectations of the readers. Peer review provides the best means for writers to turn “writer-based prose” to “reader-based prose” (Flower, 1979). [Lee 1997] In each of the texts [2/6] to [2/10] the expressions of attitude, be they predominantly positive or negative, function to construct the object of study as of value or significance, and the implication is that further research on that object of study is warranted. The accumulation of instances of inscribed attitude and the frequent grading up of the values function to make the warrant more compelling. The examples in [2/6] to [2/10] are all located in the field of education and within the broad disciplinary domain of the social sciences. Is this rhetorical strategy of compelling reader alignment with the chosen object of study one that can also be identified in other disciplinary domains? In the following sections I consider examples from the humanities and from the sciences. Evaluating the object of study in the humanities

In representing research in the humanities, I have chosen to draw predominantly from journals of cultural studies. My intention here is to attempt to capture writing in the humanities that is discernibly different in certain ways from mainstream social science texts. (A more detailed explanation of the nature of these differences and how they arise is provided in Chapter 6.) In [2/11] the writer is writing a cultural studies text from a post-structural perspective. Here too it is evident that the writer is constructing a compelling case for the object of study, the representation of disability, through multiple inscriptions of attitude (in bold). In this case the value of the attitude is negative and the writer evaluates that object of study as problematic. [2/11] Against the dominant standard, the construction of physical difference as a failing, incomplete and inferior, marks disabled

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embodiment as deeply devalued, not so much for what it is, but for what it fails to be. Its status and meaning are from the start relational, rather than having autonomous standing. Regardless of whether the focus is on the body itself or on the socio-political context, there is broad agreement that far from being a bioscientific fact, disability is a category constituted, given meaning, and expressed through an endless set of cultural, historical, political and mythological parameters that ambiguously define disabled people as excessive, as contaminatory, as at once malign and helpless (...) [Shildrick 2005] An exceedingly negative portrayal is attributed to the dominant standard position on disability (failing, incomplete, inferior, deeply devalued, fails, excessive, contaminatory, malign, helpless). The evaluative language pressures the reader to align with a project to further interrogate such constructions. Some similarity can be noted here to the opening stage in [2/6] above. A similar strategy of compelling alignment around a negative evaluation of the object of study is evident in [2/41], a cultural studies text considered earlier and reproduced here with attitude in bold. [2/41] CURFEW Stay at home say police A dusk to dawn curfew began in the NCD last night UNDER SEIGE 3 students dead PM appeals for calm City at total standstill Schools shut until July 9 I awoke one morning to find a city in turmoil, and later, to see the images of grief stricken families on the television news. The few words in these headlines demand the recognition of the complexity of human relationships that exist in a society struggling with the constant invasion of new ideas, different values, and other ways of understanding the world. [Ryan 2008] In this phase of text, there are both instances of inscribed attitude such as calm, turmoil, grief stricken, as well as instances of invoked attitude,

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Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

for example the reference in the headlines to students dead, or the reference to invasion. The latter category of invoked attitude is the focus of Chapter 3 and will not be discussed further here. Phases of text in which explicit evaluations of the object of study (inscribed positive or negative attitude) are fairly densely distributed are common in introductions to research articles in the social sciences and in the humanities. Where a concern for aspects of the social and human condition motivates the research the background/rationale stage of the introductory section may be relatively extensive, and constitute a substantial proportion of the overall warrant for the writer’s study. Is such a rhetorical strategy also evident in writing in the sciences? Evaluating the object of study in the sciences

The two instances in [2/12] and [2/13] are from journals of building physics and of chemical science respectively. In [2/12], the initial inscription of attitude (more important) functions to evaluate a particular method of analysis. However, other instances in this phase of text are constructing a negative assessment of the object of study – the impact of water and moisture on buildings. The significance of the problem is expressed in the multiple instances of negative attitude. [2/12] Hygrothermal analysis has become more important in building design as moisture damages have become one of the main causes of building envelope deterioration. Water and moisture can cause structural damage, reduce the thermal resistance of building materials, change the physical properties of materials, and deform materials. [Kalamees et al. 2006] In [2/12] the object of study can be appreciated from the perspective of everyday life; the problems to which the article refers are evident to those outside the specialist discipline of building physics. In [2/13], however, the world that constitutes the object of study is that of the chemical science laboratory, and the observations of the problems and potentials associated with that object of study are likely to be evident only to specialist eyes. Nonetheless we can identify the same kind of warrant being constructed through the identification of instances of explicit attitude. The first instance attractive evaluates the choice of research topic in positive terms. This is then substantiated through

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an evaluation of aspects of the object of study. The object of study is constructed as one that offers opportunities (advantage, control, protected, rigid, opportunity) to overcome challenges (without excessive ... problems).

Incorporation of organic molecules such as dyes inside solid matrices is an attractive topic of research because of the photostability and fluorescence quantum yield of the modified materials. An approach in this regard is to incorporate molecules inside silica spheres, the advantage of this kind of nanoscopic containers is that they can be used to control the environment of the molecule. The molecule can be protected from unwanted chemical reactions and the cavity provides a rigid environment for the trapped molecules. Colloidal dispersions of silica shells are optically transparent, providing an opportunity to study the behaviour of the molecules incorporated without excessive light scattering problems. [Rosemary et al. 2006] 2.3.2 Who is evaluating? Before we move on to consider the evaluative strategies that writers use in other parts of the research warrant, it is interesting to note the various ways in which expressions of attitude are sourced in evaluations of the object of study. It can be the writer her/himself that is the source of the evaluation as in [2/14]. In other words the values can be attributed to the writer. [2/14] Hygrothermal analysis has become more important in building design as moisture damages have become one of the main causes of building envelope deterioration. Water and moisture can cause structural damage, reduce the thermal resistance of building materials, change the physical properties of materials, and deform materials. [Kalamees et al. 2006] Alternatively, the values can be attributed to another author/researcher as in [2/15]. In this example, a source, Wachtel, 1998, is identified in a ‘non-integral’ citation (Swales 1990). Non-integral means that the citation is outside of the grammatical structuring of the clause. In such cases the responsibility for the claim can be interpreted as shared by

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[2/13]

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both the writer and the cited author (see Groom 2000; Hyland 1999). The claim that course evaluations cause anxiety is interpreted as projected by the writer and as ‘authorised’ by another source (Hood 2004a; see van Leeuwen 2007).

Faculty course evaluations have the potential to affect professional and career advancement, promotion, and tenure. Few areas in higher education cause more anxiety than course evaluations, and few areas have been studied more for validity and reliability (Wachtel, 1998). [Donovan et al. 2006] Where the referencing is structured as an integral citation, that is, within the grammar of the clause, the responsibility resides with the cited source, as in [2/16]. [2/16] Heymann and Potgietter (...) reported that AS converted to low-molecular-weight organic substrates (e.g., sugars, peptone, amino acids, and fatty acids) can remove phosphate from the influents of anaerobic/aerobic AS reactors used in laboratories. [Ubukata 2007] In some cases the source of the expressions of evaluation may not be specified in terms of individual authors, but stated instead in terms of generalised categories of ‘sayers’ and ‘thinkers’, as underlined in examples from text [2/1] discussed earlier. Many educators and trainers do not support online instruction because they do not believe it actually solves difficult teaching and learning problems others are concerned about the many barriers that hinder effective online teaching and learning. In some cases these other projecting voices are nominalised, for example as kinds of thoughts, as in the underlined expression concerns, in These concerns include the changing nature of technology ...

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[2/15]

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[2/17] Aileen, an eighth grade African-American student in a district with school choice at the high-school level, was having a conversation about the process of applying to high schools with several of her peers and me. She said that it was unfair that they did not admit her to the performing arts school because of her low grades in science and math: “Why do they care about math and science if the school is supposed to teach art? I won’t even need science since I am going to be an artist.” Her statements on the issue cohered with others she had made over the course of the school year expressing frustration that she was required to learn science, as she did not feel that it was going to be useful to here in her chosen life path. [Olitsky 2006] Hood (2004a) refers to this voice as a participant voice and contrasts it to the observer voice that the writer can take up in relation to the object of study, as is evident in [2/4] when the writer tells us: I awoke one morning to find a city in turmoil, and later, to see the images of grief stricken families on the television news. To this point, we have focused on one kind of rhetorical strategy employed by academic research writers in the introductions to their research articles. We have considered the possibility of constructing a research warrant around the worthiness of the object of study in terms of its intrinsic interest or significance. We have noted that such an argument typically involves the expression of explicit positive or negative values, and that these values are often amplified through multiple instances of attitude and/or by grading up the intensity of the values expressed. I return in Chapter 3 to the questions of how attitude is identified in the discourse, what kind of attitude is expressed and how it is expressed. However, I first want to consider some other possible component genres of the research warrant.

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Another projecting voice is still present, although less apparently so. Finally, it is possible for the evaluations of the object of study to be attributed to a participant (other than the writer), a participant from within the field of the object of study itself. In [2/17], for example, the writer brings the voice of one of the subjects in her study in to the construction of the warrant for her topic in the underlined instances.

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A second kind of evaluative strategy used in the introductions to research articles functions to persuade the reader that knowledge of the object of study is unresolved, contested, or open to new ways of understanding. In other words, in reporting on current knowledge in the field the writer identifies space for new knowledge. There is a knowledge ‘gap’ to use John Swales’ oft-quoted term (Swales 1990). Typically such a strategy is associated with a literature review section where the relative contributions of other knowers and other knowledge are represented, related and evaluated. This representation is typically constructed over several phases of text as a number of subfields of literature and/or multiple research studies are reviewed. The essential nature of this kind of evaluative report can be captured in a single summative clause complex as evident in [2/18] and [2/19]. The explicit attitude indicated in bold functions to evaluate other research (not the object of study as was the case in the initial component genre of descriptive report). [2/18] ... there is little research to accurately determine the benefits and pitfalls of online instruction, particularly when compared to the more traditional face-to-face learning environment. [Johnson et al. 2000] [2/19] Although there is a relatively more consistent line of research assessing the hierarchical nature of achievement, there is relatively little that examines the hierarchical nature of motivation and engagement and the issue of class-level motivation in the academic context (Midgley & Urdan, 1995). [Martin & Marsh 2005] In both [2/18] and [2/19] the writers report on the insufficiency of attention to particular questions that the researcher has chosen to explore. Their specific strategies vary somewhat. In [2/18] the writer claims inadequacy in the current body of research in the field on methodological grounds, implying a need for accuracy. In [2/19] the claim of inadequacy is linked to one of imbalance, with one line of study (around achievement) being able to achieve a relatively consistent approach, while another (around motivation and engagement) does not. The implication is that

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more research is needed to redress an imbalance, and hence inadequacy, of research on motivation and engagement. A third strategy that is identified in relation to this reporting on the research literature is that of the emergence of new and as yet inadequately explored conceptual or theoretical space in which to conduct research. In other words, inadequacy is not constructed as one of questionable methodology (as in [2/18]), or of a relative imbalance of attention (as in [2/19]), but as one of inadequately theorised or inadequately interpreted constructs. Such a stance is illustrated in [2/20]: [2/20] These orientations are very encouraging. However, I feel that the new approaches also have proposals which will be less fruitful, and that these result from an insufficiently clear understanding of what it means to say that language is learned by using it. [Painter 1986] In other instances writers persuade that knowledge is unresolved by establishing that other research has been unable to arrive at definitive or consistent findings as in [2/21] and [2/22]: [2/21] Of the many who have looked at the relationship between age and performance in universities none has as yet produced a definite answer to the apparently simple question ‘Do mature students do better or worse than younger students?’ [Woodley 1985] [2/22] Also, while Eaton (1980) cites nine American studies which confirm the academic superiority of veterans, there is some contradictory British evidence. Mountford (1957) found that ex-service students who entered Liverpool University between 1947 and 1949 were more likely to have to spend an extra year or more on their courses and more likely to fail to complete their course. [Woodley 1985] Texts [2/18] to [2/22] all constitute examples of descriptive reports of other research, and in each case the writer relies on a particular kind of evaluative strategy. The writers all establish some sense in which the other

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research leaves space for new knowledge. The state of knowledge around the object of study is represented as unconvincing, inconclusive, unbalanced, inappropriate or contested in some respect. On this basis, each writer constructs a second aspect of the warrant for their own study. Most of the examples so far of reports on other research have been relatively short texts. If longer examples are analysed for attitude and compared with longer examples of reports on objects of study, it becomes apparent that writers tend to rely less on instances of explicit attitude in the former than in the latter. In reporting on the contributions to knowledge from other research there are proportionately fewer instances of explicit attitude and in some cases none at all. Text [2/23] illustrates this relative scarcity of explicit attitude. The phase of text presented here provides a description of one study in particular, a study by Green, 1997, in which there is just a single inscription of attitude in the opening clause. [2/23] Green’s recent intensive study of ten students and their literacy experiences during the Year 6/Year 7 transition (Green, 1997) has more in common with the methodological perspectives of the present project, though it was smaller in scale, focused on a particular dimension (literacy), and not offering the comparative and (eventual) longitudinal scope of the 12 to 18 Project. Green’s study offers a case study exploration of the experiences of ten different students, and in doing so moves on from narrowly defined ‘literacy practices’ to uncover a number of broader issues which make up these students’ school literacy experiences, particularly peer relations, friendship, bullying, and homework. [Yates 1999] In [2/23] there is only a single instance of positive attitude in intensive, yet it is probable that a reader would continue to read the text beyond this instance as doing evaluative work. It would seem, for example, that the fact that Green’s study is smaller in scale is a negative assessment, while the fact that it uncovers a number of broader issues is positive. These evaluations are not instances of inscribed attitude. There is nothing intrinsically attitudinal about size (smaller) or amount (a number of). There is clearly another resource at work here that is functioning to imply or invoke an attitudinal reading. In Chapter 3 I focus specifically on this issue and explore the linguistic choices that function in this

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way. For now the point to note is that writers tend to use fewer instances of inscribed attitude when referring to other research studies and/or the researchers that report on them. Do we find the same kind of rhetorical strategy employed in this subgenre in the humanities and in the sciences? Do writers in those disciplinary domains also construct warrants for their research along the lines noted above? Creating space for new knowledge in the humanities

Text [2/24] is an extract from the introduction to an article in a cultural studies journal. In this phase of the introduction the writer is establishing space for new knowledge. [2/24] Yet, whilst the study of consumer culture has notoriously expanded in a multitude of interdisciplinary directions over the past two decades (Miller 1987, Featherstone 1991, Slater 1997, Nava et al. 1997, Lee 2000, Schor and Holt 2000) academic studies of, or indeed engagements with, anti-consumerist activism have been sparse. Most academic work has tended to focus on histories of consumer activism (Hilton 2003), and the little study of contemporary anticonsumerism there is available is often more celebratory than critically interrogative. [Littler 2005] In [2/24] the writer establishes a space for new knowledge firstly on the basis of an imbalance and lack of attention to particular practices (anticonsumerist activism). In that sense it reflects the strategy evidenced in [2/18] or [2/19], although the writer concludes with a further line of persuasion around the quality of research, as insufficiently critically interrogative. In Text [2/25] we find evidence of a somewhat different strategy for establishing space for new knowledge. This text comes from the introduction to an article about science education in Papua New Guinea. The article is published in a cultural studies journal on science education. Here the writer reports on two particular contributions from the literature, but in each case the writer is not reporting on the findings of the other studies so much as the theory that underpins them – postcolonial theory. The writer represents this theory as offering ways to new knowledge through a new gaze on the world being researched.

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Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

Crouch et al. (2004) show how postcolonial theory can provide the means to create a context that frames established bodies of information in a new way (p. 87). This is important in the context of science curriculum development because it allows us to think beyond the narrow and deadening influences of economic rationalist objectives and Western theoretical frameworks that are often taken for granted in current practice. ... . Further, Hickling-Hudson et al. (2004) argue that “The ‘post’ in postcolonial does not imply that colonialism has ended, but rather that its aftermath is contested. It does imply a space for moving beyond the negative patterns that persist after colonialism began” (p. 2). [Ryan 2008] The sources and the theoretical orientation those sources promote are evaluated positively in that they enable a movement from negative to positive influences on the construction of knowledge. The exceptionally high level of abstraction in [2/26] makes it more difficult to interpret the writer’s strategy. He maps out the major paradigms of scholarship that have shaped perceptions of the object of study, in this case the notion of disability, rejecting past strategies in favour of current orientations in which environmental and social factors are taken to construct the conditions of disability. The emergence of the new orientation to disability offers the writer space for new knowledge. In this sense it shares some commonality with the rhetorical strategy evidenced in [2/25]. [2/26] Following Foucault’s explication of the emergence of modernist normativities held in place by the binary power of normal/abnormal, disability scholarship has charted a break between earlier models that are driven by the religiously inspired and superstitiously expressed notions of human perfectibility and a god-given nature, and a medical model that still retains a privileged place in contemporary mainstream culture. More recently, that latter discourse has been increasingly displaced by the social model of disability that reads the imposition of normativities in an entirely different light and effects a politicization of the problematic. In place of the pathologized embodied individual, environmental and social factors are taken to construct the conditions of disability. [Shildrick 2005]

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● ●

●

claims of inadequacy on methodological grounds; claims of imbalance in lines of study; or insufficiency in some directions of study; emergence of new and as yet inadequately explored conceptual or theoretical space.

However, all strategies are not equally prevalent. Within cultural studies texts, for example, it is more difficult to locate the third strategy above, that is, the creation of space for new knowledge in terms of lack of definitive or consistent findings in the existing body of research. This is an issue to which we will return in Chapter 6. There are some other important variations that need to be considered, and these include different means by which a similar strategy can be enacted. Such differences can be seen across disciplines but also to some extent within disciplines. One is the issue of the extent to which attitudes are expressed explicitly which is discussed further below. Another is the question of the sourcing of or attribution of the evaluations, discussed further in Chapter 6. Before we move on, however, we have yet to consider evidence of the strategies writers can use in creating space for new knowledge in the sciences. Creating space for new knowledge in the sciences

If we turn to the sciences we can also find strategies employed similar to those identified above. In [2/27] the writer relies on inscribed negative attitude to reject certain approaches to research of the object of study as showing neglect of the real variation. He also implies inadequacy of other research in addressing particular issues, namely high temperature treatment of wood. [2/27] In literature, the models describing the water migration in wood are usually 1D or 2D, which neglect the real variation of thermophysical properties in 3D. Most of the models are developed to simulate conventional drying, and there are few reported studies on the modeling of high temperature treatment of wood. [Younsi et al. 2006]

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What is becoming apparent is that a common set of strategies can be identified in diverse disciplinary areas. Across the social sciences and humanities we can find evidence of:

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

In [2/28], the writer does not rely on evaluative description to imply a space for new knowledge. Instead he uses more direct means, making an overt claim that the findings of previous studies open up space for, in fact necessitate, more research. The line of reasoning evident in [2/28] is illustrative of the process of hierarchical knowledge-building in the sciences where new knowledge integrates other knowledge (see Bernstein 2000; Maton & Muller 2007), a process famously described by Newton in the seventeenth century as ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ (see Muller 2000). [2/28] A number of researchers (...) solved the equations describing the drying process separately for each phase (gas, liquid and solid). These equations contain various thermophysical properties for each phase. More experimental work is necessary for the determination of these properties. [Younsi et al. 2006] As in examples considered earlier from the social sciences, so in science texts we also find many instances of descriptive reports of other studies in which there is minimal inscription of attitude. The phase of text in [2/29] provides such an example. [2/29] In most studies that have analyzed indoor hygrothermal loads, the indoor climatic data is measured for only a particular short period, while outdoor climatic data are retrieved from a meteorological station. To assess sufficient critical loads during different seasons, a measurement over a year is necessary. To point out the possible influence on ventilation systems and envelope assemblies, these different variables should be ascertained by measurement. When the outdoor climatic data is retrieved from weather stations, the possible differences in the microclimate might not be taken into account. [Kalamees et al. 2006] Even when the ideational meanings are inaccessible to us as readers from outside a specialised field of discourse, we can often recognise the functioning of the genre. Extract [2/30], for example, is from a highly specialised and technical text in the field of microbiology. It is likely to mean little to most of us in terms of content. However, we can recognize the inscribed positive attitude in bold and the invoked negative

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evaluation underlined (discussed further in Chapter 3), and it is readily apparent that the writer is constructing space for new knowledge on the basis of gaps in the research field.

It is known that ruthenium complexes of type [Ru(LL)2XY] (Fig. 1) and metallocyclic ruthenium and osmium compounds of type [M(C~N) (LL)2]PF6, where LL–bpy or phen and X–Cl–, Br, or CO2 –3, can be readily coordinat[ed] to oxidases, such as glucose oxidase of the fungus Aspergillus niger [2, 3] or horseradish peroxidase [4]. Coordinative binding occurs between the histidine residues of the protein and metal complexes possessing appropriate ligands. However, virtually nothing is known about the potential of Ru(II) complexes as redox mediators of laccase (monophenol, dihydroxyphenylalanine: oxygen oxidoreductase, EC 1.14.18.1). ... [Fedorova et al. 2006] The examples observed here suggest that the strategy for persuasion based on presenting knowledge in the field as contested or unresolved is one that is drawn upon by writers across a diverse range of disciplinary domains. It is also apparent that this rhetorical strategy can be achieved with little reliance on inscriptions of attitude. In these components of the macro-genre the writers do not work to compel the reader to align with their position by piling up the inscribed attitude. Rather they tend to rely on less overt means to construct space for new knowledge. The means by which they do so is explained in detail Chapter 3 in a discussion of graduation. 2.3.4

Previewing and evaluating one’s own study

The final stage of the macro-genre of the research warrant is typically a short transition stage to a detailed description of methodology. In this transition stage the writer provides a brief report on their own study, as a means to establish that they are able to contribute new knowledge in the field. In (c) of [2/5], reproduced here, the writer shifts the focus from other research to their own research. The writer implies that their own research is relatively comprehensive (... not only ... , but also ...) and consolidates this implication in an instance of amplified positive value in powerful. Here the writer constructs a warrant for their own research on the grounds that they can make a contribution to knowledge in their field.

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[2/30]

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The present study therefore, not only examines the issue of student and teacher gender in motivation and engagement, but also in the same analysis accounts for the hierarchical structure of the data. Hence, the relative contribution of student and teacher gender can be assessed after accounting for variance at student, class, and school levels. This constitutes a powerful analysis of the contribution of teacher and student gender to motivation and engagement. [Martin & Marsh 2005] This strategy to establish the current study as well-positioned and hence warranted is a very common final rhetorical move in the introductions to research articles. In some cases writers explicitly evaluate their own study with expressions of positive attitude, as in [2/5]. In other cases they rely more in implicit means for evaluation as in [2/31] (these other means are discussed in Chapter 3). [2/31] The aim of the present study was to extend Walker’s work to all British universities so that these and other relationships could be tested out on a much larger sample of mature students. [Woodley 1985] In [2/31] the writer makes his case for his own study in terms of the methodology employed. Elsewhere this kind of warrant may be constructed more in terms of the contribution or impact of the study, as in [2/32] and [2/33]. [2/32] Gaining knowledge about the processes and outcomes of online instruction as compared to traditional face-to-face environments will help educators and researcher make more informed decisions about future online course development and implementation. [Johnson et al. 2000] [2/33] The aim of this paper is to present a description of discourse in the specific genre of MBA seminar classes. Such description can be of value to EAP course designers in (...) business study courses.

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[2/5]

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Moreover, course designers in other social studies areas and disciplines may find the description useful.

It appears that where the case for the writer’s own study is made with reference to its impact or contribution, as in [2/32] and [2/33], there is likely to be more reliance on inscribed attitude. Where the writer’s case for his/her own study is made in terms of the method or theory, as in [2/31], the evaluation is more implicit. It also becomes apparent that in longer introductions (including those in research reports or theses) this kind of strategy might be reiterated at several points throughout an introduction as a writer positions their own study as relative to others along a number of dimensions. Previewing and evaluating one’s own study in the humanities

Once again we can consider whether the rhetorical strategy discussed above is evident in instances of introductions from other disciplinary domains, firstly within the new humanities, and in particular from the intellectual field of cultural studies. As with some of the specialised discourses of the sciences, [2/34] is also likely to prove a challenge for those reading from outside the discipline. Here it is not so much a question of a high level of technicality, as a high level of abstraction. Nonetheless it is quite possible to identify the rhetorical functioning of this phase as one in which the writer distances himself from previous approaches in favour of a new angle on an issue. [2/34] Alongside the return of the disabled body to challenge the hegemony of socio-cultural determinations, I offer, then, a further complication. Where previous approaches speak to external discursive power – albeit embedded in the individual consciousness – as the motor of change, I seek to supplement and reconfigure the problematic by engaging with the operation of psychic elements. [Shildrick 2005] Writing in a post-structuralist tradition, modernist notions of knowledge as a singular construct must necessarily be countered – that is, there must be acknowledgement of multiple knowledges arrived at from multiple gazes on the world (see Hood 2007). Taking such a perspective, the writer in [2/35] puts considerable effort into describing both previous studies and his own in tentative terms. ( Such instances of tentativeness are discussed as an aspect of graduation in Chapter 3.)

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[Basturkmen 1999]

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In the light of these provisos that nothing can be known with certainty, and that any emergent discourse is contaminated by contemporary partialities, my own analysis must remain open. Nonetheless, certain tendencies are broadly supported by the available evidence, and they will be supplemented by a more overtly speculative approach. [Shildrick 2005] The writer describes previous research as offering certain tendencies that he broadly support[s], even though they are necessarily contaminated by contemporary partialities. His own study is described as not just adding to that which has gone before (supplemented) but doing so in a different manner (more overtly speculative). In [2/36] the writer also offers his own study as an improvement upon what has gone before: [2/36] This, in turn, it is hoped, might enable us to consider, in a more complex and nuanced way, some of the problems and possibilities of moving further ‘beyond the boycott’. [Littler 2005] Writers have a number of strategies available to them in the positive evaluation of their own studies. The evaluations can be constructed in terms of offering new orientations, or in terms of the potential for application and impact. In general though, common to all is a claim of potential to contribute knowledge in a field, that is, new ways to understand an object of study. Previewing and evaluating one’s own study in the sciences

As we found in the social sciences and in the humanities, writers in the sciences also typically include a transition phase at the end of their introductions in which to establish that their own study can make a contribution to knowledge. Sometimes they rely on explicit attitude to do so as in [2/37], [2/38] and [2/39]. [2/37] Hence spectroscopy of these materials offers a fascinating area of research. [Rosemary et al. 2006]

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[2/35]

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In this work, we study the potential of coordinative modification of Coriolus hirsutus laccase with ruthenium complexes for development of a new biocatalyst generation combining an enzyme and a redox mediator. Such enzyme–redox-mediator systems can be used in biosensors for increasing the sensitivity by means of direct bioelectrocatalysis. [Fedorova et al. 2006] [2/39] The main goal of this study is to describe the high temperature thermal treatment of aspen wood by introducing a simple 3D diffusion model. In this way, transport is treated in all of the three anatomical directions of wood (longitudinal, radial, and tangential). The advantage of this simple model is that it contains less unknown constants, or in other words, we need less experimental work to determine the constants of the model, compared to Luikov’s model (Younsi et al., 2006). The suggested model is an attempt to improve the description of the coupled heat and mass transfer process during the thermal treatment of wood. It covers the entire range of moisture content, below as well as above the FSP. [Younsi et al. 2006] In [2/39] the writer’s own study is evaluated positively on the grounds that it has a methodological advantage that aims to improve understanding of a process.

2.4 Conclusion and implications for pedagogy In this chapter I identify the generic structure of the introductions to research articles as constituting a macro-genre, that is a genre that is itself comprised of a number of sub-genres. At a surface level those sub-genres typically include a descriptive report of the object of study, a descriptive report and or descriptions of other research and knowledge in the field, and a brief description of the writer’s own study. When we attend to an analysis of interpersonal meaning in the discourse, it becomes apparent that there is a second layer of function in the discourse beyond description, and that is the function to persuade the reader that the writer’s study is warranted. This persuasive function is typically realised in a sequence of rhetorical

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[2/38]

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strategies: persuading the reader that the object of study is of some significance; persuading the reader that there is space for new knowledge in the field; and finally, persuading the reader that the writer’s own study can make a contribution to knowledge. This layering of social function is referred to as a contextual metaphor (Martin & Rose 2008). There is very strong evidence for the consistency of the function of introductions as research warrants, although there are variations in how this is realised from instance to instance. The weight given to any one of the sub-genres within the research warrant may vary from article to article, as a consequence of the interaction of a variety of factors including discipline, topic, research approach and perceived strength of other arguments. A strategy of one or other kind may constitute a single sentence, as in [2/37], or a more substantial proportion of an introduction, as in the [2/39]. It is also apparent that some disciplines are more open to a range of genres being employed in the service of establishing the significance of the object of study. In cultural studies, for example, story genres are frequently co-opted into this function. There is considerable variation in the grounds upon which writers build a case for new knowledge, or for the value of their own study. While each rhetorical strategy is built to some extent on expressions of attitude, the reliance more less on inscribed or invoked attitude can vary, as does the density of attitudinal language across strategies, typically being considerably denser in the description of the object of study than in the description of other research. There is variation too in the proportion of positive or negative evaluations and the degree to which they might be amplified or made more tentative. Some comments on the potential for interpretation into pedagogic practices

The focus of this chapter is on genre, a construct that has proved to be highly effective as one on which to base interventionist literacy pedagogies. One of the key aspects of the genre-based pedagogy that emerged from the collaboration of language and literacy educators and systemic functional linguists begun in Australia in the early 1980s, and that is modelled as a teaching and learning cycle in Figure 2.1, is the deconstruction of model texts with students. The stage of deconstruction involves a close attention to texts that constitute models of the kind of genre to be written, attention to the generic staging of the text, to the ideational meanings that construe the field, to the interpersonal meanings that express the tenor, and to the textual meanings that

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G CONTEXT SETTIN

ONSTRUCTION DEC

TIO

INT JO

N

SETT ING

Figure 2.1

C

CONTEXT

Teaching-learning cycle modelling literacy pedagogy (Rothery &

Stenglin 1994: 8).

organise the message. This stage is followed by one of joint construction, or a guided collaborative development of an instance of the genre, as a step towards independent construction. The design of this pedagogic strategy draws deliberately on Bernsteinian sociology of education and the theorisation of pedagogies as visible or invisible (Bernstein 1975; Martin 1999; Bourne 2003). This pedagogic model for literacy teaching, sometimes referred to as the ‘Sydney school’ model (Hyon 1996) has since been adopted in many parts of the world in literacy teaching in multiple languages and sectors. It is very relevant in the context of English for Academic Purposes, and it is anticipated that the explication of the genre of the introduction to published research articles offered in this chapter will assist those offering academic language support to model texts for students and to jointly deconstruct them with students. One important issue that often arises in preparation for pedagogic modelling and deconstructing is the elusiveness of effective and appropriate model texts (Atkinson & Curtis 2000; Swales 2009). The analyses

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O

NS

LD

NS

TR UC

FIE LD

ti

l or tio ienta

TR UC TION

TEXT

BU IL DI NG

Cri

ca

to

GENRE

n

To

s contro l

G CONTEXT SETTIN

ard

of

w

E FI

CO

ING LD BUI

INDEPENDENT

G CONTEXT SETTIN

BUILDING FIELD

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

in this chapter suggest a number of ways forward. By identifying a common general social purpose (establishing a warrant for one’s own research) that holds across the introductions to research articles, as well as to other modes (e.g. research report or thesis), an introduction to one mode can provide a means to model strategies relevant to other modes. Provided a selected text is accessible in terms of field, and with modification as required, teachers can model the strategies that writers use to persuade their readers of the legitimacy of their research effort. As a macro-genre, we can work with selected sub-genres to model components of the whole, and with phases of those sub-genres (as illustrated in this chapter) to generate manageable segments of text for novice writers. The analyses provided in this chapter can of course also function as models for teachers to construct their own texts. It is hoped that the analyses of genre in this chapter assist in filling in some of what Swales (2009) refers to as: the “missing middle” ground between macro-advice about how to go about the whole enterprise in general (...) and micro-advice about such matters about [sic]the placement and form of citations (...) or particularistic accounts of disciplinary preferences for reporting verbs (...) and the like. (Swales 2009: 7) More of this missing middle ground is addressed in the subsequent chapters. Remaining to be investigated are questions about the kinds of attitude that characterise the introductions to research articles and how expressions of attitude might vary according to the rhetorical strategy being employed. However, before those questions can be addressed, we need to investigate more closely the linguistics of attitude, the focus of Chapter 3.

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3

3.1

Analysing attitude

In Chapter 2, I approached the issue of evaluation in academic writing from the perspective of genre. The introduction stage of research articles is identified as a macro-genre, as a linked series of sub-genres. An analysis of the macro-genre of the introduction reveals a contextual metaphor (Martin & Rose 2008). At a surface level the text typically presents as a series of descriptive reports and/or description, although other genres such as a variety of story genres are also evident. These reports, descriptions or stories are infused with evaluation and so function at another level to persuade the reader to align with the writer’s representations. At a metaphoric level the macro-genre of an introduction functions to legitimise the writer’s own study. We can say that it functions as a warrant for their research. In this chapter I pay closer attention to how the evaluation is expressed in academic writing with reference to appraisal and in particular to the domains of attitude and graduation. As I enter a more detailed exploration of appraisal theory, it is important to distinguish the technical use of terms, especially where those terms also have a commonsense usage, as in attitude, force or focus. By convention, small caps are used in system network diagrams to refer to the names of discourse systems. The chapter begins by addressing issues to do with the identification of expressions of attitude, distinctions between different kinds of attitude, and how attitude can be expressed more or less forcefully and more or less directly. In subsequent chapters I consider how particular patterns of choices in the expression of attitude function to construct particular kinds of rhetorical strategies and associate with the different parts of the research warrant. 73

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Writing with Attitude

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The evaluative nature of the research warrant is illustrated in Chapter 2 in examples from a variety of academic disciplines. The coding conventions used in the analyses include boldface to indicate explicit attitude and italics to indicate graduation.1 However, as yet I have not offered any explanation or justification for the underlying analyses. I now need to explore more closely the linguistics behind the identification of instances of inscribed attitude. To do so requires a shift down from the level of genre to the stratum of discourse semantics in the model of Systemic Functional Linguistics. From this perspective we are concerned with the choices and patterns of meanings across the discourse, and in particular with the choices and patterns of interpersonal meaning, in other words with the concerns of appraisal theory. The theory becomes a point of reference as we identify and code ways in which writers express evaluative meanings as texts unfold. 3.1.1

Coding and subjectivity

As I undertake a closer investigation of appraisal as expressions of attitude and expressions of graduation2 it is important to note that the analyses are justified on theoretically principled grounds. However, at the same time it is acknowledged that coding decisions are also reliant on readings of the context and the co-text in which the instance occurs. In other words, the reader or analyst is positioned in relation to the encoding of evaluation in texts and will react to texts from that positioning. This analyst, for example, as a member of the academic discourse community is inclined to read references to a study as ‘relatively small in scale’ as implying some kind of evaluative position with respect to that study. However, as an inexpert reader of certain intellectual fields, the analyst may miss evaluative codings specific to a field, or may read evaluation where a categorical or technical meaning is assumed. This is not to say that any reading of a text is equally justified. Texts are seen as construing a ‘naturalised’ or ‘ideal’ reader position (MackenHorarik 2003; Martin 1995). Macken-Horarik (2003) cites Chatman (1978) reminding us that ‘the real reader is a position not a role’. The ideal reader: is an idealised position projected by the text itself which sets the terms of the interaction with the reader and makes particular subject positions more or less likely or preferred. (Macken-Horarik 2003: 287) The actual reading of the text may be against this ideal or naturalised position; a reader may take up a tactical, resistant, or compliant position

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(Martin 1995). Nevertheless, the writer employs a range of discourse strategies to encourage a particular reading. Appraisal theory provides a framework for the analysis of these evaluative strategies in texts.

An initial distinction is made in appraisal between inscribed attitude, that is, attitude expressed directly or explicitly, and invoked attitude, that is attitude expressed indirectly or implicitly (Martin 1997; Martin & White 2005). Inscribed attitude is identified on the grounds of polarity and gradability. We are interested in expressions that carry a positive or negative value where the intensity of that value can be adjusted up or down by degree. In the following examples the words in bold are identified as carrying the polarity indicated in square brackets. (a)

Hygrothermal analysis has become important [+] in building design (b) There is a consistent [+] line of research (c) the conditions are cramped [–] (d) disabled embodiment is devalued [–] (e) The Government is concerned [–] about the decreasing number of male teachers In their original form the bolded values were all graded up or intensified. The resources for intensification are italicised. (a1)

Hygrothermal analysis has become more important [+] in building design ... (b1) There is a more consistent [+] line of research (c1) The conditions are very cramped [–] (d1) Disabled embodiment is deeply devalued [–] (e1) The Government is extremely concerned [–] about the decreasing number of male teachers

3.2.1

Grading attitude through pre-modification

In all the examples (a1 to e1) above the values are graded through premodification. In example e1 above, the negative evaluation concerned is graded up as extremely concerned, intensifying the negative ‘feeling’. It could have been graded down as, for example, somewhat concerned, thus lessening the negative intensity. Similarly in (c1) cramped could have

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3.2 Identifying and grading inscriptions of attitude

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been downgraded in intensity as a little cramped, and so on. The grading of attitudinal meaning with resources of pre-modification can then be further fine-tuned with additional pre-modification, so (b1) could become relatively more consistent, emphasising a restricted context and so constraining the amplification of attitude. While each of the instances of attitude in (a1) to (e1) are intensified through pre-modification, there is one variation that we should note. In (c1), (d1) and (e1) the attitude as it is expressed here represents an evaluation made with reference to the evaluator’s scale of values. The evaluation of the conditions as very cramped is a value judgement that is made apparently with reference to what the writer considers to constitute cramped. In (a1), however, the positive evaluation more important is represented in relative terms, in other words it is intensified with reference to the value of something else; something else that is considered relatively less important. This distinction is mentioned at this point as it can have significance in the context of research writing. Hood (2004a) notes that intensifying a value as very, in contrast to intensifying as more, can function to construct the evaluator as an observer who expresses a personal assessment, rather than an investigator who is making a claim apparently based on some assessment of comparative difference. Of course, an evaluation of conditions as very cramped can also be attributed to others, as was the case in the original context for this example: A study by Richards, Tung and Ng (1992) characterises teachers in Hong Kong as [...] often work[ing] in very cramped conditions (p.97) [Tinker Sachs 2000] In this case, the basis for the evaluation of the conditions as very cramped is not available. The ways in which writers manipulate the intensity of expressions of evaluation and represent them as sourced to themselves or to others is something we return to throughout this and subsequent chapters in analyses of phases of discourse. These few examples so far just begin to make apparent the extensive resources offered in the systems of appraisal for meaning by degree (Martin 1992b). 3.2.2 Grading attitude through infusion The examples so far have involved some kind of pre-modification of the inscribed attitudinal term, but it is possible to grade attitude by other means. In the following examples, intensity is infused into a single lexical term. The infusion is then unpacked for each instance.

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We can also infuse two separate values into the one expression. We could positively evaluate something as innovative and successful or we could fuse these two evaluations into a single nominalised expression: a breakthrough [breakthrough = innovative + successful] This expression can then be intensified with a further attitudinal choice that pre-modifies the nominalisation, and that pre-modification can itself be intensified: an important breakthrough [innovative + successful + important] a major breakthrough 3.2.3

Grading attitude through repetition or listing

A quality can also be intensified through repetition, either repetition of the same expression of value (as in say ‘what a brilliant, brilliant movie’) or by stringing together a list of inscribed attitudinal resources that represent related values. The evaluative stance being reported is intensified through sustaining the positive or negative values over multiple instances of attitudinal lexis (see Martin & White 2005:20). ... the explicit privileging of wholeness, independence and integrity ... as a failing, incomplete and inferior In summary, intensification as the grading of a feeling or value is encoded in multiple ways in the data. By considering these various grammatical realisations from a semantic perspective, we are able to consider how they function in the rhetorical strategies that writers employ in establishing a warrant for their own research.

3.3

Categorising attitude

The further step in analysis is to determine the kind of attitude that is expressed. Martin & White (2005) sub-classify attitude into three kinds: as affect, expressing a positive or negative feeling or emotion, as judgement, expressing an evaluation of character and behaviour, and as appreciation, expressing the quality of something. These broad

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this constitutes a powerful analysis [strong + more] these materials offer a fascinating area of research [interesting + more] demonstrates profound engagement with ... [deep + more]

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

categories of attitude can be further sub-classified as kinds of affect, judgement, and appreciation. Martin & White (2005) identify the subclassifications represented in Figure 3.1 and extend them to further levels of delicacy. As with any system network within SFL, a principle of delicacy applies so that movement from left to right across the networks represents more general to more specific choices. In analysing expressions of attitude in data we can select an appropriate level of delicacy depending on the questions we are asking of the data. We might choose to begin at a less delicate point to distinguish expressions of affect in contrast to appreciation or judgement. A more detailed analysis could then make reference to a greater level of delicacy in the network to explore the kinds of affect expressed. While analyses of attitude typically progress from left to right, from less to more delicacy, it is also important to note that an analysis at a more delicate level may assist in the less delicate categorisation. In other words, a decision to analyse an expression as appreciation might be assisted by identifying what kind of appreciation it would represent. In [3/1], a descriptive report on the pedagogy of peer teaching from an education journal, all three kinds of attitude are represented. The

un/happiness in/security affect dis/satisfaction dis/inclination normality social esteem

capacity tenacity

judgement social sanction

veracity propriety

valuation appreciation

complexity reaction

Figure 3.1 Sub-categories of ATTITUDE as affect, judgement, and appreciation.

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kind of attitude is added to the polarity coding in the square brackets following each instance.

Students learn to become more autonomous [jud: + capacity] writers as they are prepared to write without the help of a teacher (...). Through collaborative learning, students can gain a better understanding [jud: + capacity] of their peers’ difficulties [jud: – capacity] in writing, and as a result they may gain more confidence [aff: + security], make writing a more positive [app: +valuation] learning activity, and help students develop greater independence [jud: + capacity] in writing. [Lee 1997] 3.3.1

Object of study and kind of attitude

The kinds of attitude expressed when writers are reporting on their object of study will depend on a number of variables, including the specific focus of the study. So in classroom-based research into a particular pedagogic practice as in [3/1] a descriptive report on the object of study generates attitudinal expressions of appreciation, affect and judgement, evaluating practices, as well as related feelings and the capacities of students. The object of study is also likely to suggest whether an expression is to be read as attitudinal or as an experiential term within a given field. Contrast, for example: the osteopath manipulated the patient’s back to relieve the pain figures can be manipulated to suggest greater support In some cases without co-textual support, it may be difficult to identify whether a term is being used solely as a categorical meaning or whether it is also evaluative. Consider, or example, the terms traditional and face-to-face in the opening of a phase of text related to educational practices in [3/2]. While our reading position, as discussed in 3.1.1, may orient us to read these as potentially positive or negative or simply as non-evaluative, we are soon to recognise the value to be implied by the writer as we proceed into the phase: [3/2] Traditional or face-to-face instructional environments have been criticized because they encourage passive learning, ignore individual

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[3/1]

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differences and needs of learners, and do not pay attention to problem solving, critical thinking, or other higher order thinking skills (Banathy, 1994; Hannum & Briggs, 1982).

In this case experiential meanings are pushed in the direction of attitude through co-textual encoding of inscribed attitude. A similar invocation towards an attitudinal reading is achieved in instances of contrast, as in: the research takes a qualitative rather than quantitative approach The teacher ... reads students’ essays for assessment purposes rather than for real communication indirect conclusions on the physiological state of the host can be drawn by [x], whereas a direct view can be gained by [y]. The contrast constructs the two experiential meanings as having different values. The implication is that one of the underlined experiential terms be read as positive and the other as negative. 3.3.2

Discipline and kind of attitude

In general we can anticipate a broader range of kinds of attitude in describing the object of study in socially oriented research, including expressions of affect, appreciation and judgement, than is the case in the sciences, where a material focus is likely to generate more appreciation. In [3/3] from the introduction to a building physics journal the object of study is the impact of moisture on buildings. Here the evaluation is consistently of entities and so expressed as appreciation (dominantly negative). [3/3] Hygrothermal analysis has become more important [app: + valuation] in building design as moisture damages [app: – valuation] have become one of the main [app: + valuation] causes of building envelope deterioration [app: – valuation]. Water and moisture can cause structural damage [app: – valuation], reduce the thermal resistance [app: – valuation] of building materials, change the physical properties of materials, and deform [app: – valuation] materials. [Younsi et al. 2006]

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[Johnson et al. 2000]

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Similarly, appreciation dominates in the evaluation of the object of study in a text from a chemical science journal [3/4], in which the field is one of molecules, dyes and solid matrices. In this text the evaluation is positive appreciation as valuation.

Incorporation of organic molecules such as dyes inside solid matrices is an attractive topic of research because of the photostability and fluorescence quantum yield of the modified materials. An approach in this regard is to incorporate molecules inside silica spheres, the advantage of this kind of nanoscopic containers is that they can be used to control the environment of the molecule. The molecule can be protected from unwanted chemical reactions and the cavity provides a rigid environment for the trapped molecules. [Rosemary et al. 2006] 3.3.3 Genre and kind of attitude The genres that are co-opted into the task of representing the object of study are also significant in this regard. They too can associate more or less with particular disciplines, and their preferred methods of research. For example, in Chapter 2 it was noted that story genres are often employed in the introductions to research articles in some areas of the humanities. Story genres typically encode more personalised expressions of attitude as affect or as judgement, as in [3/5]: [3/5] CURFEW Stay at home say police A dusk to dawn curfew began in the NCD last night UNDER SEIGE 3 students dead PM appeals for calm [jud: +normality] City at total standstill [app: –complexity] Schools shut until July 9 I awoke one morning to find a city in turmoil [app: – complexity], and later, to see the images of grief stricken [aff: – happiness] families on the television news. The few words in these headlines demand [app: + valuation] the

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[3/4]

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recognition of the complexity [app: – complexity] of human relationships that exist in a society struggling [aff: – security] with the constant invasion of new ideas, different values, and other ways of understanding the world.

There are also significant differences in kinds of attitude associated with different stages in the research warrant, with a preference for appreciation rather than affect or judgement when writers are reporting on or describing other research in their field (Hood 2004a, 2004b, 2006; Hood & Martin 2007). I return to this issue of the patterns of inscribed attitude in the research warrant in the next chapter, but first there are some additional explanations needed in relation to the ways in which attitude can be encoded. 3.3.4 Some issues in differentiating kinds of attitude In many cases the categorisation of inscribed attitude as affect or appreciation or judgement is unproblematic. In other cases a tension is felt between two of the categories. So, for example, we may recognise a tension between the following two instances. It is an interesting question for research We are interested in researching this question While the grammar constructs the first example above as appreciation (evaluating the entity – a question for research), and the second as affect (expressing a feeling), there is an association. The question is appreciated as interesting on the basis of a response we have to it. This example points to an important issue in discriminating kinds of attitude in an appraisal analysis, and that is that we can differentiate from two complementary perspectives: from a typographic perspective where we distinguish between bounded categories, so as either affect, or appreciation, or judgement; and from a topographic perspective where we differentiate domains of meaning like spaces on a map, some kinds of affect are akin to some kinds of appreciation, some kinds of appreciation are akin to some aspects of judgement, and so on. In our pairing of interesting / interested above, the expression of appreciation in interesting is an example of the sub-category of appreciation: reaction. It is this sub-category of appreciation that sits closest to affect from a topographic perspective (Martin 2000). In [3/6], from an article in a cultural studies journal that problematises the ways in which societies have constructed ‘disabled embodiment’, the writer treads a fine line between negative appreciation and negative judgement.

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[Ryan 2008]

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Against the dominant standard, the construction of physical difference as a failing [–app], incomplete [–app] and inferior [–app], marks disabled embodiment as deeply devalued [–app], not so much for what it is, but for what it fails [–app] to be. Its status and meaning are from the start relational, rather than having autonomous standing. Regardless of whether the focus is on the body itself or on the socio-political context, there is broad agreement that far from being a bioscientific fact, disability is a category constituted, given meaning, and expressed through an endless set of cultural, historical, political and mythological parameters that ambiguously [–app] define disabled people as excessive [–jud], as contaminatory [–jud], as at once malign [–jud] and helpless [–jud] [Shildrick 2005] The phase opens with a strong pulse of negative appreciation in failing, incomplete and inferior. The attitude is constructed as appreciation in that what is evaluated here grammatically is not people but the abstraction ‘the construction of physical difference’. The writer could have written but did not: Against the dominant standard, the construction of people with physical difference as a failing, incomplete and inferior. Nonetheless we feel the appreciation–judgement tension. The expressions of failing and inferior here evaluate the concept of physical difference but would more commonly associate with an evaluation of people. It is a kind of latent, pending judgement. The somewhat impersonalised stance to this point is also maintained in the absence of human appraisers in this construction. Prosody of negative appreciation is further propagated (Lemke 1998) in deeply devalued and fails where what is appraised is the concept of ‘disabled embodiment’ (here, too human appraisers are absent) and it is reiterated in the final clause where ambiguously evaluates parameters not disabled people. However, at this point the tension is resolved as the attitude shifts into a strong, amplified pulse of explicit negative judgement. Finally it is people who are represented as being negatively judged by others as excessive, contaminatory, malign and helpless.

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[3/6]

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A further feature of attitude that needs to be considered in analyses of evaluation in academic writing is the way in which it is encoded in language. The congruent form for the expression of attitude is adjectival, but as a discourse-semantic system attitude can be expressed through a range of grammatical structures. Here it is expressed as an attribute in a relational clause: teachers appear to be dissatisfied hygrothermal analysis has become more important proposals that will be less fruitful However, we need to look beyond this structure to identify expressions of attitudinal meanings. The nominalised nature of academic discourse would even suggest that qualities are more likely to be expressed in noncongruent ways. Attitudinal qualities can, for example, be expressed as an epithet in a nominal group: a demanding curriculum very cramped conditions profound and playful engagement The quality of importance, expressed in academic research writing across all disciplines, is often encoded in such a structure, frequently selecting from one of a small set of preferred lexis, as in: the key difference a central role the basic advantage the primary goal the main problems a core reason a significant consequence or as a nominalised quality functioning as head noun in a nominal group: the problem is the basic advantage is the general difficulty of certain other refinements

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3.4 Grammatical resources for inscribing attitude

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providing opportunities for the phenomenal success of

a society struggling [aff: – satisfaction] with constant invasion of new ideas this clarified [app: + composition] the relationship between they neglected [jud: – capacity] to observe woman’s conversational practices One further comment on analysing kinds of attitude is the importance of reference to the co-text and the grammatical construction of the clause rather than reliance simply on the lexical choice. Take for example the lexical choice neglect. In the example above it is analysed as negative judgement: social esteem [– capacity], as carelessly not doing. However, the judgement would become one of social sanction [-propriety] if wilful negligence were expressed, as in: they deliberately neglected to account for this data And in the following example neglect no longer expresses judgement, but has shifted to negative appreciation: the models neglect the real variation The appraised in this case is the models, not those who designed or deployed the models. What could have been expressed as negative judgement of people is de-personalised as negative appreciation of things.

3.5 Attitude by degree: graduation We have already noted that attitude is concerned with gradable resources for expressing feelings and values. The model of appraisal outlined in Martin & Rose (2007) identifies two senses in which attitude may be graded. The first is that of force, which has to do with degrees of intensity or as Martin refers to it, ‘turning up the volume’ (Martin 2000: 148). The second is that of focus, which has to do with sharpening or softening the boundaries of a categorical meaning. Here I will examine more closely how the semantics of force and focus are realised grammatically in the context of research article introductions, beginning with attention to force.

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Processes can also be infused with attitudinal meaning, as in:

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3.5.1 Force: intensifying and quantifying experiential attributes

a very influential study of classroom discourse a fascinating area of research define[d] ... as excessive, as contaminatory, as at once malign and helpless In these examples attitude is encoded congruently, that is, qualities are expressed adjectivally. However, academic discourse is typically constructed with a relatively high degree of nominalisation and this will also impact on the expression of attitude. Attitude is expressed as a nominalised quality in: The methodology showed certain other refinements The phenomenal success of ... The advantage of this approach is ... When attitude is expressed in this way it can also be scaled through pre-modification, through combining or infusing of different values in a single term, or through repetition: There has been considerable interest in ... perceived as a breakthrough (as innovation + success) The privileging of wholeness, independence and integrity Whereas pre-modification of an attitudinal quality intensifies that quality, the pre-modification of a nominalised quality functions to quantify rather than to intensify. So, while very interesting represents intensification of a quality, considerable interest represents quantification of a ‘thing’, the interest is quantifiably more. We can distinguish then between force as intensifying and force as quantifying, as in Figure 3.2. In following conventions for the labelling of discourse-semantic systems I use small caps in the system network figures. As will be made clearer in section 3.6, in the discussion that extends the role of graduation to that of invoking attitude, quantity may incorporate meanings of number, size, volume, mass, or extent.

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We have identified that attitude can be graded in intensity through resources of sub-modification, infusion or repetition, resulting in a more or less compelling claim by the writer:

Writing with Attitude

Force: intensifying processes attitudinally

Alongside qualities and their nominalisations as abstract entities, we also find attitude expressed as processes. We have already seen that processes may be infused with an attitudinal meaning (clarified = made + clear). A process may also acquire an attitudinal meaning with a circumstance of manner: they measured the improvement ... they measured precisely the improvement ... Stillar (1998) suggests that it is circumstances of manner, rather than other circumstantial meanings, that tend to do interpersonal work in that there is ‘[no] inherent “way” ’ in which the process may be conducted, and the ‘speaker’s selection of certain manner adverbs will be a trace of their own positional attitudes and evaluations’ (Stillar 1998: 36). While I will argue below that other kinds of circumstances also offer evaluative potential, it is clear that manner circumstances are in a sense intrinsically interpersonal. The force of the attitude may then be adjusted through sub-modification in the circumstance of manner, as in: they measured very precisely the improvement ... The circumstance of manner allows adjustment to the depth or intensity of ‘doing’, ‘feeling’, ‘thinking’ or ‘saying’ (encoding degrees of effort, strength, diligence, and so on). The process plus circumstance of manner may also be re-construed as part of a nominal group, as in: the precise measurement of ...

intensifying FORCE GRADUATION

Figure 3.2(a)

quantifying

Building a system network of GRADUATION.

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3.5.2

87

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intensifying a quality intensifying intensifying a process quantifying an entity

FORCE

Figure 3.2(b)

quantifying

Building a system network of GRADUATION.

The development of the network begun in Figure 3.2(a) can now be extended in Figure 3.2(b) to capture this choice in intensifying of attitude expressed as processes and circumstances of manner. 3.5.3

Focus: adjusting the sharpness of boundaries

The explanations and examples to this point illustrate some semantic options in grading attitude as force. The second dimension to graduation is that of focus. Grading attitude as focus involves the sharpening or softening of the categorical boundaries of experiential phenomena, that is, of non-attitudinal meanings. As such it functions to encode attitude indirectly or to invoke attitude. However resources of focus can play a role in pre-modifying inscriptions of attitude, as in the italicised wordings in the examples below: the utterly deadening influences of economic rationalist objectives demonstrates absolutely profound engagement with offer a really fascinating area of research It seems that if an expression of attitude is infused with intensification (as is the case with deadening, profound, and fascinating) it is redundant to further intensify with pre-modification, as in very fascinating. Instead we find resources of focus filling this role, as in completely fascinating. In the first two examples above the focus resource in italics encodes fulfilment of the categorical meaning. The third, really fascinating, expresses a degree of authenticity of the categorical meaning as valeur (Martin & Rose 2003 refer to focus as ‘fine-tuning valeur’ where valeur derives from the Saussurian sense of a meaning in relation to the system of choices within which it is an option; a meaning in relation to what could have been meant but wasn’t). The discussion of options for focus

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GRADUATION

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authenticity

FORCE

valeur

GRADUATION FOCUS

Figure 3.2(c)

Building a system network of GRADUATION.

in the system network of graduation will be discussed in greater length shortly. Here, however, we can begin to flesh out some choices available to us in Figure 3.2(c). In the relatively small set of examples explored we have already encountered a rich range of resources for adjusting degrees of attitudinal meaning in research articles. The system of appraisal in SFL theorises a distinction within graduation between grading as force or grading as focus. To this point I have considered how resources of graduation function together with choices of inscribed attitude in research paper introductions. In phases of discourse in which writers construct their object of study as a worthy context for research (see Chapter 2), we have noted a tendency to load up inscriptions of attitude to build a compelling case. This loading up may involve the accumulation of multiple instances in a phase of discourse, and/or it may involve grading up the value of individual instances. A comprehensive system of graduation will be built up throughout the remainder of this chapter. However, before doing so we need to shift attention away from attitude that is inscribed or expressed overtly and directly, to our potential to imply or invoke an attitudinal reading, that is to signal to a reader to interpret an experiential meaning evaluatively.

3.6

Graduation as force: experiential meaning by degree

In discussions of inscribed attitude earlier in the chapter the focus was primarily on phases of texts in which the academic writers are reporting on their object of study. In that context inscriptions of attitude are frequent, often relatively dense and amplified. Now, as we consider the ways the writers invoke attitude, in other words express attitude less directly, it is helpful to focus on phases in which writers are reporting on other research. It is in such contexts that the resources for invoking attitude come to the fore. Phases of discourse that appraise other research or researchers are typically

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[3/7] Green’s recent intensive study of ten students and their literacy experiences during the Year 6/Year 7 transition (Green, 1997) has more in common with the methodological perspectives of the present project, though it was smaller in scale, focused on a particular dimension (literacy), and not offering the comparative and (eventual) longitudinal scope of the 12 to 18 Project. Green’s study offers a case study exploration of the experiences of ten different students, and in doing so moves on from narrowly defined ‘literacy practices’ to uncover a number of broader issues which make up these students’ school literacy experiences, particularly peer relations, friendship, bullying, and homework. [Yates 1999] In [3/8], the writer reports in a general way on a range of other thematically related studies and sources. [3/8] ... whilst the study of consumer culture has notoriously expanded in a multitude of interdisciplinary directions over the past two decades (Miller 1987, Featherstone 1991, Slater 1997, Nava et al. 1997, Lee 2000, Schor and Holt 2000) academic studies of, or indeed engagements with, anti-consumerist activism have been sparse. Most academic work has tended to focus on histories of consumer activism (Hilton 2003), and the little study of contemporary anti-consumerism there is available is often more celebratory than critically interrogative. [Littler 2005] Both [3/7] and [3/8] function to align the reader with the writer’s position on the relative contribution of other studies in their field. Yet in both instances there is a noticeable absence of inscribed attitude; just one instance in [3/7] inscribes positive appreciation: complexity in intensive. How do the writers construct an evaluative stance in the absence of explicit attitude? By what means can writers invoke an attitudinal reading? The dominant means by which this is achieved in academic

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associated with literature review sections of introductions. Here the task for the writer is to construct space for new research and new knowledge. Such phases of discourse can describe in some detail and at some length one or more specific studies of special relevance. In [3/7] the writer reviews a study of particular relevance to her research.

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writing is through the grading of experiential or ‘objective’ meanings. The grading of non-attitudinal meanings signals to the reader to interpret the discourse evaluatively. Martin & White (2005) describe this as ‘flagging’3 an attitudinal interpretation. As has already been noted in this chapter, resources for grading attitude are themselves gradable, as in quite successful / very successful / extremely successful or more successful. The graduating terms – quite, very, extremely, or more – retain an evaluative potential even when they are used to grade experiential, that is, non-attitudinal meanings. When ‘objective’ experiential meanings are adjusted with resources of graduation, that is when they are intensified or quantified, those objective meanings take on a subjective potential. The writer is constructing a subjective orientation towards an objective meaning. In effect the writer is ‘subjectifying the objective’ (Hood 2004a, 2004b), and in doing so signals (or flags) to the reader to read the meaning evaluatively. However, because the graded expression does not carry an intrinsic positive or negative polarity, in other words is not an inscription of attitude, the reader needs to look beyond the graded instance to the co-text or to the field to determine the polarity of value to assign. In [3/7] the writer begins with a positive evaluation of Green’s study as intensive, then signals a shift in polarity in the concessive though. In this co-textual context (as well, of course, as in a broader context of academic research) the reader is encouraged to interpret the writer’s flagged evaluation in smaller in scale and not ... longitudinal as negative and is thus encouraged to dis-align with the study in these respects. The dynamic then shifts back to a positive value as the study is described as not operating with narrowly defined definitions and as encompassing broader issues. Here the reader is encouraged to adjust their alignment again towards a more positive stance. The evaluative potential of these and other resources are explained below as the network of graduation is further developed. I begin by revisiting the network choices articulated to this point, namely those of force as intensification or quantification, and focus as valeur and fulfilment, to consider how these options are taken up in academic research writing to invoke attitude. 3.6.1 Force: intensifying experiential meanings Intensifying experiential attributes

Attributes that do not inscribe a positive or negative value may be intensified, as exemplified in the following examples: (a) an action-oriented approach to the study of teaching (a+) a very action-oriented approach to the study of teaching

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In (a), action-oriented functions as a classifier in the nominal group an action-oriented approach. It answers the question – what kind of approach? – and encodes an experiential sub-categorisation of meaning. In (a+), however, the addition of the pre-modifying very shifts the function of the expression from classifier to epithet in the nominal group. It now addresses the question – what is the approach like? The amplification of the description implies a subjective, evaluative assessment. A similar shift is at work in (b) and (b+): (b) a traditional face-to-face learning environment (b+) a more traditional face-to-face learning environment Infusing processes with circumstance of manner

In 3.5.2, I considered how processes may be enriched through circumstances of manner, circumstances that can then be intensified, such as in read very carefully. However, this intensification of a process can also be achieved less overtly where an infusion of manner is implied, invoking a reading of increased effort, vigour or rigour. One set of common lexical choices in academic research writing reflects this potential to grade rigour. The research process itself may be variously described as one in which the researcher ... looks at considers examines explores investigates Some choices such as look at or consider construe a more neutral, non-evaluative meaning. Other choices such as examines, explores, or investigates infuse some sense of greater intensity of activity. They can be interpreted as flagging an interpretation of look at + thoroughly. Intensifying a proposal

There is one further dimension of graduation as intensification that does not function to grade an entity or a process, but to grade the entire proposal. Here ‘proposal’ is understood in Halliday’s terms as a ‘demand for good or services’. In its most congruent form such a demand may be construed as a command, realised in imperative mood choice: do it / don’t

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92

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do it. We also have available to us resources of modality as modulation (Halliday 1994) by which means we can express the semantic space between do it and don’t do it, spaces that have to do with degrees of obligation and inclination, and typically realised as modal operators (have to, must, need to, and so on). Resources of modality function in relation to the whole clause. Modalisation functions to grade probability and usuality in propositions, and modulation functions to grade obligation and inclination in proposals. Graded modulation is exemplified in: it should be taken into account it has to be taken into account it must be taken into account Resources of modulation (which is the concern here, modalisation being discussed later as a resource for focus) can also be expressed metaphorically – as interpersonal grammatical metaphor (Halliday 1994). Meanings of modulation can be encoded in processes: this necessitates that we take into account ... this encourages us to take into account ... or in attributes, as in: it is necessary that it is essential that we take into account ... it is vital that we take into account ... The grading of modulation in the three examples above pushes towards an interpretation as inscribed attitude. In the latter two instances the necessity is amplified and at the same time fuses with a meaning of important. These are interpreted as inscribed appreciation: valuation. 3.6.2

Invoking attitude: quantifying experiential meanings

Experiential meanings can be intensified to invoke attitude. They can also be quantified to express a subjective slant and to flag an evaluative reading. In [3/9] the writer uses multiple instances of graded quantity (in italics) as the sole means for aligning the reader positively towards his own study, in the final phase of an introduction in a research article on the performance of mature students at universities.

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[3/9] The aim of the present study was to extend Walker’s work to all British universities so that these and other relationships could be tested out on a much larger sample of mature students.

Already it is evident that quantification of meanings can implicate different lexico-grammatical systems. Some resources are especially frequent in academic writing, especially where that writing reports on other research. The list below is a small sample of expressions for grading meanings with non-specific expressions of quantity (see Channell 1994; Myers 1996). The examples will be readily recognisable and the list could be greatly extended with a quick survey of literature review sections of a collection of research articles, especially perhaps in the social sciences. many studies few studies more research some minimal amount of research relatively little attention several differences a much larger sample large numbers quite a number of sources a small number of studies a relatively small number of subjects The evaluative implication is even more apparent where the quantification is amplified, as in: some minimal amount of research very few studies or where relativity is added, as in: more research a much larger sample a relatively small number of staff

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[Woodley 1985]

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or where the coding of quantity implies a number or proportion relative to a whole, as in:

Where there is an additional coding for (in)sufficiency, the invocation is pushed into inscription, as in: not enough empirical evidence inadequate attention to In some cases a specific number may also invoke attitude if there is co-textual support, as in [3/10] where the figure of 240 is within the prosodic domain of the positive evaluation best and picks up that positive value. The nature of interpersonal prosodies is discussed in detail in Chapter 5. [3/10] Walker’s (1975) study of mature students at Warwick University represents the best British attempt to unravel the relationship between age and performance. He took 240 mature undergraduates who were admitted to the university ... [Woodley 1985] In relation to inscribed attitude we have already noted that one means for amplification is repetition or listing. This strategy can also apply to non-attitudinal meanings. For example, a proposition or claim may be attributed to multiple sources that are listed in the text, as in: (Mendonça & Johnson, 1994; Mittan, 1989, Mangelsdorf, 1992; Stanley, 1992, Tipper & Malone, 1995) The piling up of attributed sources in this way can give weight to or imply greater validity of the proposition or claim they are included to support. In some cases the quantification is implied, as in the italicised wordings: (such as White 2003) Christie (2000), for example, ...

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most of these studies were based on ...

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Meanings of amount can also be infused in processes that then function to invoke a positive appreciation of the phenomenon being described:

Such processes may also be re-construed as part of a nominal group: an increase in the number of ... an expansion of applications One further resource for quantifying an entity is to elaborate the parts or components of a whole. For example, in [3/11] the description of a research methodology is elaborated as a number of steps or processes, as in the underlined expressions in the following extracts. [3/11] Walker’s (1975) study of mature students at Warwick University represents the best British attempt to unravel the relationship between age and performance. He took 240 mature undergraduates who were admitted to the university between 1965 and 1971 and compared their progress with that of all undergraduates. This gave him a reasonably large sample to work with and the timing meant that the results were not distorted by any ‘returning servicemen factor’. His methodology showed certain other refinements. First, he excluded overseas students. Such students tend to be older than average and also to fare worse academically (Woodley 1979), thus influencing any age/performance relationship. Secondly, he used two measures of performance; the proportion leaving without obtaining a degree and the degree results of those taking final examinations. Finally he weighted the degree class obtained according to its rarity value in each faculty. [Woodley 1985] The elaboration of steps in a methodology functions to imply an appreciation of the complexity of the research design, even though no single process is itself inscribed with appreciation. A similar strategy is evident in [3/12]: [3/12] The purpose of our study, motivated in part by the calls of Li for more Hong Kong-based research on process writing, and Miller and

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broadened an understanding of ... expanding the applications of ...

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Ng (1996) for more research on peer assessment, was, therefore, to introduce a group of student teachers to peer feedback and a student-centred process-oriented approach to writing, focusing on the rewriting and revision stages. We could then assess their attitudes, in terms of their views and reactions, after a brief initial exposure, with minimal training, towards this ‘innovation’, as an indication of how likely or unlikely they are to use such an approach in their own classrooms when they themselves become teachers. [Curtis & Herron 1998] To this point, I have identified multiple means by which quantification as amount (including number, volume, mass) is encoded in the data. However, amount is just one dimension by which attitudinal meanings are graded as quantity. Other options include quantifying the frequency or extent of a process, where extent can be in terms of both distance and scope, and can implicate both time and space. These additional means for quantification are explained and exemplified below. The rhetorical impact of such resources is illustrated in phases of text that report on and describe other research studies and methods. Quantifying processes as frequency

We have discussed the option of intensifying processes with infused manner. Processes can also be quantified as more or less frequent, as in: bioprocesses are monitored mainly by measuring physical or chemical parameters outside the host cells the little study of contemporary anti-consumerism there is available is often more celebratory than critically interrogative. these methods are often very laborious and time-consuming Phases of text often instantiate multiple dimensions of quantity, for example, as amount and as frequency. In [3/13] the multiple encodings function to propagate a prosody of quantification. [3/13] As an elementary school teacher in a school district with urban characteristics in the Southeastern United States, I often wondered why so many second-generation immigrants did not retain their heritage languages. Many of my students whose parents immigrated from Mexico and other Latin American countries spoke very little Spanish.

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As a proponent of bilingualism, I often encouraged them to speak their heritage language at home. [Souto-Manning 2006]

Perhaps not surprisingly given the nominalised nature of the discourse, academic writing also exploits other dimensions of graduation as quantity in what Martin (1997) refers to as ‘measure’. An interrogation of the notion of ‘measure’ in relation to academic writing has resulted in a more elaborated system, under a more general semantic category of extent. Quantification relates, therefore, to the grading of phenomena as amount, and as extent. Extent can then be further differentiated as semantic categories of distance (relative location) and scope (relative spread). Both scope and distance can then be further differentiated as options in time and in space. The writer in [3/14] relies heavily on resources for grading distance: time and scope: time to amplify the breadth of research. These choices are italicised and an indication of whether the extent is ‘+’ or ‘–’ is given in brackets. The amplification of the breadth of research then functions to give greater substance to the writer’s claim that product-oriented feedback on and correction of students’ work by teachers has limited and even negative effects. [3/14] Research findings on the limited and even negative effects of traditional product-oriented feedback on and correction of students’ work by teachers have been reported for at least 30 years [+ scope:time], from the work of Stiff (1967), Marzano and Arthur (1977) to [+ scope:time] findings reported by Hendrickson (1981), Sommers (1982), Hillocks (1982) and Graham (1983) in the early 1980s [+scope: time]. Further studies carried out in the late 1980s [+distance: time] and more recently [–distance:time] (e.g. Cohen 1987; Robb et al. 1988; Anson 1989; Hyland 1990. [Curtis & Herron 1998] The extended network in Figure 3.2(d) represents a clarification and further differentiation of options in graduation. In academic research articles, when processes of undertaking or publishing research are graded in terms of their distance (location) in time the implication can be one of relative relevance in terms of currency. Duration of interest in a research issue can imply significance. Where

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Quantifying a process as extent

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an attribute distance

a proposal a thing

FORCE GRADUATION

space

a process

scope

a process frequency

Figure 3.2(d)

time space

extent

quantifying

time

Building a system network of GRADUATION.

the grading is in relation to distance in space the implication tends to be one of relevance in terms of generalisability. Research findings from a study that is located in a space physically or metaphorically distanced from a proposed study may be interpreted as less generalisable to the proposed study. The implied value may be positive generalisability where the spatial scope is amplified. A further example of the accumulation of meanings of amplified scope: space is provided in [3/15]. In this case the accumulation is realised through a listing structure.

[3/15] Harris (1940) in the United States found evidence to suggest that younger students tended to obtain better degree results. Similar findings have been made in Britain by Malleson (1959), Howell (1962), Barnett and Lewis (1963), McCracken (1969) and Kapur (1972), in Australia by Flecker (1959) and Sanders (1961), in Canada by Fleming (1959), and in New Zealand by Small (1966) [+ scope: space]. [Woodley 1985] Expressions of distance: space often draw on specific location references, implying relative proximity to the location that is the focus of the writer’s research interest. The value implied through these specific location references is often supported through the juxtaposition of two or more locations of contrasting distance, italicised and underlined in: while ... nine American studies ... confirm the academic superiority of veterans there is some contradictory British evidence although (it has) been popular in many other countries, it is still relatively unknown in Hong Kong schools

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intensifying

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The references tend to co-articulate with some other resource to signal contrast, for example resources of counter-expectancy, as in while and although in the above examples. As with other semantic options in the graduation network, extension as distance or scope in time or space can be expressed in a range of grammatical systems. Graded scope in spatial terms can be expressed, for example, as an epithet in a nominal group: a specific context a general field of study as pre-numerative in a nominal group: a variety of texts as head in a nominal group: the spread of ideas the limitations of the study as infused in a process: broadens the scope are confined to as a circumstance: widely adopted narrowly interpreted as a comment adjunct: generally speaking Graded scope: time can be expressed, for example, as an epithet in a nominal group: a well-established approach a lasting impression brief exposure

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as infused in a process: the pattern persists

has been long recognised over the past decade in recent years The elaborated options for quantifying within the system of graduation reflect the frequency with which meanings are quantified in the academic texts (see Paltridge 1997). The issue of significance here is the interpersonal function of such choices, and their key role in evaluating by implication rather than inscription (see Myers 1996). The ways resources of quantification are strategically employed in the discourse of research paper introductions is discussed in Chapters 4 and 5.

3.7

Graduation as focus: experiential meaning by degree

To this point we have considered how experiential meanings can be scaled along dimensions of force to flag an evaluative reading. The second dimension of graduation is that of focus. Focus has to do with strengthening or softening the categorical boundaries around an experiential phenomenon (Martin & White 2005). As such it offers a further means by which we can invoke an evaluative interpretation. In the first instance we can consider sharpening or softening the categorical boundaries around experiential entities. Focus is sharpened around research and softened around ethnographic study: real research a sort of ethnographic study In each of these examples it is a dimension of authenticity that is scaled. Real research is relatively more authentic and a sort of ethnographic study is relatively less so. Interestingly, examples of sharpened authenticity around research (as in real research) are rare in reports on other research in written form, although they may be more common in spoken contexts. In instances where they do appear in written research papers they

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may be attributed elsewhere with implied distancing from the writer’s own position, as in:

In [3/16] multiple instances of focus: authenticity function to invoke positive appreciation of a particular writing pedagogy. The multiple instances of focus (real, truly, real, true, pseudo-), as well as other instances of inscribed attitude (authentic, artificial) work together to build a strong prosody of associated values.

[3/16] Such a technique in writing pedagogy is underpinned by writing research theories that advocate writing as a process of drafting and redrafting, as well as writing as process of communicating to a real audience. (...) Writing becomes more purposeful and meaningful as it is read by an authentic audience (Mittan, 1989). Peer reviews reflect writing as a truly communicative process rather than an artificial, lonely exercise where students write for a pseudo-reader, the teacher, who reads students’ essays predominantly for assessment purposes rather than for real communication. Peer review is a useful technique for encouraging revision in writing. It provides a true incentive for students to revise their work. [Lee 1997] So far in an interrogation of focus as it applies to entities, valeur is interpreted in terms of authenticity, as in a real audience. However, there is another dimension to focus as valeur. In the examples below entities are graded in terms of specificity. Specificity is softened in general and sharpened in particularly: the general thrust of the conclusion research in schools, particularly at primary level In the context of academic research writing, sharpened specificity may function to flag a positive value of relevance or a negative one of limitation. Similarly softened specificity may flag a positive value of inclusivity or a negative one of lack of definition. The interpretation as positive or negative value will once again depend on other values construed in the co-text. The network of graduation can therefore be extended as in Figure 3.2(e).

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so-called ‘real’ research.

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authenticity

FORCE

valeur

GRADUATION

specificity

FOCUS

Figure 3.2(e)

Extended network of GRADUATION as FORCE and FOCUS.

Beyond the categorical boundaries of entities, we can consider how the boundaries of a process might also be graded. Here we are concerned with degrees of completion of the process. Grammatical resources implicated in focus: completion include conation in the verbal group (Halliday 1994; Matthiessen 1995), as exemplified in: Davies attempts to compare Goldberg tried to distinguish Tsang manages to show that A process may also be infused with a degree of fulfilment, as in: the findings achieved statistical significance then nominalised, as in: achievements to date include an attempt to unravel the issue It has been noted that in English the simple past tense implies completion, and if the process is to be represented as not complete then it needs to be marked in some respect. This contrasts with Chinese, for example, where the unmarked implies incompletion and a meaning of completion needs to be marked (McDonald 1994; Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 299). Focus can also be considered in relation to the experiential meaning of a whole proposition, where the proposition is represented as relatively actualised. Here modalisation is a key resource: such description can be of value this might enable us to consider some of the problems

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In academic writing the grading of focus as actualisation is also very commonly achieved through the resources of phase-irrealis in the verbal group (Halliday 1994; Matthiessen 1995), as in:

and lexicalised in an extensive array of processes including processes of verbal and mental projection: Li suggests that there is evidence to point to studies which indicate that Such expressions contrast with, for example, establishes which construes the projected propositional meaning as fully actualised in: Cheng establishes that this is not an isolated occurrence Processes that encode degrees of actualisation can also be nominalised, as in: no suggestion of bias an indication of its relevance Processes such as those identified above are recognised in the academic English literature as a very significant resource in the encoding of stance (Thompson & Ye 1991; see Hyland 1998). In the pragmatic literature, variations in the choice of projecting processes have been interpreted mostly in terms of hedging (e.g. Salager-Meyer 1994, 1997; Hyland 1998) indicating either some sense of ‘politeness’, or a level of ‘commitment’ towards the truth-value of a projected proposition, as discussed in Chapter 1. A discourse-semantic interpretation of variations in projecting processes as construing a degree of actualisation constructs them as one choice within a network of choices for scaling experiential meaning and so flagging an attitudinal interpretation. (See Chapter 6 and Martin & White 2005 for explanations of projecting processes in relation to engagement.) A whole proposition may also be nominalised as an issue or a question, and the nominalisation graded as focus: actualisation, as in: an apparently simple question a seemingly complex issue

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he seems to be arguing that

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an attribute space

a process distance

a proposal a thing

FORCE

time space

extent

quantifying

scope

a process frequency

GRADUATION

time

authenticity valeur specificity FOCUS

completion fulfilment actualisation

Figure 3.2(f)

The network of GRADUATION as FORCE and FOCUS.

When process or propositional meanings are scaled as fully or partially apparent, complete or actualised, they can also function to invoke attitude (see Lemke 1998). The system network of graduation, as it is developed in this chapter, represents the expansive array of choices taken up in the introductions to academic articles for flagging an attitudinal reading rather than expressing attitude explicitly. The completed network of graduation is presented in Figure 3.2(f).

3.8

Conclusion and implications for pedagogy

Instances of inscribed attitude are identified as encoding an explicit positive or negative value that is gradable (e.g. good / very good). Attitudinal terms may express affect, that is, they may describe feelings or emotions (e.g. satisfied). Alternatively they may encode appreciation as the valuing of things (e.g. important), or judgement in appraising people and their behaviour (e.g. ethical). In terms of exploring the ways in which values radiate beyond the instance of attitudinal inscription, the concept of grading needs to be taken into account. The grading of meanings is represented in appraisal theory as the realm of graduation (see Figure 2). Graduation presents options for scaling meanings as either force or focus. The scaling of important to very important represents graduation as force, with the quality of important-ness being intensified. Where values are represented as nominalised entities, such as in importance, scaling up in force is done

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intensifying

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

through quantifying the meaning, as in more/much importance. Values encoded in or around processes can also be graded as intensity, as in rigorously explored. We can anticipate, for example, that where values are graded up, the inscription of attitude is likely to have greater radiated prosodic impact. The choice of very important rather than important in describing another study is significant choice and one to be identified in analyses of attitude. While the examples above illustrate the grading up of attitudinal meanings (as +force), other non-attitudinal (experiential) meanings can also be graded. For example, entities such as the subjects in a research study can be graded in amount (e.g. the study involved a small number/ large number of subjects); the implications from a study might be graded in scope (e.g. it has had a pervasive influence), or a study may be graded in proximity in time (e.g. a more recent study). Processes can also be graded in frequency (such studies frequently report that ...). In grading experiential meanings in this way the writer encodes a subjective slant resulting in the invocation of attitudinal interpretations. The other dimension of graduation, that of focus, has to do with the sharpening or softening of boundaries around categorical meanings. A categorical boundary around an abstract entity such as research can be sharpened (e.g. real research), or softened (sort of research). The categorical boundaries around processes can be softened by encoding a lack of completion or realisation (e.g. tried to show, possibly shows). Again the grading of the non-attitudinal (experiential) meanings encodes a subjective positioning on behalf of the writer, and hence an indication to the reader to interpret attitudinally. Some comments on the potential for interpretation into pedagogic practices

The distinction between inscribed and invoked attitude is one that can make a considerable contribution in assisting novice writers to gain control of the macro-genre of research paper introductions, especially as it relates to the sub-genre of the report on other research in the field (literature review). In much of the literature guiding the writing of literature reviews considerable emphasis is given to the need to ‘evaluate’ source texts. Such advice is intended to forestall the commonly identified problem of literature reviews as annotated bibliographies (Hart 1998; Swales & Lindemann 2002). However, sometimes the unintended negative consequence is that ‘evaluate’ is interpreted to mean ‘judge’, and perhaps even ‘judge negatively’. Such an expectation can add unnecessary stress for student writers as

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they are challenged to understand in detail the research writings of experts in their field. Such an expectation may translate into overly blunt negative evaluations of other studies, or perhaps an avoidance of encoding an attitudinal position, and a retreat into a summary of content. It may prove more helpful in terms of the construction of an effective evaluative stance in the writing of their introductions, if we replace the term evaluate with that of position. If novice writers are asked to position other studies in relation to each other and to their own study the task better suggests the kind of language found typically to characterize the discourse of literature reviews, that is, resources of graduation that establish relative positions along multiple clines, functioning to invoke attitude. At a very practical level the network of options in graduation as force and focus can provide a support for students in exploring the ways published writers imply an evaluation of other sources, and in the writing and review of their own texts. Model texts can also be manipulated by adjusting the kind or degree of graduation. The impact on the reader can then be assessed. It is important to note here the distinction between the ways evaluations of other research are expressed in informal academic discussion or oral seminar talk, which may be more explicitly positive or negative in expressions of evaluation, and that which is characteristic of written discourse, with its preference for indirect expressions of attitude. This variation in evaluative language with mode of communication has not been investigated in this study, but may be relevant in teaching contexts where students are engaged in both activities. The theoretical modelling of attitude and graduation explored in this chapter provides the basis for an analysis of rhetorical strategies and patterns in subsequent chapters. In Chapter 4, I analyse more closely the ways in which different expressions of attitude factor out in relation to shifts of field in the discourse.

Notes 1. This coding system will be used throughout the book, with any variations or additional coding conventions explained at relevant points in the chapters. 2. Why graduation and not simply grading or gradation? Graduation is a technical term in appraisal theory to represent two ways of ‘meaning by degree’ (Martin 1993). The first of these, force, is more happily described as grading or gradation, capturing as it does incremental shifts on an up/down scale. The second, focus, is less happily described in such terms, representing as it does a gradual adjustment of the clarity and sharpness of the boundaries

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Writing with Attitude

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around entities and processes. Graduation is intended to encompass both these meanings of meaning by degree. 3. Martin & Rose (2007) distinguish between different choices for invoking attitude: provoking with the use of lexical metaphor; affording with ideational meanings that trigger cultural values, and flagging through subjectifying meanings through graduation.

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Attitude and Field in Academic Writing

4.1 Introduction: attitudinal preferences and implications In the previous chapter I drew on appraisal theory to explore a multitude of ways in which evaluation can be expressed in academic writing. The theoretical framework distinguishes between kinds of attitude as expressions of emotions and feelings, as normalising or moralising judgements of people, or as the valuing of things. Appraisal theory also models the ways in which attitude can be intensified and sharpened or subdued and softened through resources of graduation. Most importantly, I noted the role of graduation in enabling writers to evaluate indirectly, to imply a value rather than inscribe one. By scaling non-attitudinal meanings, academic writers are able to flag an attitudinal interpretation of what on the surface appears as an objective representation. This becomes a critical resource in academic writing, as will become clear. In this chapter I turn attention to the question of how the array of resources for expressing attitude are employed by academic research writers in their introductions: kinds of attitude and kinds of graduation are expressed; the ways in which attitudinal choices pattern over the texts; and the rhetorical implications for choosing to express attitude in particular ways. Given the often stated, as well as frequently critiqued, expectation of academic discourse that it be ‘objective’ and oriented to de-personalised accounts of research practices (e.g. Gilbert & Mulkay 1984; Bazerman 1988; Johns 1997), one of the first questions to address is the extent to which attitude is explicitly encoded in research article introductions. A review of such texts across very varied disciplinary contexts in Chapter 2 revealed that instances of inscribed attitude are frequently present and 109

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[4/1] Background: The Government is extremely concerned about the decreasing number of male teachers and male role models, particularly in primary schools and the possible effect on learning and development of both boys and girls in schools. Literature review: Although there is a relatively more consistent line of research assessing the hierarchical nature of achievement, there is relatively little that examines the hierarchical nature of motivation and engagement and the issue of class-level motivation in the academic context (...) Transition: The present study therefore, not only examines the issue of student and teacher gender in motivation and engagement, but also in the same analysis accounts for the hierarchical structure of the data. (...) This constitutes a powerful analysis of the contribution of teacher and student gender to motivation and engagement. [Martin & Marsh 2005] The choice to encode attitude explicitly in these varied contexts is evident not only in the social sciences and the humanities, but also in the sciences, as evidenced in [4/2]. It is apparent that academic writers do not achieve the characteristic ‘objectivity’ of their discourse simply through an avoidance of explicit attitude. [4/2] Background: Catalytically modified proteins are one of the tools for increasing the efficiency of electron transfer (...). Literature review: At present there are many methods of obtaining such modified enzymes (...). The main disadvantages of the approach involving

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that they are not restricted to particular generic stages. Published writers do inscribe attitude in the context of establishing the background to their study, in reviewing relevant literature, and in previewing their own study in a transition to the remainder of the article. This is exemplified in [4/1] with attitude in bold.

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covalent binding of redox mediators and functional groups of proteins are the limited number of attachment sites (...). Therefore another approach was proposed: coordinative modification of a protein with metal (...) complexes. Coordination of metal compounds with protein histidine residues is the most promising method of catalytic modification of enzymes because the reaction can be performed in aqueous solutions and the products can be easily isolated. [Fedorova et al.l 2006] The kind of attitude favoured by academic research writers depends to some extent on the object of study, as noted in Chapter 2, and to what proportion of the introduction is devoted to reporting on that given object of study. In [4/1] above, for example, the writer opens with expressions of judgement in introducing a research study that focuses on people and behaviour. However, it is also evident that appreciation frequently dominates in overall preferences for inscribed attitude in academic writing (Hood 2004a, 2004b, 2006). Appreciation ‘institutionalizes feelings as propositions (about things)’ (Martin 2000: 147). In other words expressions of appreciation shift feelings or emotions from a personal to an institutional framework. This avoidance of a personal orientation in favour of an institutional one in the expression of attitude is frequently evident in academic writing, and is illustrated in the following example where the writer encodes appreciation: reaction: they often work in very cramped conditions [app: – reaction] The writer appraises (cramped) in the institutional context of teaching, as an evaluation of an abstract phenomenon (conditions). This could have been, but was not, expressed more personally as an evaluation of feelings: The teachers felt very cramped [aff:– satisfaction] while they were doing the artificial exercises. Similarly, a writer appraises as appreciation: valuation in: the ideal [app: + valuation] is somewhere between these two

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Transition:

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where she could have chosen affect, as in:

There has been considerable discussion in the appraisal literature on the interface of judgement and appreciation where an evaluation relates to human actions (White 2003c). The primary question to be considered here is whether attitude foregrounds the valuing of character, as it is enacted in behaviour (the performing), or whether it foregrounds the phenomenon, that is the product of the behaviour (the performance). The former is interpreted as judgement and the latter as appreciation on the basis of the grammatical encodings. In the following examples the writer encodes appreciation: composition: a thorough [app: + composition] account This could have been but was not expressed as judgement, as in: they accounted for it thoroughly [jud: + capacity] Similarly, a writer chooses to write: instructional environments that encourage passive [app: – valuation] learning rather than: the students were passive [jud: – tenacity] in their learning in this environment Instances of inscribed attitude in the academic texts function to personalise the discourse. However, the personalisation is lessened somewhat to the extent that the writer chooses appreciation over affect or judgement. A preference for encoding attitude as appreciation both contributes to and reflects the institutionalised and nominalised nature of academic discourse. This distinction in the level of personalisation in evaluations can be exploited by writers as they build a case across a phase of discourse. In [4/3], for example, the writer’s initial expressions of attitude are as negative appreciation of the abstract concept of physical difference and disabled embodiment (failing, incomplete, inferior, deeply devalued). This

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the position I like most [aff: + inclination] is somewhere between these two.

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represents a de-personalised criticism of a dominant standard. This initial criticism is made more powerful in the final stage of the phase in its personalisation as consequential negative judgement of people (excessive, contaminatory, malign and helpless).

Against the dominant standard, the construction of physical difference as a failing, incomplete and inferior, marks disabled embodiment as deeply devalued, not so much for what it is, but for what it fails to be. Its status and meaning are from the start relational, rather than having autonomous standing. Regardless of whether the focus is on the body itself or on the socio-political context, there is broad agreement that far from being a bioscientific fact, disability is a category constituted, given meaning, and expressed through an endless set of cultural, historical, political and mythological parameters that ambiguously define disabled people as excessive, as contaminatory, as at once malign and helpless (...) [Shildrick 2005] We can take this analysis of kinds of attitude to a further level of delicacy and consider the implications for choosing different sub-categories of appreciation – as reaction, composition, or valuation. Martin (1997) and Martin & White (2005) explain that we can take a topographical perspective on kinds of attitude, mapping them spatially so that some domains of appreciation are seen to be closer to affect and others closer to judgement. The middle territory of appreciation from this topographic perspective is the realm of composition by which we can evaluate the intrinsic quality of a phenomenon. Appreciation as reaction is the domain of appreciation that is closest to affect. This border territory is illustrated in pairs such as: I am interested / it is interesting I am troubled / it is troubling the first in each pair expressing affect and the second the valuing of something in terms of the kind of sensory reaction it generates on the part of the appraiser. Appreciation as valuation on the other hand is closest to judgement. This is evidenced in pairs such as: it was a clever idea they were clever to think of it

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[4/3]

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I feel that the new approaches (...) result from an insufficiently clear [app: –valuation] understanding of what it means to say that language is learned by using it. and The advantage [app: + valuation] of this simple model is that it contains less unknown constants An expression of appreciation as reaction may suggest affect, as in: spectroscopy of these materials offers a fascinating [app: + reaction] area of research There are rhetorical implications in the kind of attitude that is expressed at both a basic categorical level and a more delicate level. Appreciation as valuation, encoding as it does a kind of socially referenced worth, value, significance or usefulness is not surprisingly a favoured choice in academic writing, There is a tendency to prefer evaluation as appreciation generally, and for appreciation as valuation in particular (see Hood 2004a, 2004b, 2006). Nonetheless we can find the full range of options taken up by academic writers. A more interesting question has to do with the how the different options are employed in individual texts. First, however, there is another choice in the encoding of attitude to consider, that of kinds of graduation. 4.1.1

Preferences and patterns in graduation

In Chapter 3, I discussed graduation as a means by which values can be graded up or down. Grading up can amplify the force of a value or sharpen the focus. In an introduction to a research article, the encoding of amplified values or sharpened categories makes for a more compelling claim. From this perspective, attitude that is graded up in value compels the reader towards one interpretation and contracts space for other points of view. This is evident in both [4/4] and [4/5]. [4/4] I awoke one morning to find a city in turmoil, and later, to see the images of grief stricken families on the television news. The few

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The choice of kind of appreciation (as valuation, composition or reaction) in a given phase of an introduction will give rise to a subtle difference in the nature of the rhetorical strategy. An expression of appreciation as valuation may hint at judgement, as in:

Attitude and Field in Academic Writing 115

words in these headlines demand the recognition of the complexity of human relationships that exist in a society struggling with the constant invasion of new ideas, different values, and other ways of understanding the world.

In [4/5] there are multiple instances of sharpened categorical boundaries (underlined). Some of these are interpreted as having shifted into the realm of inscribed attitude (in boldface) while others are interpreted as invocations of attitude (italicised). [4/5] [the] writing (...) is read by an authentic audience (Mittan, 1989). Peer reviews reflect writing as a truly communicative process rather than an artificial, lonely exercise where students write for a pseudoreader, the teacher, who reads students’ essays predominantly for assessment purposes rather than for real communication. Peer review (...) provides a true incentive for students to revise their work. [Lee 1997] In the other direction, downgrading a value by diminishing the force as in [4/6], or softening the focus as in [4/7], functions to make a claim less than compelling, and hence to open it up to negotiation in some way. [4/6] I feel that the new approaches also have proposals which will be less fruitful, and that these result from an insufficiently clear understanding of what it means to say that language is learned by using it. [Painter 1986] [4/7] When the outdoor climatic data is retrieved from weather stations, the possible differences in the microclimate might not be taken into account. [Kalamees et al. 2006] In [4/8] this softening of focus (see underlined italic items in [4/8]) is exaggerated in the self-conscious writing from a post-structuralist research perspective in writing from the humanities.

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[Ryan 2008]

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In the light of these provisos that nothing can be known with certainty, and that any emergent discourse is contaminated by contemporary partialities, my own analysis must remain open. Nonetheless, certain tendencies are broadly supported by the available evidence, and they will be supplemented by a more overtly speculative approach. [Shildrick 2005] An analysis of writer preferences in grading explicit attitude provides a further means by which evaluative stance can be investigated in the discourse of introductions. In most instances where inscribed attitude is graded as force, the grading is towards greater amplification (greater intensification, amount, extent, etc) rather than reduced value. The preference for amplification of attitude reflects a writer strategy to make compelling claims about phenomena. However, a closer investigation of the nature of the amplification reveals interesting variations in the means that are employed to amplify, and the differences suggest variations in evaluative strategies. Where instances of amplified force associate with evaluations of the object of study they function to make the case for the choice of topic more compelling as a site for research, contracting space for alternative positions. This association of amplified force with appraisal of object of study is strongly evident in the discourse. Where softened focus associates with evaluations of other research it functions to open the research to further negotiation, to create space for new knowledge. This association is also strongly evident, but more on that pattern of choice shortly.

4.2 What is appraised: identifying the field In identifying what gets appraised in academic writing we are necessarily moving beyond the realm of interpersonal meaning to implicate the ideational metafunction. That which is being appraised can be a specific entity or process (see Martin 1997, Eggins & Slade 1997; Rothery & Stenglin 2000), or even an entire proposition or proposal (Hood & Martin 2007; Martin & White 2005). Instances of inscribed attitude shown in bold in the following expressions are seen to appraise the entities, processes and propositions that are underlined. a more consistent line of research little research to accurately determine the benefits it is clear that further research in this area is needed

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[4/8]

From a micro-level identification of what is appraised in the introductions to research articles, that is, what specific entities and processes are evaluated, we can begin to generalise the concept of field to consider more broadly based categories (see Thetala 1997; Hunston 2000). In doing so it is useful to take a closer look at the linguistic concept of field as it is understood in SFL theory. Field as a dimension of register ‘is concerned with generalising across genres according to the domestic or institutional activity that is going on. By definition a field is a set of activity sequences that are oriented to some global institutional purpose’ (Martin & Rose 2007: 306). Each such activity sequence involves taxonomies or groupings of people, things, processes, places and qualities that distinguish one field from another. The field of an academic research article can be described at different levels of generality. At a micro level we can be very specific in describing the fields construed in an individual text through the many choices made in ideational meaning at the level of lexico-grammar in the choices of processes, participants and circumstances. At this fine level of delicacy we can expect that every text will be different; each will construct a representation of a particular object of study, of particular selections of other research and of the writer’s particular study. For example, it is evident that the writer of [4/9] is constructing a field of academic research into online learning compared with face-to-face learning. [4/9] There is little research to accurately determine the benefits and pitfalls of online instruction when compared to the more traditional face-to-face learning environment. The need for research in this area is not only timely, but also imperative. The primary purpose of this exploratory empirical study was to compare an online course with an equivalent course taught in a traditional face-toface format. [Johnson et al. 2000] The field is constructed in part along lexical strings of entities, in this case abstractions and technicalities associated with research: little research The need for research The primary purpose of this exploratory empirical study

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the benefits and pitfalls of online instruction the more traditional face-to-face learning environment. this area an online course an equivalent course taught in a traditional face-to-face format The phase of text in [4/10] is also about research into online learning. However, there are differences in the particular take on that field. Here the specific field is research into student satisfaction in a context of expanding demand for online learning in higher education. [4/10] Institutions of higher education are creating courses and programs online to serve a student population that is more dispersed geographically: one that is older and less likely to be able to attend school full time and accustomed to on-demand interactions in other facets of their lives (...). While the number of institutions online is growing, there is still a scarcity of empirical data on e-learning (...).This study presents a framework for considering student satisfaction [in] online courses, and evaluates changes in student satisfaction over time. [Roche & Lemasters 2006] If we again draw out the lexical strings in [4/10], it is clear that [4/9] and [4/10] vary in the specifics of the field of online learning, but it is also clear that in both phases of text two sub-fields factor out, one associated with the world of online education, and the other with the world of research. Field as education: institutions of higher education courses and programs online a student population that is more dispersed geographically (...) and accustomed to on-demand interactions in other facets of their lives. the number of institutions online Field as research: a scarcity of empirical data on e-learning (...).

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and associated with online instruction:

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We can generalise our interpretation of field even further by locating both texts [4/9] and [4/10] in the broad disciplinary field of education, or more broadly still within a disciplinary field of the social sciences, or even within an institutional field of academic research. Comparative studies that focus on field at these meta levels of generality, as academic register or as disciplinary and sub-disciplinary categories, abound in the research literature in academic discourse and are predominantly associated with corpus-based methodologies. Commonly, such studies account for different distributions or preferences for a particular grammatical or lexical choice from one discipline or disciplinary region to another (e.g. Hyland 2000a; Charles 2003). This is also the level of generality explored in Chapter 2 in this book, in this case to exemplify areas of similarity in general patterns of meaning across disciplines. In this discussion I am concerned with elements of both the particular and the general. I want to consider what general fields are evident in particular texts, in order to compare the ways in which individual writers evaluate these general fields differently within their texts. 4.2.1

Field and phase

In introducing their research, academic writers engage in a process of positioning and repositioning readers around various phenomena associated with their study. Writers typically aim to persuade readers that their chosen topic or object of study is a worthy one for investigation. They typically aim to establish that there is space for new knowledge in relation to the object of study, and finally they typically suggest that their own study is one that can make a contribution to knowledge. In the process they construe a series of fields. In Chapter 2 I considered how each of these fields associates with canonical stages of the introduction to research articles. The first associates with what we might refer to as background. The second associates with a literature review, and the final stage typically constitutes a transition towards a more detailed description of the methodology. So to some extent field factors out in terms of the stages of the introduction, or shifts from one sub-genre to the next in the macro-genre (see Chapter 2). This is illustrated in an abridged text in [4/11].

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This study a framework for considering student satisfaction [in] online courses changes in student satisfaction over time.

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[4/11] Online instruction is a form of distance education delivered over the Internet. [It] is a major breakthrough in teaching and learning. [I]t facilitates the exchange of information and expertise. [But] online instruction [...] may [also] reduce standards or even devalue university degrees. Literature review: primary field is other research: [T]here is little research to accurately determine the benefits and pitfalls of online instruction [...] when compared to the more traditional face-to-face learning environment. [T]he need for research in this area is not only timely, but also imperative. Transition: primary field is writer’s own study: The primary purpose of this exploratory empirical study was to compare an online course with an equivalent course taught in a traditional face-to-face format. 4.2.2 Identifying and tracking shifts in field In [4/11] above distinctions are made in terms of field focus from one stage to the next, but how is this interpretation arrived at? If we consider just the participants at each stage of [4/11] (listed below), we see the justification. Each stage is constituted by different kinds of participants. Note that [[....]] represents a rank shifted embedded clause that is functioning as a participant or part of a participant in the ranking clause (see Halliday 1994 on transitivity and Martin & Rose 2007 on ideation). Background: object of study: online instruction form of distance education the Internet a major breakthrough in teaching and learning the exchange of information and expertise online instruction standards university degrees Literature review: other research: little research [[to accurately determine the benefits and pitfalls of online instruction]]

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Background: primary field is object of study:

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the more traditional face-to-face learning environment. The need for research The primary purpose of this exploratory empirical study [[to compare an online course with an equivalent course taught in a traditional face-to-face format]] At a slightly more general level of categorisation we could reduce the fields of discourse evident in all introductions to research articles to just two (Hood 2004a). The first field is the set of phenomena (entities and/ or activities) that constitute the object of study. The second category of field is the construction of the process of research itself, the entities and activities to do with the process of enquiry and knowledge building. This latter field encompasses both research prior to the current study and the current study itself. The field of the object of study might remain relatively constant in very specific circumstances, for example where a series of studies is intended to throw different methodological lights on a given object of study (as might be reported in a thematic volume of a journal for instance). However, in most cases we anticipate extensive variation in the object of study in any collection of research articles, becoming more extensive the higher the level of specificity considered. However, when we turn to the other field that is construed in the introductions, that of research, we find much less variation. Academic research as an activity is very typically construed in sets of processes to do with identifying research issues, inquiring into those issues, interpreting what was found, and reporting and disseminating information on what was found (e.g. produced, found, discovered, identified, achieved, claims, discusses, showed). Participants commonly include nominalisations of these activities, as for example in: identification, investigation, analysis, findings, discussion, contribution, or generalised abstractions such as evidence, answers. Other participants may be generalised and human (e.g. researchers, scholars) or specific and human (e.g. Halliday 1994, Martin 1992). Any variation in the representation of the field of research will factor out to some extent in terms of the choices of methodology or research perspective adopted. While we expect some representation of each field evident in any given introduction to a research article, the proportions of the text that construe one or other field will vary from text to text, and individual phases of text may focus more or less exclusively on one or the other. The purpose in identifying the different fields being construed in the

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Transition: writer’s own study:

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introductions to research articles is to enable an analysis of patterns of distribution and preference in expressions of attitude in relation to field, and to identify the kinds of rhetorical strategies employed by the writers.1 Ways in which fields relate

A final consideration of the fields in the discourse is the ways in which they connect one to another. In [4/11] the three specific fields progress in a kind of serial structure, one following on from the next, phase to phase across the text. However, as an abridged version of the original text, some wordings have been omitted. A restoration of more of the original wording in [4/111] alerts us to the fact that the serial shift from one field to another is not quite as neat as in the original. [4/111] While online instruction is gaining popularity, it is not free from criticism. Many educators and trainers do not support online instruction because they do not believe it actually solves difficult teaching and learning problems (Conlon, 1997) while others are concerned about the many barriers that hinder effective online teaching and learning. These concerns include the changing nature of technology, the complexity of networked systems, the lack of stability in online learning environments, and the limited understanding of how much students and instructors need to know to successfully participate (Brandt, 1996). Online instruction also threatens to commercialize education, isolate students and faculty, and may reduce standards or even devalue university degrees (Gallick, 1998). [Johnson et al. 2000] In [4/111] we find the voices from the field of researcher intruding into a representation of the object of study, albeit here as non-integral citations (Swales 1990). There is therefore some movement back and forth from representations of other researchers to representations of the object of study. We could present these categorical shifts back and forth in table format as in Table 4.1. A representation as in Table 4.1 enables ready identification of the field that is given most prominence by the writer across the whole introduction or within a given phase. Table 4.2, for example, represents a phase of the introduction devoted entirely to reporting on the writer’s object of study.

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4.2.3

Attitude and Field in Academic Writing 123

Field of research

Field of the object of study

(Conlon, 1997)

While online instruction is gaining popularity, it is not free from criticism. Many educators and trainers do not support online instruction because they do not believe it actually solves difficult teaching and learning problems while others are concerned abut the many barriers that hinder effective online teaching and learning. These concerns include the changing nature of technology, the complexity of networked systems, the lack of stability in online learning environments, and the limited understanding of how much students and instructors need to know to successfully participate

(Brandt, 1996). Online instruction also threatens to commercialize education, isolate students and faculty and may reduce standards or even devalue university degrees (Gallick, 1998). [Johnson et al. 2000]

Table 4.2 Exclusively reporting on the object of study Field of research

Field of the object of study The current phenomenal success with young (and older) readers of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books confirms the enduring capacity of literary narratives to engage the enthusiasm of young people in the 21st century. But the interactions of many young enthusiasts with the story world of Harry Potter extends well beyond the covers of the books and their movie adaptations, into the world of cyberspace where today’s young people are so much at home. The plethora of Harry Potter websites, many of which are developed and managed by juvenile ‘webmasters’, demonstrates both profound and playful engagement with the book-based narratives through online chat room discussions, reviews and commentaries, as well as avid exploration of new forms of related game narratives, and the generation of adjunct ‘fan fiction’ and image-focused creations elaborating interpretations of the story worlds. ( ...)

[Unsworth 2004]

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Table 4.1 Differentiating two fields of discourse

Contrastingly, Table 4.3 represents a phase of introduction which is devoted to reporting on the field of research. Any reference to the object of study in this phase is specifically as a research topic. In Table 4.2 the writer’s warrant relies primarily on constructing a compelling object of study; in Table 4.3 the writer relies on strategically positioning her study in relation to a field of other research. More typically, analyses of introductions reveal a dynamic shifting back and forth, as in Table 4.4. A similar pattern is evident in Table 4.5, although here reflecting a referencing system favoured in some science disciplines in which all information on sources needs to be recovered from the list of references at the end of the article.

Table 4.3 Exclusively reporting on other research Field of research

Field of the object of study

Other researchers have reported that, in the past two decades, Australian literature on the middle school years, and on students’ perceptions of the transition from primary to secondary school, has been relatively sparse (Cumming, 1994; Hallinan & Hallinan 1992). (Hargreaves, 1986 and Hargreaves & Earle, 1990 provide a more substantial background outside Australia.) The literature that does exist is different in methodology from the current project, and the findings as well as discussion in the present paper may contribute to a debate of the relative value of the different approaches (see also Yates & Leder, 1996). Other research has used larger scale survey methods and attitude scales to draw conclusions about students’ reactions to the quality of school life and their self-esteem in their new school (for example, Ainley, 1995; Hill et al., 1994; Poole, 1990); or has taken a more action-oriented approach (Cumming, 1994; Hatton, 1995). Kirkpatrick’s study of students’ transition experiences at a high school in Western Australia (Kirkpatrick 1992, 1995) covers some comparable ground with the present study, but within a psychological tradition which is focused on students’ attributions of achievement. [Yates 1999]

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Attitude and Field in Academic Writing 125

Table 4.4 Dynamic shifting from one field to the other in the social sciences Field of the object of study At a time when online course methods such as teaching, testing, grading, and discussion are no longer a novelty, online course evaluations bring the advantage of saving time and resources over the traditional paper and pencil scan sheet method. Thus, instructors may be encouraged or even required to use them in place of the more cumbersome paper method. Regardless of convenience or efficiency, however, instructor resistance to online evaluations has been well documented, especially perceptions of lower return rates and higher percentage of negative responses. Also documented is faculty resistance when moving from traditional to online evaluations (Sorenson & Reiner in Sorenson & Johnson, 2003). Some research found that faculty prefer traditional evaluations because they believe traditional methods produce a higher rate of return and more accurate responses (Dommeyer, Baum, Chapman & Hanna, 2002). [Donovan et al. 2006]

I will return to discuss in more detail the relationships that adhere across these shifts in field and the implications for evaluative stance, but at this point I want to use this representation to more readily explore ways in which attitude co-patterns with field.

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Field of research

126

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Table 4.5 Dynamic shifting from one field to the other in the sciences Field of research

Field of the object of study

that acetic acid is an important substrate for the removal of phosphate in anaerobic/aerobic activated sludge (AS) processes [1], it appears to be a minor substrate in municipal sewage [2, 3]. Therefore, novel methods of acetic acid production from sludges are still reported at the present time [4, 5]. [Ubukata 2007]

4.3 Patterns of attitude and field When we consider the ways in which attitude is expressed, that is whether it is inscribed or invoked, a preferred pattern of distribution appears. Inscribed attitude is very strongly associated with field of the object of study. This preferential pattern is illustrated in the extracts in Tables 4.6 and 4.7 where inscribed attitude is coded in bold, and graduation is italicised. In contrast, attitude that is invoked or flagged through graduation (the grading of experiential meanings) is strongly associated with field of research. This is evident in italicised instances in Tables 4.6 and 4.7. This preference for invocation in graduation over attitudinal inscription when evaluating other research is most readily visible as a preferential pattern in longer phases of discourse that predominantly report on the field of research as in Table 4.8. In Table 4.8 there is only one instance of inscribed attitude in the whole phase (contribute), yet the phase is doing evaluative work throughout. The contrast is also evident in the text in Table 4.9. In both texts the kind of graduation is identified for each instance. In Table 4.9 relatively little of the text evaluates the object of study, yet it is here that we find all the inscriptions of attitude. The field of research in contrast is dense with instances of graduation flagging an attitudinal interpretation.

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Although many researchers believe

Attitude and Field in Academic Writing 127

Table 4.6 Field and attitude in the social sciences Field of the object of study At a time when online course methods such as teaching, testing, grading, and discussion are no longer a novelty, online course evaluations bring the advantage of saving time and resources over the traditional paper and pencil scan sheet method. Thus, instructors may be encouraged or even required to use them in place of the more cumbersome paper method. Regardless of convenience or efficiency, however, instructor resistance to online evaluations has been well documented, especially perceptions of lower return rates and higher percentage of negative responses. Also documented is faculty resistance when moving from traditional to online evaluations (Sorenson & Reiner in Sorenson & Johnson, 2003). Some research found that faculty prefer traditional evaluations because they believe traditional methods produce a higher rate of return and more accurate responses (Dommeyer, Baum, Chapman & Hanna, 2002). [Donovan et al. 2006]

4.3.1 Rhetorical implications of the patterning of attitude and field What are the rhetorical implications of this association of field with ways for expressing attitude? What does this have to do with the ways in which the text functions within its discourse community? To address this question it is useful to revisit very briefly the discussion of graduation invoking attitude in Chapter 3.

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Field of research

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Table 4.7 Field and attitude in the sciences Field of research

Field of the object of study

that acetic acid is an important substrate for the removal of phosphate in anaerobic/aero- bic activated sludge (AS) processes [1], it appears to be a minor substrate in municipal sewage [2, 3]. Therefore, novel methods of acetic acid production from sludges are still reported at the present time [4, 5]. [Ubukata 2007]

As noted in Chapter 3, resources for grading attitude are themselves gradable. As such, they retain some evaluative potential even when unaccompanied by another inscribed evaluative resource. It is by such means that graduation can function to invoke an attitudinal meaning through implying a relative or comparative value (Martin & White 2005). The modification or amplification of an experiential meaning as more, very, somewhat, or less implies a relative value associated with that experiential meaning (see Channell 1994; Myers 1996). The model of graduation elaborated in Chapter 3 theorises the means by which experiential meanings can be given an attitudinal implication through grading. Grading as force assigns a degree of relative intensity or quantity and the relativisation of meaning functions to invoke an attitudinal interpretation. If an experiential meaning encoded as a classifier, as in an action-oriented study, is then intensified with pre-modification to become a more action-oriented study, the function of action-oriented shifts from classifier to epithet and signals that the meanings is to be interpreted evaluatively. In terms of quantity as amount, if many are said to have researched a particular topic, there is an implication of positive worth or significance for that topic implied through the amount of research it has attracted. In terms of extent, if a certain phenomenon has long been recognised or widely adopted there

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Although many researchers believe

Attitude and Field in Academic Writing 129

Table 4.8 Preference for invoking attitude towards other research Field of the object of study

Other researchers have reported that, in the past two decades, Australian literature on the middle school years, and on students’ perceptions of the transition from primary to secondary school has been relatively sparse (Cumming, 1994; Hallinan & Hallinan 1992). (Hargreaves, 1986 and Hargreaves & Earle 1990 provide a more substantial background outside Australia.) The literature that does exist is different in methodology from the current project, and the findings as well as discussion in the present paper may contribute to a debate of the relative value of the different approaches (see also Yates & Leder, 1996). Other research has used larger scale survey methods and attitude scales to draw conclusions about students’ reactions to the quality of school life and their self-esteem in their new school (for example, Ainley, 1995; Hill et al., 1994; Poole, 1990); or has taken a more action-oriented approach (Cumming, 1994; Hatton, 1995). Kirkpatrick’s study of students’ transition experiences at a high school in Western Australia (Kirkpatrick 1992, 1995) covers some comparable ground with the present study, but within a psychological tradition which is focused on students’ attributions of achievement. [Yates 1999]

is an implication of positive value in terms of credibility, generalisability or relevance. And adding circumstantial meaning to a process may invoke a valued interpretation of the process. For example, working collaboratively implies judgement of the agentive participants (that is the ones who work collaboratively) in terms of capacity. Focus relates to assigning a relative value by sharpening or softening a categorical or experiential boundary. Where the categorical boundary is of an entity, focus represents either a degree of authenticity or of specificity of the entity. Focusing a meaning in this way implies a degree of appreciation of the phenomenon around which focus is adjusted. Where the categorical boundary is of a process, focus can be realised in resources of conation in the verbal group, encoding degrees of fulfilment as completion of the process, or in resources of modality in which case a whole proposition can be graded as more or less actualised.

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Field of research

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Table 4.9 Field and invoking vs inscribing attitude Field of research

Field of the object of study

on the limited [grad:scope] and even negative effects of traditional product-oriented feedback on and correction of students’ work by teachers have been reported for at least 30 years [grad: scope], from the work of Stiff (1967), Marzano and Arthur (1977) [grad:amount] to [grad: scope] findings reported by Hendrickson (1981), Sommers (1982), Hillocks (1982) and Graham (1983) [grad:amount] in the early 1980s [grad:distance]. Further [grad:amount] studies carried out in the late 1980s [grad: distance] and more recently [grad: distance] (e.g. Cohen 1987; Robb et al. 1988; Anson 1989; Hyland 1990; Lockhart and Ng, 1993) [grad:amount] all [grad:amount] report similar findings. Goodlad and Hirst (1989) found over 1,000 [grad:amount] articles on peer tutoring published between 1975 and 1989. The benefits of using peer groups have also long [grad:scope] been recognised, from the early [grad:distance] studies carried out by Piaget (1959), Vygotsky (1962) and Dewey (1966) [grad:amount] to [grad:scope] more recent [grad:distance] studies, such as those by Johnson et al. (1994) [grad:amount], who believe that “peer relationships are the key to reaching students’ hearts” (p.21). Peer feedback has been shown [grad:fulfilment] to be a useful alternative or supplement [grad:amount] to end-product teacher-centred feedback. Winter (1996) points out [grad:fulfilment]... [Curtis & Herron 1998]

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Research findings

Attitude and Field in Academic Writing 131

In a consideration of distributions of attitude and field in the discussion above it emerges that resources for encoding attitude indirectly through the grading of non-attitudinal meanings are strategically significant for research writers as they position themselves in relation to other research. The grading of non-attitudinal meanings enables attitudinal work to be done while retaining a surface ‘objectivity’. At a surface level, the field of research is represented in experiential terms, for example as something that has dimensions of size and location in time and space. The evaluative work is done at an implicit level, as the representations of graded experiential meanings construe a subjective positioning. The writers subjectify objective meanings. An overall preference for implicitness over explicitness in evaluating other research gives the discourse an experiential bias and no doubt contributes to the view of academic discourse as ‘objective’ in nature. We can take this explanation of rhetorical strategies further, by considering the kinds of relationships of solidarity (Martin & Rose 2007) that are established through expressing attitude explicitly or implicitly through grading experiential meanings. When attitude is expressed explicitly, a positive or negative value is assigned, in other words, an explicit dichotomy is established of in-group (‘good’) and out-group (‘bad’). This strategy is effective in representations of the object of study. However, in representing the field of research, academic writers typically choose to invoke rather than to inscribe attitude. This results in a very different kind of interpersonal relationship. Participants and processes are no longer dichotomously represented, but rather are positioned along a cline of meaning. The relationships that are represented are therefore not ones of in-group / out-group alignment, but reflect instead degrees of similarity or difference. Other research studies are not construed as ‘good; or ‘bad’, but are positioned relative to one another on clines of experiential meaning in terms of, for example, quantity, extent, or fulfilment, and are valued implicitly in such terms. The resources of graduation used in this way enable the writers to position themselves as aligned with a discourse/research community, while at the same time, establishing a (degree of) space for their own study. They can thus express both solidarity and difference. This contrast in different kinds of positioning is represented diagrammatically in Figure 4.1, where (a) represents the dichotomous choice and (b) represents the relative positioning on a cline.

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4.3.1 The significance of avoiding inscribed attitude in relation to the field of research

Figure 4.1(a)

Positive (‘good’)

Negative (‘bad’)

useful

time-consuming

satisfied

dissatisfied

Dichotomising attitude. shows

many

attempts to show

some

few

Figure 4.1(b)

fails to show

Relativising attitude.

4.4 Projecting the values of others In the discussion and examples above, I indicated the construal of two fields in the discourse (object of study and research). I identified patterns of preference in the way each is evaluated and discussed the potential impact of these choices. However, other than sequentially, I have not yet explored the ways in which the two fields interact. This relationship between the fields also has implications for evaluative stance. To analyse the ways in which one field relates to the other I focus on the points of transition, where it becomes apparent that resources of projection expressed congruently or metaphorically in the grammar are frequently implicated. Halliday (1994) explains the congruent grammatical relationship of projection as ‘[t]he logico-semantic relationship whereby a clause comes to function not as a direct representation of (non-linguistic) experience but as a representation of a (linguistic) representation’ (1994: 250), and that ‘[w]hile the projecting clause represents an ordinary phenomenon of experience, the projected clause (...) represents a second-order phenomenon, something that is itself a representation. (...) a “metaphenomenon” ’ (1994: 252). Relationships of projection in the introductions may be construed through projecting mental or verbal processes, as underlined in: Many researchers believe // that acetic acid is an important substrate for the removal of phosphate

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132 Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

Attitude and Field in Academic Writing 133

Richards, Tung and Ng (1992) report // that teachers appear to be dissatisfied with their lack of autonomy

the results have indicated that the relationship is not a linear one it is known that ruthenium complexes of type (...) and metallocyclic ruthenium and osmium compounds of type (...) can be readily coordinat[ed] to oxidases, such as glucose oxidase of the fungus Aspergillus niger [2, 3] Less congruently, we can represent projection in behavioural processes as a physical manifestation of a verbal or mental process: instructor resistance to online evaluations has been well documented Some research found that faculty prefer traditional evaluations or the contribution of others may be construed metaphorically, as a nominalised mental or verbal process: inference is drawn: that this discursive ordering shapes how people perceive and think Foucault’s explication of the emergence of modernist normativities held in place by the binary power of normal/abnormal. The projection may specify specific human entities as sayers (italicised): Richards, Tung and Ng (1992) report that teachers appear to be dissatisfied with their lack of autonomy. Those human sayers may be back-grounded in a nominal group that puts the product rather than the producers at the Head: A study by Richards, Tung and Ng (1992) characterizes teachers in Hong Kong as professionals who feel under-consulted and sources may be represented as generalised categories: many researchers believe that acetic acid is an important substrate for the removal of phosphate.

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We can also represent what others ‘say’ as pre-projected ‘facts’ (Halliday 1994), as in:

134 Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

The projection may identify a projecting source directly, as integral to the clause structure:

or indirectly in non-integral citation (implied projection) by one or more sources: faculty prefer traditional evaluations (Dommeyer, Baum, Chapman & Hanna, 2002) providing opportunities for all types of learners in distant or disadvantaged locations (Hill, 1997; Webster & Hackey, 1997). or in circumstances of angle: According to Scollon & Scollon (1995), acts are the units at the lowest rank of discourse and can be accomplished in many different ways. or in passive constructions where the projecting source is not specified: The benefits of using peer groups have also long been recognised or in a relationship of instantiation between a nominalised verbal process (question) and an interrogative clause: none has as yet produced a definite answer to the apparently simple question ‘Do mature students do better or worse than younger students?’ There are also other instances where verbal and mental processes have been nominalised as semiotic nouns, naming speech acts and thought processes. These nominalisations do not project between clauses, but imply a connection to propositions stated elsewhere in the text, and perhaps to whole sections of text, for example: Similar findings have been made in Britain by Malleson (1959) This view is supported by several others ... This relationship of projection is understood to function both congruently and metaphorically in lexico-grammatical choices at clause

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Richards, Tung and Ng (1992) report that teachers appear to be dissatisfied with their lack of autonomy.

level, but also in a metaphorical sense at the level of the discourse semantics where the grammatical realisations exemplified above can be reconstrued metaphorically as one field projecting another field. In the context of introductions to academic research articles, the field of research projects is seen to project the field of the object of study. The notion of the metaphorical projection of one field by another draws on Christie’s analysis of curriculum genres (Christie, 1991a, 1991b, 1997), which in turn draws on Bernstein’s (1996, 1990) work on pedagogic discourse. Christie (1997) discusses the relationship between what she refers to as the regulative and the instructional registers of the classroom as one of projection with the following justification: (...) the relationship of the two is so intimate, it is argued that the regulative register ‘projects’ the instructional register, where the term is used metaphorically from the functional grammar, following Halliday’s advice (1979, 1981, 1982) about the value of thinking grammatically about a text, modelling its organisation on that of the clause. Where a relationship of projection applies, a secondary clause is said to be projected through the primary one (Halliday 1994: 219), so that something either said or thought hitherto is in this sense ‘reinstated’. The metaphor of projection is a useful one to employ for the relationship of the two registers (...). It accords with Bernstein’s general view about the manner in which a pedagogic discourse takes a discourse from sites elsewhere, and reinstates or even ‘relocates’ it for the purposes of the pedagogic activity (Bernstein 1990: 183–5). (Christie 1997: 136–7) The notion of relocating, recontextualising, or re-presenting one field of human experience into another is highly applicable to the context of academic research. The field of research projects a representation of experience from another ‘world’ (field of the object of study) as ‘metaphenomenon’ (Halliday 1994: 252). The field of research relocates the field of the object of study as intimately related although retaining separate field status. The phenomena of the field of the object of study are brought into being and construed in certain ways by the processes of enquiry (mental) and processes of reporting (verbal) that construe the field of research. As with Christie’s analysis of the curriculum genre, the construction of the register of academic research reporting requires

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Attitude and Field in Academic Writing 135

the analyst to ‘track[ ] the operation of two registers’ (Christie 1991a: 237), or two fields as it is explained in this context. The metaphor of projection is captured diagrammatically in the speech balloon icons in Figures 4.2(a) and 4.2(b). It is noted that where there are two fields being construed in related clauses, the metaphorical projection is from the field of research to the field of the domain. However the projection may be coded retrospectively in the grammar, with the projected field preceding the projecting field. In some instances there are layers of projection where one source projects a proposition that constitutes another source projecting a proposition. In the examples below the indentations represent the layers of

Sander (1963) has that the maturity associated with increasing age and experience seems to be a positive predicator…

Figure 4.2(a)

The field of research projecting the object of study.

In this sense, all aspects of social actions and interaction can also be examined by looking at the organizations of the conversations.

(Heritage, 1989)

Figure 4.2(b)

The field of the object of study projected by the field of research.

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136 Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

Attitude and Field in Academic Writing 137

Furthermore, Winter (1996) reports ... ... that “Cohen and her colleagues found ... ... that tutor and tutee learning outcomes were unaffected by... Several reasons have been put forward to explain why process writing is still considered an innovation in Hong Kong In these diagrammatic representations of projection in the discourse it is readily evident who is implicated in propositions and values expressed (Groom 2000). The differentiation of the fields also enables us to track more easily the rhetorical strategies that writers use. In Figure 4.3 we can identify that one way in which the writer persuades us that their object of study is worthy of research is by the accumulated weight of other researchers ‘authorising’ the topic. In Figure 4.4 we can track the way in which the writer positions other sources as offering different representations of the object of study, and in

Performance in language test tasks can be influenced by a wide range of features, which can interact unpredictably with characteristics of individual test-takers

(O’Sullivan, 2000a) Collectively, these influences can be considered as contributing to task difficulty,

a topic that has attracted a lot of interest recently (Iwashita et al., 2001; Bachman, 2002; Brindley and Slatyer, 2002; Elder et al., 2002; Norris et al., 2002; Fulcher and Márquez Reiter, 2003; Tavakoli and Skehan, 2003).

Figure 4.3 Multiple research voices ‘authorising’ the object of study.

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projection, so that the least indented represents the first level of projection:

138 Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

that acetic acid is an important substrate for the removal of phosphate in anaerobic/aerobic activated sludge processes [1] it appears

to be a minor substrate in municipal sewage

[2, 3] Therefore, novel methods of acetic acid production from sludges are still reported at the present time [4, 5].

Figure 4.4 study.

Research voices representing contested positions on the object of

the process represents knowledge as contested. By this means the writer opens up space for new knowledge in relation to the object of study.

4.5

Conclusion and implications for pedagogy

Drawing on the analyses in Chapters 2 and 3, in this chapter I begin to explore more closely the kinds of patterns that emerge in a logogenetic analysis of individual instances of introductions. The focus here is on what is appraised where what is appraised is interpreted at a general level of field. We know that ideational meanings structure as particulate patterns of meanings with categorical distinctions between the parts (Halliday 1994; Martin 1992a). So one field is categorically differentiated from another. When we analyse the ways expressions of attitude factor out with field it is not surprising to find some categorical differences in preference. I note here the tendency for inscribed attitude to associate with the object of study and for invoked attitude to associate with the field of research activity. These preferences are explained in strategic terms.

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Although many researchers believe

Attitude and Field in Academic Writing 139

In addition the chapter establishes the means by which the two general fields of the discourse relate, as projection.

The contribution of this chapter is to an understanding of the introduction of research articles as constitutive of two distinct fields of activity, that of the object of study and that of research in relation to the object of study (see Thetala 1997), as well as the relationship of projection that adheres between these two fields in the discourse. While the object of study will vary from text to text, as will the language used to construct that object of study, the discourses around referencing other research are much more generally relevant, varying mainly with method rather than field. In pedagogic contexts we can draw students’ attention to this feature. One useful strategy is to ask students to highlight the language used in phases of model texts that could equally well have been used to refer to studies in a completely different field. In a practical sense the anlayses in this chapter also model ways in which the discourse semantics of introductions can be represented diagrammatically. Making writer strategies more ‘visible’ in this way has proved effective in assisting students’ detailed readings of model texts, and in their appreciation of comparative or divergent patterns across texts. Modelling the ways in which the field of the object of study and the field of research interact in the texts can be portrayed by marking up the text as in Table 4.9 or Figure 4.4. When texts are presented in this way, the association of explicit attitude (bold) with the domain (unboxed) and of implicit attitude (italics) with the field of research activity (boxed) is made more apparent, as is the writer’s overall strategy of persuasion and alignment. The task that students face in their writing is often better understood. By associating attitude with field we arrive at a kind of particulate distribution of evaluative meanings, allowing us to identify similarities and differences across categories. In Chapter 5, I explore a complementary kind of patterning, that which functions in the accumulation of attitudinal meanings over phases of the discourse. This kind of patterning we refer to as prosody.

Note 1. There are points of intersection between the two fields where some coding ambiguities arise. This is the case, for example, where abstractions encode

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Some comments on the potential for interpretation into pedagogic practices

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the interpretation of research findings in lexis such as conclusions, relationship, significance, effects, similarities. In one sense these are observations of the object of study, but they also represent aspects of the research process. A decision on coding as constructing one or other field is determined by the dominant field identified in the co-text. So, for example, in the extract below, the entire text, including the underlined wording is taken to be constructing primarily the field of research: Of the many who have looked at the relationship between age and performance at universities, none has as yet produced a definite answer to the question ... whereas, in the following example, the underlined projected clause is identified as constitutive of the object of study: ... the results have indicated that the relationship between age and performance is not a linear one.

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140

5

5.1

Propagating prosody in discourse

The previous chapter explored how attitude factors out in accordance with field, revealing how writers favour more explicit attitude when evaluating their object of study and more implicit attitude when they are evaluating other research. Implicit evaluation realised through the grading of experiential meanings along dimensions of graduation, enables writers to avoid the dichotomising impact of inscribed attitude and the in/out-group positioning that it entails. By such means too, the borders around contributions to knowledge are kept permeable and open to a broader research community. The mapping of attitude onto field represents a synoptic perspective, looking back at text, as it were, to identify distributions of attitudinal expressions. In this chapter I take a more dynamic orientation to the patterning of evaluative meanings, examining how expressions of attitude co-articulate and interact with one another in the unfolding discourse. Key to this discussion is the notion of prosody. The term prosody in linguistics was originally applied to phonology by Firth (Palmer 1970) to refer to non-segmental features. Its use has been extended in SFL theory to the levels of grammar and discourse semantics. Here it refers to the way that interpersonal meanings resist the categorical confinement or bounded-ness associated with experiential meaning to spread across clauses or across phases of discourse. Prosodies of interpersonal meaning are variously described as the spread, sprawl, smear or diffusion of interpersonal meanings that accumulate, reinforce, or resonate with each other to construct an evaluative ‘key’ over an extended segment of text (Martin 1992a; Martin & Rose 2007; Thompson 1998; Lemke 1998; Halliday & Matthiessen 141

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Prosodies of Attitude

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1999; see also Poynton 1996; Rothery & Stenglin 2000; MackenHorarik 2003; Hood 2006). Prosodic patterning is to interpersonal meaning as periodic (wave-like) patterning is to textual meanings, and as particulate (part/whole) structuring is to ideational meaning (Halliday 1994; Martin 1992a, 1996).1 It should be noted that this concept of prosody is distinguished from the notion of ‘semantic prosodies’ sometimes used in pragmatics and cognitive linguistics to refer to semantic associations and collocations evident in analyses of large corpora (see Stewart 2009; Xiao & McEnery 2006). Patterns of prosodic spread can be usefully demonstrated by contrastive examples. In the first example, a writer makes the claim: It is an impoverished education system in which teachers have relinquished their role as expert knowers. If asked how that writer values the fact that teachers have relinquished their role as expert knowers, we are clear that she values this negatively. Yet there is nothing intrinsically negative in the wording, that is, there is no inscribed negative attitude. Our recognition of the negative value comes from our interpreting meaning interpersonally in the prosodic domain of the negative evaluation in impoverished. This negative appreciation spreads beyond the immediate entity that is appraised (the education system) to colour the remainder of the clause in a negative hue. This absence of intrinsic negative value in the wording, teachers have relinquished their role as expert knowers, becomes more apparent if we flip the radiating value to positive, as in: It is an innovative education system in which teachers have relinquished their role as expert knowers. We now read the claim that teachers have relinquished their role as expert knowers in a different, positive light. An awareness of the patterning of interpersonal meaning as prosody makes an important contribution to our understanding the ways in which writers do persuasive work in academic registers in texts that rely minimally on overt or inscribed attitude. It also helps analysts to resolve some of the indecision that can arise in an analytic coding of appraisal, a point that I will return to later in the chapter (section 5.4). The first part of this chapter focuses on the means by which prosodies spread. After Lemke (1998), I refer to the process by which interpersonal meanings spread as one of propagation (see Hood 2006). Approaching

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5.1.1 Coupling and lexical relations Beginning with the phase of text in [5/1] below, we can see that in the opening clause: His methodology showed certain other refinements. the writer establishes a relationship between the methodology and the positively inscribed refinements. This relationship is structured around the relational process, showed, relating refinements to the methodology, as the former reflecting the latter. The positive value flows to methodology, as illustrated in Figure 5.1 This constitutes an initial coupling of an ideational meaning, methodology, and an interpersonal meaning, refinements, as in Figure 5.2. The coupling is charged with positive attitude. As the text proceeds the writer provides more detail of the researcher’s methodological practices. These are represented as a series of processes – excluded, used, weighted (underlined).

His methodology showed certain other refinements Figure 5.1

Propagating values in a clause.

methodology

refinements

Figure 5.2 Coupling of ideational and interpersonal meanings.

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texts from the level of discourse semantics we can track the propagation of prosodies of interpersonal meaning across phases of text and in the process explore the kinds of relationships that carry the prosody along. This approach to analysis will also implicate relationships within the grammar of the clause. I will refer to some such relationships in the discussion to follow although I will not analyse in depth at this level.

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His methodology showed certain other refinements. First, he excluded overseas students. Such students tend to be older than average and also to fare worse academically (Woodley 1979), thus influencing any age/performance relationship. Secondly, he used two measures of performance; the proportion leaving without obtaining a degree and the degree results of those taking final examinations. Finally, he weighted the degree class obtained according to its rarity value in each faculty. There is lexical relationship from the positively charged methodology to the practices that enacted the methodology, and these practices are in turn interpreted positively. The grammar establishes the coupling of refinements and methodology and lexical relations propagate that value across the phase as shown in Figure 5.3. We can examine a little more closely the lexical relations in [5/1]. While a part/whole relationship suggests itself, part/whole or meronymic relationships are generally considered to hold between entities or classes of entities and their parts rather than between processes (Martin 1992a; Hood 2008). In [5/1], methodology can be interpreted as an abstract entity but the cohesively related aspects of the methodology are construed as processes. We can argue that methodology labels a general field of activity sequences, and the verbal processes (excluded, used, weighted) represent aspects of that activity sequence, as steps in the process of undertaking research. In these terms they are component parts of a whole. They can be organised into ‘composition taxonomies’ (Martin 1992a: 321) as represented on the right-hand side of Figure 5.3. Where a generalised field is evaluated in positive or negative terms, then the activity sequences elaborated for that field are cohesively implicated in the prosodic domain that radiates from the reference to the generalised field.

excluded... methodology used... refinements weighted... Figure 5.3 Coupling and lexical relations.

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[5/1]

We are accustomed to considering lexical relations as primarily in the service of ideational meaning, as functioning to build expectancy relations between ideational meanings in the construal of a field (Martin 1992: 321). The alternative perspective is to see lexical relations functioning in the service of interpersonal meaning. The prosody radiating from the coupling of positive appreciation in refinements and ideational meaning in methodology in [5/1] is carried along the lexical relations. By such means prosody can propagate across a phase of text even where there are no additional instances of inscribed attitude in the discourse. The significance of the lexical relations in propagating the prosody in [5/1] can be illuminated if we replace the inscribed positive appreciation with negative appreciation, as in [5/11]. The underlined processes now take on the negative value inscribed in problems. [5/11] There are certain problems associated with his methodology. First, he excluded overseas students. Such students tend to be older than average and also to fare worse academically (Woodley 1979), thus influencing any age / performance relationship. Secondly, he used two measures of performance; the proportion leaving without obtaining a degree and the degree results of those taking final examinations. Finally, he weighted the degree class obtained according to its rarity value in each faculty. And if we remove any inscription of value, as in [5/12], there is no implication of value in the underlined processes: [5/12] His methodology was as follows. First, he excluded overseas students. (...). Secondly, he used two measures of performance (...). Finally, he weighted the degree class obtained according to its rarity value in each faculty. The cohesive lexical relations remain but they are no longer charged with attitude. A lack of value attributed to an elaborated activity sequence, as in [5/12], can be problematic in an academic literature review. The elaborated description of a single study suggests that the study has some significance for the writer. Yet this value is not signalled for the reader and they are left wondering about the writer’s stance in relation to this study. When reviews of research as in [5/12] appear in

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student writing they may attract the criticism of representing an ‘annotated bibliography’ and as lacking in a critical perspective (e.g. Hart 1998; Swales & Lindemann 2000; Hood 2004a, 2004b). As in [5/1], so in [5/2] below, the phase begins by construing a coupling of ideational and interpersonal meaning. The ideational meaning, interaction in learning, is coupled with high positive appreciation in importance (see Figure 5.4). A coupling may not be constructed in the grammar of the clause, but is presented as a given in a nominal group, as in: Educators have long recognized the importance of interaction to student learning

interaction...

importance

Figure 5.4

Coupling interaction and importance.

interaction...

importance

Figure 5.5 Building community around a coupling.

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The underlined nominal group represents a positively charged phenomenon in a mental process clause. The clause is structured in such a way as to assign an additional value to the coupling. It is given validity or legitimacy through resources of graduation as extent in long, and additionally, although minimally, as amount in the plural, educators. We can interpret this as the writer beginning to build a community who share the coupling of importance + interaction in learning, as in Figure 5.5. The community is one of many (educators) and it is one that has longevity (long recognised). The reader is enticed to align with this community. The more established the coupling becomes over time, the more it comes to constitute a ‘bond’, in other words, a coupling that no longer needs to be negotiated, or a ‘taken for granted’. Recent research exploring concepts of coupling, bonds and affiliation in language and in other modalities includes Stenglin (2004); Martin & Stenglin (2007); Bednarek & Martin (forthcoming); Martin (2008). ‘Coupling refers to the way in which meanings combine – across strata, metafunctions, ranks, and simultaneous systems (and across modalities ...)’ (Martin 2010: 19). ‘[T]he coupling of experience with evaluation, when shared by interlocutors, creates a bond’ (Martin 2010: 26; see Zappavigna et al. 2008; Knight 2010). Once again, in [5/2] a coupling is constructed in the opening clause thus enabling prosody to propagate across the phase along a number of lexical relations. [5/2] Educators have long recognized the importance of interaction to student learning (... refs ...). Through interaction, students become acquainted with course material and its application to real world situations. Analyses of online asynchronous discussions have received attention from researchers interested in the following areas, including social presence and collaboration (... ref ...), problem-solving (... ref ...), and interaction and knowledge construction (e.g. ... refs ...). Gunawardena et al. (...) indicated that the analysis of asynchronous discussion transcripts is very important to “assess the quality of interactions and the quality of the learning experience in a computer-mediated environment.” [O’Neal 2009] There is a short activity sequence that connects the positively charged interaction in student learning to become acquainted and perhaps to the nominalised application. The positive value spreads to those ‘activities’.

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interaction + importance

online asynchronous discussions

analysis of online asynchronous discussions

asynchronous discussion interactions the learning experience computer-mediated environment

areas (of research interest) social presence and collaboration problem-solving interaction and knowledge construction asynchronous discussion transcripts

Figure 5.6

Lexical relations propagating prosody across two sub-fields.

However, an additional set of lexical relations is also implicated in the prosodic spread of value, as captured in Figure 5.6. The lexical relationships in this phase include repetition (r), ‘kind of’ relations of hyponymy (h), and co-hyponymy (co-h), and part/whole relations or meronymy (m). There are no instances of part/part relations or comeronymy (co-m) in this text. The string on the left construes a field of education with a focus on interaction in learning. The string on the right construes a field of research into interaction in learning. The two strings are connected, as are the two fields. Prosody of positive appreciation thus flows across the phase. 5.1.2 The role of evaluative harmonies Lexical relations have been seen to play a significant role in the propagation of interpersonal prosody. These may be relations along an expectancy sequence of activities in a field, as is evident in [5/1], or along lexical strings in relationships of repetition, meronymy or hyponymy, as in [5/2]. In these examples the ideational cohesion functions as a conductor for the interpersonal values.

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interaction

From a complementary perspective we could begin with an analysis of interpersonal meaning and consider how attitudinal connections build cohesion and spread a prosody. We can explore the extent to which a phase of text expresses consistent attitudinal selections, or the extent to which there is an attitudinal harmony across the phase (see Lemke 1998 on evaluation creating cohesive links; Hasan on cohesive harmony in Halliday & Hasan 1985; Martin 1992a: 370). In [5/3], attitude is inscribed in multiple instances across the phase. It is expressed as attributes, it is infused in things, or it is provoked in lexical metaphor (at home). These instances are encoded in bold. All instances of attitude in this phase are positive and several are amplified with amplification italicised. [5/3] The current phenomenal success with young (and older) readers of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books confirms the enduring capacity of literary narratives to engage the enthusiasm of young people in the 21st century. But the interactions of many young enthusiasts with the story world of Harry Potter extends well beyond the covers of the books and their movie adaptations, into the world of cyberspace where today’s young people are so much at home. The plethora of Harry Potter websites, many of which are developed and managed by juvenile ‘webmasters’, demonstrates both profound and playful engagement with the book-based narratives through online chat room discussions, reviews and commentaries, as well as avid exploration of new forms of related game narratives, and the generation of adjunct ‘fan fiction’ and image-focused creations elaborating interpretations of the story worlds. [Unsworth 2004] In the opening sentence, the writer evaluates literary narratives in general and the Harry Potter books in particular with positive appreciation: valuation (phenomenal success, enduring capacity), and the young readers are evaluated as experiencing positive affect: inclination (e.g. enthusiasm, playful engagement, avid). This positive emotional response of children is picked up from the opening clause and reiterated in the unfolding text (Figure 5.7). An attitudinal harmony of positive enjoyment propagates further with each new inscription in the text (with a little reassurance of positive security, at home, and positive judgement, profound, added along the

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enthusiasm

profound & playful engagement

avid

Figure 5.7

Expanding prosody of positive affect.

way). One inscription resonates with the next and the prosody expands rather than simply extends. The phase constructs a most compelling case for the writer’s object of study. In [5/4], the writer similarly builds a strong prosody of positive authenticity / negative artificiality across the phase. The multiple expressions implicated in propagating this prosody are underlined. There are expressions of inscribed attitude (in bold) and of graduation invoking attitude (italicised). Resources of graduation as focus: authenticity (Chapter 3) sharpen the categorical boundaries around experiential entities (truly, true, real) and resonate with inscriptions, authentic, artificial, pseudo. In this prosodic domain we are also encouraged to read the positive inscription of attitude in more purposeful and meaningful as instantiating the meaning of real. [5/4] Such a technique in writing pedagogy is underpinned by writing research theories that advocate writing as a process of drafting and redrafting, as well as writing as process of communicating to a real audience (...) Writing becomes more purposeful and meaningful as it is read by an authentic audience (... ref ...). Peer reviews reflect writing as a truly communicative process rather than an artificial, lonely exercise where students write for a pseudo-reader, the teacher, who reads students’ essays predominantly for assessment purposes rather than for real communication. Peer review is a useful technique for

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enthusiasts

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encouraging revision in writing. It provides a true incentive for students to revise their work.

Once again prosody expands with the logogenesis of the text, as illustrated in part in Figure 5.8.

real

more purposeful meaningful

authentic

truly

artificial

Figure 5.8 Expanding prosody of positive appreciation.

As evident in [5/4], attitudinal harmonies need not rely solely on inscriptions of attitude. In fact they can propagate in the absence of inscriptions along instances of graduation invoking attitude (see Chapter 3). In [5/5] such instances are underlined and the nature of the graduation is noted in square brackets. In this phase of text, each instance grades experiential meaning in terms of quantity as either + amount or + scope. [5/5] The aim of the present study was to extend [+ scope] Walker’s work to all [+ scope] British universities so that these and other [+ amount] relationships could be tested out on a much larger [+ amount] sample of mature students. [Woodley 1985] In the examples above, the multiple expressions of consistent value function to construct an attitudinal harmony across a phase. As they accumulate the prosody spreads along this trajectory of interpersonal cohesion. Disrupting prosody

Just as consistent values build an attitudinal harmony, so disjunctive values can disrupt that harmony. Writers can employ disjunctive values as a deliberate strategy to disrupt a prosody and to re-align readers to a different position, as is discussed later, re concession, in section 5.3. However, attitudinal disharmonies can also be an issue in novice academic writing. The extensive reliance on resources of graduation in academic writing

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[Lee 1997]

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This suggests that the method is possibly effective. in that both the underlined expressions encode a lack of fulfilment of a proposition. But this is not the case in: This established that the method is possibly effective. where there is a disjunction between the + fulfilment in established and the – fulfilment in possibly. 5.1.3 The role of higher level periodicity To this point we have focused on the role of lexical relations in the service of interpersonal meaning, in other words, of the interplay of the interpersonal with the ideational, and we have considered the implications of the co-articulation of multiple expressions of attitude of harmonious values. We can also approach the exploration of prosody from a complementary textual perspective. This constitutes another lens with which to view the process of building an evaluative stance and of aligning readers in a community of shared values. Textual meaning is described as the ‘mode of meaning that relates to the construction of text (...) organising the discursive flow’ (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004: 30). The textual patterning of meanings in discourse is described as a periodic pattern, one of waves and troughs that function to give prominence to certain meanings over others in the message. In English, the points of prominence associate with the beginnings and endings of units of meaning. At the clause level, Theme associates with the beginning of the clause and New with the end (e.g. Halliday 1994; Forey & Thompson 2009). This pattern resonates up to the level of discourse semantics in higher-level Themes and higher-level News (Martin 1992a; Martin & Rose 2007). Hyper-Themes constitute the initial point of prominence at the beginning of a phase of discourse. Macro-Themes function as initial points of prominence in longer sections of text. In a research article, for example, the introduction itself constitutes a high-level macroTheme for the whole paper, and a conclusion functions as a high-level macro-New. Higher-level Themes function as predictive of the meanings

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and the multiple systems of lexicogrammar that can be implicated in their expression present many challenges to the management of attitudinal harmonies in the discourse. In the following examples, harmonies of value are more or less successfully managed through resources of graduation as focus: actualisation. A harmony of values is achieved in:

in a subsequent phase or section of discourse. Higher-level News function to consolidate the meanings in the preceding phase or section. Textual meaning is understood to be an enabling or facilitating function in relation to the other metafunctions (the ideational and the interpersonal). It functions to organise the message, where the notion of ‘message’ includes both ideational and interpersonal meaning. Earlier research on the texturing of academic texts tended to focus on the organisation of the message in ideational terms, and privileged the thematic structuring at clause level. Recently, more attention has been paid to the organisation of interpersonal meanings and to the role of higherlevel periodicity in forecasting and consolidating such meanings across phases of discourse (Hunston 2000; Thompson & Zhou 2000; Coffin & Hewings 2004; Hood 2009; Martin 2009). In the first two examples discussed in this chapter, [5/1] and [5/2], the textual location of the initial coupling of ideational and interpersonal meanings is significant. In each example the coupling is constructed or presented in the opening sentence in what constitutes the hyper-Theme of a phase of text. Because the hyper-Theme is predictive of the subsequent phase, the ideational meanings encoded at this point in the phase typically represent the field in a more generalised or abstracted way (Hood 2008). This generalised or abstracted representation then becomes more specific or more congruent as the phase unfolds (see Hood 2008 for a more detailed discussion of instantiation and the progressive commitment of meanings in discourse). For example, in [5/1] the writer introduces the abstract entity methodology, and in [5/2] the writer begins with reference to the generalised interaction in student learning. These generalised or abstracted representations of the field coincide with the opening ‘crest’ of the periodic wave that predicts the content to come. Significantly, as discussed in section 5.1, these abstracted or generalised meanings are coupled with attitude. As the field is progressively instantiated across the phase it is accompanied by a prosodic spread of attitude. From a textual perspective we can consider the interpersonal meaning as piggy-backing on the textual periodic wave. Alternatively, from an interpersonal first perspective, we can interpret the higher-level Themes as the means to enable a prosodic flow of value. In [5/1] and [5/2] the attitude is inscribed, but in other cases it may be invoked through resources of graduation (Hood 2009). So, for example, positive appreciation: valuation is invoked in instances of graduation as +scope in time, and + amount in: Over the past two decades, there has been a great deal of research investigating student motivation and engagement.

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and – distance in time, and + amount in:

In both examples, implied evaluation of significance, interest and/or relevance couples with an ideational meaning: student motivation and engagement in one and teacher gender and student performance in the other. The examples so far have focused on a prospective prosody flowing from a hyper-Theme, but prosody can also flow retrospectively from a hyper-New. The following examples also illustrate the relevance of prosody in writing across different disciplines, with instances from the sciences and humanities. It may be difficult to follow the unfolding detail of the field in [5/6] in an article on organic chemistry, but we can readily identify the hyper-Thematic positioning of the bolded inscribed attitude in remarkably [+ appreciation: valuation]. The attitude encoded in this prominent textual location is then predictive for the phase of text. [5/6] The hormonally active form of vitamin D3, ([named]), has a remarkably wide range of pharmacological activities. The discovery that calcitriol possesses next to its well-known calciotropic activity, additional immunosuppressive, cellular proliferation inhibiting, and cellular differentiation inducing activities has resulted in a very active search for synthetic analogues featuring dissociation of the calcemic from the other pharmacological effects. Many of the analogues found represent modifications in the side chain. Among them, the calcitriol analogue ZK 191784 (2), which bears an oxazole unit in the side chain, has been shown to be a very promising compound for the treatment of psoriasis. [Westermann et al. 2007] Also recognisable in [5/6] is a further inscription of attitude in a phase-final position. This corresponds with the textual location of hyper-New discussed above. The hyper-New functions to orient the reader retrospectively to consolidate meanings across a phase (Martin & Rose 2007). Where inscribed attitude is encoded at this final point of prominence in the phase, it functions to consolidate the stance built

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In recent years there has been considerable popular debate around the questions of teacher gender and student performance

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over the phase. Figure 5.9 illustrates the prosodic flow forth from the hyper-Theme and back from the hyper-New.

has been shown to be a very promising compound for the treatment of psoriasis. Figure 5.9 Higher level periodicity and prospective and retrospective prosodies.

A similar pattern is evident in [5/7] in a phase from an introduction to a cultural studies article on the social construction of disability. In this example, attitude is encoded in multiple instances, bundled together in the hyper-Theme and so intensifying the prosodic impact. A further bundle of inscribed attitude associates with hyper-New at the end of the phase. [5/7] Against the dominant standard, the construction of physical difference as a failing, incomplete and inferior, marks disabled embodiment as deeply devalued, not so much for what it is, but for what it fails to be. Its status and meaning are from the start relational, rather than having autonomous standing. Regardless of whether the focus is on the body itself or on the socio-political context, there is broad agreement that far from being a bioscientific fact, disability is a category constituted, given meaning, and expressed through an endless set of cultural, historical, political and mythological parameters that ambiguously define disabled people as excessive, as contaminatory, as at once malign and helpless. [Shildrick 2005] In [5/7] the prosody that projects forward in the phase is one of negative appreciation of the abstractions of physical difference and embodiment. While there is an implication of people behind these abstractions, the writer chooses to encode the values as negative appreciation rather than judgement. However, the prosody that rebounds retrospectively from the hyper-New is one of negative judgement of the generalised entity of disabled people. The interpersonal punch is arguably stronger at the end of the phase than at the beginning. An intellectual

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The hormonally active form of vitamin D3, ([named]), has a remarkably wide range of pharmacological activities

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alignment is being promoted at the beginning of the phase, but a normalising, moral or ethical alignment is being consolidated at the end of the phase. In this example we see that the values in hyper-Theme and hyper-New need not mirror each other exactly but can function to move the conditions of community alignment along, defining them in more specific terms as the discourse progresses. The issue of preferences for different kinds of attitude is discussed in Chapter 4 in relation to field and is also taken up again in relation to disciplinary preferences in Chapter 6. In one final example in this section, a further variation of the use of higher-level periodicity is evident. In [5/8] the writer does not inscribe attitude in the hyper-Theme, although he does imply a value in resources of graduation in (not only ... also). Instead he inscribes attitude, and amplified attitude, in the hyper-New, in powerful. As this phase constitutes the final phase in the writer’s introduction, functioning as the transition phase to the rest of the article, the hyper-New of the phase corresponds to the macro-New of the whole introduction. The writer is therefore not only consolidating this phase in which he previews his own study, but is consolidating the whole introduction, the whole warrant for his research. [5/8] The present study therefore, not only examines the issue of student and teacher gender in motivation and engagement, but also in the same analysis accounts for the hierarchical structure of the data. Hence, the relative contribution of student and teacher gender can be assessed after accounting for variance at student, class, and school levels. This constitutes a powerful analysis of the contribution of teacher and student gender to motivation and engagement. [Martin & Marsh 2005]

5.2 Patterns of prosody Having identified means by which prosodies of interpersonal meaning spread across phases of discourse, we can focus more closely on how these prosodies function rhetorically in research article introductions. Martin & White (2005) suggest three kinds of prosodic patterning in discourse, namely those of domination, intensification, and saturation. Each is discussed and exemplified below.

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The prosodic patterns that are evident in [5/1], [5/2], [5/6], [5/7] and [5/8] exemplify what Martin & White (2005) refer to as a prosody of domination, one that flows prospectively from the dominating position of a hyper-Theme, and perhaps retrospectively from the dominating perspective of a hyper-New. The examples above indicate that the strategy may be one that is employed across different disciplinary contexts. They also indicate that it may be a strategy employed where the writer is reporting on the object of study ([5/2], [5/6] and [5/7]), where the writer is reporting on other research in the field ([5/1]), or where they are reporting on their contribution ([5/8]). 5.2.2 Prosodies of saturation Whereas prosody of domination radiates from a point of textual prominence, a prosody of saturation is described as ‘opportunistic’; it ‘manifests where it can’ (Martin & White 2005: 19). From a static perspective each instance of attitude can be seen to appraise a specific phenomenon. From a dynamic perspective the multiple instantiations of value accumulate and resonate one with the other as the text unfolds to colour a whole phase of discourse with a certain value. Expressions in the unfolding text pick up values previously encoded, maintaining or reinforcing the prosody. These expressions may include attitudinally inscribed lexis as well choices from the multitude of means identified in Chapter 3 for grading experiential meanings as force or focus. A phase of text can become saturated with a harmonious set of values. While prosodies of domination are common in phases that report on the object of study as well as phases that report on other research, prosodies of saturation are more likely to occur where the writer is reporting on the object of study. Such a prosodic pattern is evident in the examples [5/3], [5/4] and [5/5] above, and again in [5/9] in an article on building physics, in which there is a relatively dense accumulation of negative appreciation: composition in damages, deterioration, damage, reduce resistance, deform, well as positive appreciation: valuation in more important, main. [5/9] Hygrothermal analysis has become more important in building design as moisture damages have become one of the main causes of building envelope deterioration. Water and moisture can cause structural

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5.2.1 Prosodies of domination

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damage, reduce the thermal resistance of building materials, change the physical properties of materials, and deform materials.

The saturation of the phase in inscribed negative appreciation makes for a more compelling warrant for research in this field. However, prosody of saturation can also be found in transition phases at the end of introductions where writers preview their own studies. At this point writers can establish the potential of their own research to contribute to knowledge in the field. They have done the work to create space for new knowledge, to establish the warrant for their own study. Now they can lay claim to the space created. In Swales’ terms they make a move to ‘occupy the niche’ (Swales1990: 141). The example in [5/8] illustrates that a writer can evaluate their own study in explicitly positive terms, even in amplified positive terms. However, academic writers frequently choose to be less bold, and less dichotomising. Commonly a writer will rely on a range of resources of graduation invoking attitude to saturate the phase in an implied positive hue, as in [5/5], reproduced here. [5/5] The aim of the present study was to extend [+scope] Walker’s work to all [+scope] British universities so that these and other [+amount] relationships could be tested out on a much larger [+amount] sample of mature students. [Woodley 1985] Alternatively, where explicit attitude is inscribed, the attitude may be downgraded somewhat through resources of graduation as focus: fulfilment. In [5/10] this is managed through resources of modality (italicised). [5/10] The aim of this paper is to present a description of discourse in the specific genre of MBA seminar classes. Such description can be of value to EAP course designers. (...) Moreover, course designers in other social studies areas and disciplines may find the description useful. [Basturkmen 1999] 5.2.3 Prosody of intensification The third kind of prosodic pattern identified by Martin & White (2005) is that of intensification. Prosodies of intensity rely on highly charged

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[Kalamees et al. 2006]

Prosodies of Attitude 159

Intensification and domination

As was evident in [5/7] an attitudinal charge may be amplified over a string of inscriptions at points of textual prominence, at the beginning of the phase, as in: the construction of physical difference as a failing, incomplete and inferior, marks disabled embodiment as deeply devalued and again ... and/or at the end, as in: ... define disabled people as excessive, as contaminatory, as at once malign and helpless. In this example, prosody of intensification is achieved though piling up multiple expressions of attitude in a list (see Chapter 3). The intensified hyper-Theme and the intensified hyper-New strengthen the radiating power of the prosody, both prospectively and retrospectively. The intensification of attitude at a periodic crest in the discourse may also be achieved by the amplification of a single expression of evaluation. Evidence of this strategy is found in phase-initial clauses (underlined) in [5/11], [5/12], and [5/13]. In [5/11] the force of the attitude is graded up in the pre-modifier, extremely: [5/11] The Government is extremely concerned about the decreasing number of male teachers ... [Martin & Marsh 2005] In [5/12] amplification is infused in the lexical term, fascinating: [5/12] [S]pectroscopy of these materials offers a fascinating area of research. [Rosemary et al. 2006]

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attitudinal choices where the level of charge functions to spread the value beyond the instance. As Martin & White (2005: 20) explain, ‘the volume is turned up so the prosody makes a bigger splash’. In phases of academic writing intensification seems to function in combination with both prosodies of domination and of saturation.

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In [5/13] the amplification is expressed in morphology in best:

Walker’s (1975) study of mature students at Warwick University represents the best (...) attempt to unravel the relationship between age and performance. [Woodley 1985]

Intensity and saturation

A prosody of intensification can also combine with a prosody of saturation, as is exemplified in [5/3], and again in [5/14]. In [5/3], the Harry Potter books are not just a success, but are a phenomenal success. They don’t just have a capacity to engage, they have an enduring capacity. The fans are not just keen, they are avid. In [5/14] the city is not just disrupted but it is in turmoil. The families are not just upset or sad, they are grief-stricken. [5/14] I awoke one morning to find a city in turmoil, and later, to see the images of grief stricken families on the television news. The few words in these headlines demand the recognition of the complexity of human relationships that exist in a society struggling with the constant invasion of new ideas, different values, and other ways of understanding the world. [Ryan 2008] While the combination of prosody of intensification and of domination can be found in phases of text that report on the object of study, on other research, or on the writer’s own study, the combination of intensification and saturation is more likely in phases of text in which the writer is reporting on their object of study. It is in this context that the writer can work to compel readers to align with their stance.

5.3 Shifting prosodic values The explanation and discussion of prosody to this point in the chapter has focused on meanings unfolding as expected or without disruption across phases of text, in what are referred to as expectancy relations (Martin 1992a: 321). The analyses have exemplified how prosodies can

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[5/13]

propagate along lexical relations across a phase of text, how they can radiate prospectively from hyper-Theme position, or retrospectively from hyper-New position (Martin 1992a: 333; Martin & Rose 2007), and how multiple expressions of attitude can harmonise to colour phases of text in a consistent hue. An awareness of how prosodies propagate is critical in understanding the construction of evaluative stance in academic writing. Equally important is an understanding of how they are interrupted. 5.3.1 The role of concession Complementary to an understanding of how prosody spreads in discourse is an awareness of how it is interrupted. Resources of counterexpectancy, typically concessive conjunctions, are instrumental in this process of disrupting or shifting the prosodic flow of attitude in academic texts (Thompson & Zhou 2000). In the examples in this section, markers of counter-expectancy such as concessive conjunctions are shown boxed. In [5/15], the writer acknowledges concerns about the object of study, in this case online learning, before promoting a positive aspect that constitutes the focus of her own study. The concessive but functions to flip the polarity from negative to positive. [5/15] There have been concerns related to the loss of face-to-face interaction in online learning, but some researchers have failed to take into account the use of online discussion boards as a medium for enhancing communications. [O’Neal 2009] In [5/16], the writer acknowledges the value of the object of study, before identifying certain problems or concerns that relate to her own research problematic. The concession flips the polarity from positive to negative. [5/16] While online instruction is gaining popularity, it is not free from criticism. [Johnson et al. 2000] The evaluative strategy of setting up prosody in one polarity then disrupting it around a concessive conjunction is employed with very

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high frequency in introductions to research articles (Thompson & Zhou 2000). The strategy allows writers to acknowledge different perspectives on their object of study, or on research in the field, in other words to represent knowledge as contested. This strategy could be simplified as: ‘some think x, but others think y’. The strategy can be found in phases of reports on an object of study, as in [5/15] and [5/16], or in phases that report on other research as in [5/17]. When reporting on other research a shift from positive to negative is often favoured as a move to create distance and hence space for the writer’s own work. [5/17] These orientations are very encouraging. However, I feel that the new approaches also have proposals which will be less fruitful. [Painter 1986] However, shifts from negative to positive are also possible, as in [5/18]. In this example it is not a theoretical orientation that is being negotiated, but a research method: [5/18] Due to the fact that these methods are often very laborious and timeconsuming they can only be used for off-line analyses. However, these methods are important tools to identify bottlenecks in the genetic design of the production strains or in the determination of so-called process-relevant marker genes. [Pioch et al. 2007] When writers are negotiating space for their own study in relation to other research, they may focus on a single study, or on a generalised body of research representing a particular approach or theoretical orientation, as in [5/19]: [5/19] Although there is a relatively more consistent line of research assessing the hierarchical nature of achievement, there is relatively little that examines the hierarchical nature of motivation and engagement and the issue of class-level motivation in the academic context. [Martin & Marsh 2005]

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Prosodies of Attitude 163

A relationship of concession can be implied rather than made explicit in the phase. We could insert however into the empty box in [5/20] to make the concession explicit.

A number of researchers (... refs ...) solved the equations describing the drying process separately for each phase (gas, liquid and solid). These equations contain various thermophysical properties for each phase. More experimental work is necessary for the determination of these properties. The resources of graduation in [5/20] imply the partial contribution of other studies but the need for more research. Not uncommonly, before we encounter a counter-expectancy marker in a phase of academic discourse, we have a sense it is pending. This is in part because of a familiarity with the genre of the research warrant, and also that we are interpreting clues in the discourse, especially instances of graduation as focus, softening categorical meanings around entities and processes. An example of such a clue is evident in the hyper-Theme of [5/5]. The writer gives high praise to the study he is reviewing in best, but then grades the meaning as not fully actualised in the nominalised conation, attempt. This is a signal of the space that will subsequently be occupied by the writer’s own study. In [5/131] we find the counterexpectancy signalled in but and only. [5/131] Walker’s (1975) study of mature students at Warwick University represents the best (...) attempt to unravel the relationship between age and performance. He took 240 mature undergraduates who were admitted to the university between 1965 and 1971 and compared their progress with that of all undergraduates. This gave him a reasonably large sample to work with ... . (...) Several other differences were noted but they did not achieve statistical significance due to the small numbers involved. The mature student sample only contained thirty-three women, twenty-six science students and thirty-seven aged over thirty. [Woodley 1985] The examples above represent canonically constructed phases of reporting in a literature review stage of an introduction, as the writer argues

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[5/20]

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initially for some relevance, some reason for mentioning another study, but then needs to distance the study from their own study as they make space for new knowledge.

The strategy of disrupting and shifting the value of a prosody is also a means to negotiate community and to manage the alignment of the reader towards the writer’s own position. Shifts from a positive prosody to a negative one enable the writer to begin by aligning with a broader community around an expected coupling of positive value and phenomenon, and then to distance herself from aspects of that broader alignment. This constitutes a move that goes something like: ‘it is important but there are problems’, as is evident in [5/16]. Alternatively, the writer may begin by suggesting an alignment with a negatively charged coupling, then disrupt this prosody to suggest the need to reconsider or limit the negative assessment. This strategy is evident in [5/15]. In both cases the writer is managing community alignments at the same time as they are carving out space for their own study. This is a crucial dimension to the rhetorical strategy in the genre of research warrants, but of course, not all introductions are managed in this way. Some writers, for example, choose to construct their object of study in entirely negative terms, representing it as uncontested ground. They assume a general alignment around their position, and then work to strengthen that alignment. It is also possible to find introductions to research studies in which the writer construes the object of study in consistently positive terms, that is, without any counter-expectancy to interrupt the prosody. Representing an object of study in entirely positive terms has been referred to by Swales (1990) in his move analysis of research paper introductions as ‘continuing a tradition’. MacDonald (1994:11, after Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969) is somewhat harsher in her description of such discourse as ‘epideictic rhetoric’ that is ‘oriented towards celebration and preservation’ rather than to ‘knowledgemaking’. In many of the examples explored so far in this chapter, the evidence of prosodic disruption is missing. Frequently, however, a concessive conjunction is introduced beyond the phase shown. So, for example, in [5/3] the writer construes the field of children’s Internet-based engagement with literary narratives consistently in very positive terms as indicated in the bolded inscriptions of attitude. However, a little further on in the introduction, in [5/31], the writer introduces the concessive, but. At this point the values shift from positive to negative, and the writer

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5.3.2 Shifting boundaries of community alignment

Prosodies of Attitude 165

begins to identify his problematic, namely the need for guidance for teachers.

(...) The plethora of Harry Potter websites, many of which are developed and managed by juvenile ‘webmasters’, demonstrates both profound and playful engagement with the book-based narratives through online chat room discussions, reviews and commentaries, as well as avid exploration of new forms of related game narratives, and the generation of adjunct ‘fan fiction’ and image-focused creations elaborating interpretations of the story worlds. (...) But the evidence is that the majority of teachers, even younger, recent graduates, are in need of guidance in understanding the opportunities deriving from the impact on information and communication technologies (ICTs) on literary narrative for children and on the contexts in which it is experienced. It is also important to note that a shift in prosody will not always implicate inscribed attitude. In [5/21] a positive prosody initiated in intensive is disrupted briefly at though as the writer creates the necessary distancing and hence space for her own research. This concessive conjunction signals a shift in stance, so that that which follows the concessive is read in the light of the opposite polarity, in this case then in a negative light. Being smaller in scale and particular in focus and not longitudinal are now to be interpreted as negative aspects. A potential resumption of a positive prosody is signalled in the cohesive repetition of the author, Green, and then confirmed in a range of expressions of graduation invoking attitude that function to grade up meanings only to be reinstated again at the second reference to the author, Green. In this instance almost all the work of manipulating stance to and fro in the phase relies on instances of graduation invoking attitude around a resource of concession. [5/21] Green’s recent intensive study of ten students and their literacy experiences during the Year 6/Year 7 transition (Green, 1997) has more in common with the methodological perspectives of the present project, though it was smaller in scale, focused on a particular dimension (literacy), and not offering the comparative and (eventual) longitudinal scope of the 12 to 18 Project. Green’s study offers a case study

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[5/31]

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exploration of the experiences of ten different students, and in doing so moves on from narrowly defined ‘literacy practices’ to uncover a number of broader issues which make up these students’ school literacy experiences(...).

Instances of graduation that confirm a return to a positive prosody include: exploration [+force: intensifying a process] ten different [+force: quantity and scope] moves on from narrowly [+force: distance from; –force: scope] a number of [+force: quantity] broader [+force: scope] The pattern of building a prosody in terms of one polarity then shifting the value around a concessive conjunction such as ‘however’, ‘(al)though’, or ‘but’ is a most common rhetorical strategy in academic writing (Thompson & Zhou 2000; Nwogu 1997). The concession signals a shift in the prosodic ‘key’ (Martin & Rose 2007) and functions to encourage a change in the way in which we, as readers, align with a proposition or a phenomenon. The positive evaluations function to align the reader with a proposition or a point of view; the negative evaluations function to dis-align or at least distance. It is this distance that constructs the space for new knowledge. Through the logogenetic flow of cohesion and concession writers work to orchestrate readers’ responses, manoeuvering their alignments in the unfolding discourse.

5.4

Prosody as an aid to interpretation and analysis

Linguistic criteria exist for the identification of inscriptions of attitude, namely that the lexical choices should carry a positive or negative value that can be graded up or down. Nonetheless, interpretations or analyses are not always straightforward. 5.4.1 Distinguishing attitudinal lexis and field lexis Another issue that can arise is that of differentiating at the borders of interpersonal and experiential meaning. Some terms appear to be technicalised evaluation, institutionalised to the extent that they are considered no longer to be primarily construing attitude, but rather as primarily

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[Yates 1999]

Prosodies of Attitude 167

The research focuses on ... Foundational theories in this study include ... The following findings achieved statistical significance The evidence suggests that ... In other cases experiential meanings are pushed in the direction of attitude through co-textual resources of contrast. The contrast constructs two experiential meanings as being of different values, as in: The research design uses a qualitative rather than a quantitative method. The contrastive resource is boxed, and the contrastively positioned experiential meanings are underlined. The implication is that one of the underlined experiential terms is read as countering the other, invoking a meaning of –/+ appreciation: valuation. 5.4.2 Subjective readings of text Language choices may also be interpreted differently by different readers depending on, for example, their knowledge of the field and familiarity with the values of the field. In [5/22], for example, it may be initially unclear how the word traditional is to be interpreted. Does it express a neutral categorical meaning, or does it carry a positive or negative implication? [5/22] In the traditional classroom, writing is often done in isolation – the students write on their own, hand in the product to the teacher, get written feedback from him or her, and finally put aside the writing. [Lee 1997] If we read on into the phase we are progressively encouraged towards a negative interpretation of traditional as is evident in [5/221] [5/221] In the traditional classroom, writing is often done in isolation – the students write on their own, hand in the product to the teacher, get written feedback from him or her, and finally put aside the writing.

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construing field. Such terms may still carry a residual connotation of either positive or negative value, and if in the domain of a positive prosody the inclination to interpret them may be stronger. Examples of such terms in the field of research might include expressions such as:

Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

This is followed by another cycle and the pattern persists. Peer review is a technique that reverses such a traditional approach to writing. Students may still start off by writing on their own; however, once the first draft is done, they get their peers to read it and comment on it. Then they revise it, taking into account their peers’ remarks. Writing becomes more purposeful and meaningful as it is read by an authentic audience (Mittan, 1989). [Lee 1997] There are implicit clues towards a negative reading of traditional in the words isolation and persists. But it is not until the culmination of the phase that an explicit position is encoded. The reverse of a traditional approach is praised confirming and strengthening a negative evaluation of the traditional classroom. In [5/23], the writer anticipates that the reader shares an appropriate post-structural gaze that values negatively the notions of human perfectibility, a god-given nature, and a privileged medical model. Where such a gaze is not shared by the reader difficulties in interpretation or ‘misreadings’ may arise. [5/23] Following Foucault’s explication of the emergence of modernist normativities held in place by the binary power of normal/abnormal, disability scholarship has charted a break between earlier models that are driven by the religiously inspired and superstitiously expressed notions of human perfectibility [–] and a god-given [–] nature, and a medical model that still retains a privileged [–] place in contemporary mainstream culture. More recently that latter discourse has been increasingly displaced by the social model of disability that reads the imposition [–] of normativities in an entirely different light and effects a politicisation of the problematic. [Shildrick 2005] While familiarity/unfamiliarity with a field or a shared/unshared community of values are variables in our interpretation of attitude especially in some specialist texts, the text itself will provide limitations to the meaning potential available to an individual reader or analyst. Prosody plays a key role in this. The patterns of meaning established in the text, and prosodic domains of value, will to a significant extent delimit the possible interpretations available to the reader. After all, the

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5.5

Conclusion and implications for pedagogy

In this chapter I have explored means by which prosodies of attitude spread across phases of discourse. These means include the coupling of attitude and ideation enabling a value to propagate along lexical relations in a text. They also include the development of harmonies of attitude in the expression of consistent values, and the radiation of attitude from points of textual prominence. The chapter also demonstrates different prosodic patterns and explores the ways in which academic writers employ these rhetorical strategies in establishing a warrant for their own research. Some comments on the potential for interpretation into pedagogic practices

While the management of prosodies of value is evidently a complex process, an appreciation of the prosodic patterns of interpersonal meaning is important in the effective management of evaluation in academic writing, and so is usefully a part of any modelling or explication of interpersonal meaning in academic literacy support programmes. It represents an important complement to the extensive body of work on the categorical structuring of meanings in academic writing, such as in the identification of more or less discrete stages of genres (e.g. Samraj 2002; Yang & Allison 2004), or the evaluative role of discrete grammatical structures (e.g. Thompson & Ye 1991; Conrad & Biber 2000). It also extends recent work on the textual organisation of meanings in academic texts (e.g. Ravelli 2004; Coffin 2004; Coffin & Hewings 2004) by focusing on the interaction of the textual with the interpersonal. Alerting novice academic writers to the prosodic patterning of evaluative stance in academic discourse can help them to manage more effectively the construction of stance in their own texts. At several points throughout this chapter I have made use of metaphors of colour (colour, hue, light) to refer to a spread of value. While it is not possible to use colour in this book, this can be a most valuable resource in teaching about attitude and prosody or in coding texts in the context of research. The use of contrasting colour to code positive and negative values or kinds of attitude serves a number of

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question here is not whether or not we share the values inscribed by the writer, but whether we are able to identify the values expressed, and to recognise the communities with which the writer is aligning and disaligning, to recognise the ideal reader that the text is assuming.

functions, including shifts in alignment, such as those that occur around concessive conjunctions. By grading the intensity of colour, we can also visually represent values as inscribed (high intensity of colour) or as implied, for example, through resources of graduation (lower intensity of colour). Their role in extending prosodies of value can become more evident. Ideally we might also employ the resources of information technology to reflect the dynamic shifting in evaluative colour as texts unfold in the reading of them and preferred reader alignments are adjusted and managed by the writer. Another recommended strategy is to demonstrate to, and engage novice writers in manipulating the values encoded in texts, as in [5/1] in this chapter. This may involve drafts of students’ own writing or published texts. Discussions can follow on the impact of deleting or inserting explicit evaluative terms. Instances of graduation can similarly be manipulated by adding or diminishing force or sharpening or softening focus. The location of evaluative resources into or out of positions of textual prominence can also be manipulated. The different means for propagating prosodies can be modelled and these can also be tracked in relevant published articles or in students’ own texts. Novice research writers are likely to find it useful to highlight hyper-Themes and hyper-News in key texts, then identifying any couplings of attitude and ideational meaning. The lexical relations that carry the coupled value in the logogenesis of the discourse can then be tracked. The diagrammatic representations in this chapter may prove useful in this. In Chapter 6, I return to the question of disciplinary differences raised initially in Chapter 2. I consider variations in the ways in which writers work to persuade readers of the legitimacy of their own study. Disciplinary differences here are not primarily concerned with variations in field but with variations in the kinds of knowledge structures the disciplines represent.

Note 1. Martin (1992a: 10) explains that Halliday’s conception of these complementary perspectives in patterns in language connects to Pike’s ‘construal of language as particle, wave and field’.

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170 Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

Legitimising Space for New Knowledge: Disciplinary Differences

6.1

Explaining difference in linguistics and sociology

Introductory sections of research articles across disciplines in the sciences, social sciences and humanities share a common generalised social purpose, that is, to construct a legitimising platform from which the writer can proceed to report in detail on their own study and the contribution they make to knowledge. In Chapter 2, I referred to the genre as a warrant for the writer’s own study. Very frequently the research warrant will include some evaluative representation of the object of study, functioning to persuade the reader of the worthiness or legitimacy of the topic or focus. Typically it will include an evaluative representation of other research in the field and/or informing theoretical frameworks to persuade the reader that there is space for new knowledge, and also a brief preview representation of the writer’s own study by way of transition to a more detailed account. These sub-component genres constitute a macro-genre. In addressing this common generalised function individual writers may choose to give greater or lesser emphasis to one or other of the sub-generic components, or in some cases may omit one or other altogether. Variations may reflect differences in the nature of the object of study and/or the writer’s interpretation of how best to position their own research. Variations also arise in response to disciplinary differences. In Chapter 2, for example, it was noted that while writers in the sciences and social sciences favour the sub-genres of report or description in constructing representations of their object of study, writers in the humanities are found to employ a wider range of genres to serve this function, including a variety of story genres such as narratives, recounts, anecdotes, observation-comments or news stories 171

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(Martin & Rose 2008). This issue of variation across disciplines in the construction of the research warrant is the focus of this final chapter. In taking a closer look at how the disciplinary context can impact on the construction of the research warrant I draw on two additional bodies or dimensions of theory that I introduce briefly. From the sociology of knowledge I connect with theorisations of how different intellectual fields or disciplines represent different kinds of knowledge structure (Bernstein 1996, 1999, 2000), or different knowledge–knower structures (Maton 2007) with different codes for legitimating both what can be known and how, i.e. epistemic relations, and who can know it, i.e. social relations (Maton 2000a, 2000b, 2007). This theorisation of how different kinds of intellectual fields legitimate themselves in different ways would seem to have particular relevance to an analysis of how researchers construct a warrant for their own research, and how they might do so differently in different disciplines. I also need to introduce at this point a third dimension of appraisal theory, that of engagement (see Figure 6.1). The basic distinction made in the system of engagement is between single-voiced or monoglossic

monogloss projection… ENGAGEMENT heterogloss

modality… concession…

affect… APPRAISAL

ATTITUDE

appreciation… judgement…

force… GRADUATION focus…

Figure 6.1 The system network of appraisal (Martin & White 2005).

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172

173

discourse and multi-voiced or heteroglossic discourse (Martin & White 2005, after Bakhtin 1935 [1981]). Engagement theorises options for the management of other voices introduced into the discourse and the potential such options afford for aligning or dis-aligning the reader with various positions (Martin & White 2005). In the context of this chapter I draw on engagement in questioning whether propositions and values expressed in the research warrant are attributable to the writer of the article or to some other source, and if the latter, whether the writer moves to align us with those propositions and values or to distance us from them. The theory also informs an analysis of how much and what kind of information is provided about those other ‘voices’ and why, and what it is that those voices are introduced to appraise. I return shortly to explain further the theoretical construct of engagement, although for a more detailed discussion the reader is referred to White (2003a, 2003b) and Martin & White (2005). From that basis I proceed to explore how an analysis of the ways in which research writers engage with other voices in their introductions can provide insights into how disciplines differ in their strategies for legitimising the construction of new knowledge.

6.2 Theoretical concepts from the sociology of knowledge Building on Bernstein’s most significant contributions to the sociology of knowledge (e.g .1999, 2000), Maton’s recent work on legitimation codes in intellectual fields (Maton 2000a, 2000b, 2007) is especially relevant to my analysis of how research writers engaged in writing up processes of knowledge construction go about establishing a warrant for their research. Bernstein (1999) draws our attention to differences in kinds of knowledge or what he calls ‘discourse’. Horizontal discourse or commonsense knowledge ‘entails a set of strategies that are local, segmentally organised, context-specific and dependent’, and vertical discourse or uncommonsense knowledge takes the form of a ‘coherent, explicit and systematically principled structure’ (1999: 159). Vertical discourse is characteristic of formal schooling and of academic study, where knowledge is abstracted from everyday and commonsense understandings. All the instances of academic research writing considered to this point in the book, be they from the sciences, social sciences, or humanities, are thus instances of vertical discourse. But within the realm of vertical discourse Bernstein argues the need to theorise further distinctions,

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Legitimising Space for New Knowledge

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differentiating vertical discourse into different kinds of knowledge structures, which he refers to as hierarchical and horizontal knowledge structures. A hierarchical knowledge structure is one that builds on and integrates knowledge at lower levels in the attempt ‘to create very general propositions and theories’ (Bernstein 1999: 162), as is the case in the natural sciences. There is an integration of existing knowledge in the process of constructing new knowledge. This notion of integration at lower levels towards generalised propositions is typically visually represented as a triangle, as in Figure 6.2. In contrast, a horizontal knowledge structure is described by Bernstein (1996: 172–3) as ‘a series of specialised languages, each with its own specialised modes of interrogation and specialised criteria’. A horizontal knowledge structure is represented diagrammatically as a series of discrete, strongly bounded and so segmented, languages, as in Figure 6.3. Maton (2007: 90) argues that such a knowledge structure is characteristic of the disciplines of cultural studies and of sociology where new knowledge constitutes a break with existing knowledge and a new, segmented ‘language’. On the basis of this theorisation of knowledge structures we might anticipate differences in the ways in which research writers engage with other sources of knowledge in the construction of their research warrants in, say, cultural studies and chemical science, differences that support segmentation on the one hand or integration on the other. Building on the work of Bernstein and others, Maton (2007, 2009) has continued to theorise the ways in which different intellectual fields or disciplines differ in relation to the production of knowledge. Maton challenges, as does Bernstein, any simple dichotomous interpretation

Figure 6.2 Hierarchical knowledge structure integrating knowledge.

L1

L2

L3

L4

L5

Figure 6.3 Segmented languages of a horizontal knowledge structure (from Maton 2007).

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of horizontal and hierarchical knowledge structures, in favour of a cline representing the relative strength or weakness of the integration or segmentation of knowledge. So, for example, while both linguistics and cultural studies might be considered as representing horizontal knowledge structures, they differ in their ability to generate theories and models of ‘empirical relations’ (Bernstein 1999: 164). A discipline like linguistics is said to have a stronger ‘verticality’ (Muller 2007: 71) or a stronger internal language of description (Bernstein 2000), enabling the development of internal theory, but with a relatively narrow base of integration in comparison to the natural sciences. So within linguistics there are different competing theories, each working to build generalised knowledge. Wignell (2004) has suggested representing this kind of horizontal knowledge structure diagrammatically as segmented triangles, as potentially ‘warring triangles’, as in Figure 6.4 (see Wignell 2007). Applied linguistics in this sense represents a knowledge structure space somewhere between that of cultural studies and that of the sciences. Wignell (2007) suggests that ‘[since] the language of the social sciences evolved as a hybrid of the language of the physical sciences and the language of the humanities there is always a kind of dynamic tension between the science and the social in the discourse’ (Wignell 2007: 202). Taking this dimension of variation into account, we might anticipate differences in the ways in which writers from within different kinds of horizontal knowledge structures, say cultural studies and linguistics, engage with other knowledge in shaping a warrant for their research. Maton (2000a, 2006, 2007, 2009) then takes the conceptualisation of different kinds of knowledge structures a step further. Importantly, he argues that claims to knowledge are not just ‘of the world’, they are also made ‘by authors’ (Maton 2000a: 154), and that ‘for every knowledge structure there is also a knower structure’ (Maton 2007: 88). Just as we can speak of disciplines as representing hierarchical or horizontal knowledge structures, so we can also consider them as hierarchical or horizontal knower structures. Maton (2007), for example illustrates how science can be characterized as a horizontal knower structure, in which

Figure 6.4

Segmented languages with stronger verticality.

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knowers are segmented by specialized modes of acting, and where the social profile of the scientist is irrelevant for scientific insight, while the humanities can be seen as a hierarchical knower structure, where knowers are integrated hierarchically in the construction of an ideal knower. In developing Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), Maton reinterprets these dimensions as two sets of relations, the epistemic relation and the social relation. The epistemic relation is that ‘between educational knowledge and its proclaimed object of study (that part of the world of which knowledge is claimed)’ and the social relation is that ‘between educational knowledge and its author or subject (who is making the claim to knowledge)’ (Maton 2000a: 154). Each of these sets of relations can be relatively stronger or weaker, and the two intersecting axes construct four topological spaces. Each space represents a different legitimation code (see Figure 6.5). A ‘knowledge code’ space is characterised by strong epistemic relations and weak social relations and gives emphasis to the possession of explicit principles, skills and procedures. A ‘knower code’ space is characterised by weak epistemic relations and strong social relations and gives emphasis to attitudes and dispositions. An ‘elite code’ is characterised as having both strong epistemic and strong social relations and emphasises both specialist knowledge and knower dispositions equally. And a ‘relativist code’ as having both weaker epistemic and social relations and emphasises neither specialist knowledge nor knower dispositions (Maton 2009: 46). LCT suggests that intellectual fields or disciplines can be differentiated in terms of the relative

epistemic relation ER+ knowledge

social relation

elite

SR−

SR+

relativist

knower

ER− Figure 6.5 Legitimation codes of specialisation (from Maton 2007).

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strength or weakness of their epistemic relations and their social relations. The discussion above constitutes only a brief summary description of a significant body of theory currently informing studies of diverse educational issues (e.g. Doherty 2008; Lamont & Maton 2008; Luckett 2009; Carvalho et al. 2009; McNamara 2009). Yet it does allow us to generate some questions that we might usefully apply in exploring the ways in which writers from different disciplines write differently in the introductions to their research articles, as well as a framework for interpreting some of the differences that are identified. The theorisation of knowledge–knower structures can frame our analysis of the discourse by suggesting questions to do with: i.

The representation of knowers, e.g.

Who are represented as knowers in the discourse? To what extent and in what ways does the writer foreground the status of other knowers, or themselves as knower? Is the kind of knower important in relation to what can be known? What is given prominence: the sociological positioning of knowers or explicit skills and sets of procedures for exploring knowledge? ii.

The representation of knowledge, e.g.

How are processes of knowledge construction represented? In generating space for new knowledge does the writer engage with other sources of knowledge? How does the writer position studies in relation to each other or in relation to their own study? Is there an explicit developmental trajectory over time? If not, how are studies related to each other? Is the object of study strongly bounded and differentiated? How are knowledge claims represented? This discussion aims to open up space for more complex studies of disciplinary difference than are typically undertaken at present in corpus-based analyses of frequencies of occurrence of specific lexical or grammatical choices. However valuable such insights are, they tend to remain disconnected in a theoretical sense and so remain at the level of description. The analyses discussed in this chapter do not derive from a large corpus-based study and so do not provide frequency findings. I rely instead on a detailed analysis of a small number of instances from different disciplines and in so doing offer a more complex picture of the potential to legitimise differently in the construction of a research warrant, and to vary the construction of the warrant in ways that reflect and construct different knowledge–knower structures.

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6.3 Theorising of engagement in appraisal

6.3.1 The sourcing of attitudes The referencing of other sources in academic writing has been a topic of considerable research in the field of language for academic purposes (see, for example, Thompson & Ye 1991 and Hyland 2000b on reporting verbs; Hunston 2000 on status and planes of interaction; Chafe 1986 and Barton 1993 on evidentiality; Groom 2000 on citation practices). Early work is this field tended to focus on dichotomous categorical choices. Swales (1990), for example, noted the distinction in citation forms as either integral (author- prominent) or non-integral (information-prominent). Tadros (1993) drew our attention to the distinction between averrals or the claims made by the writer, and attributions or claims attributed to other sources. More recently these categorical distinctions have been further developed or reinterpreted to account for the diversity of means by which other sources can be referred to. Thompson & Tribble (2001) have extended Swales’ categories of citation practices, and Groom (2000) theorises ‘a cline of propositional responsibility’ between the poles of averral and attribution. Murphy (2005) argues that the distinction between averral and attribution may hold to the extent that the analysis is approached from the level of lexico-grammar. In other words, in a grammatical sense we can say that there is projection of a proposition from a voice other than the writer’s in the first example and not in the second. A clause boundary is shown as //, reflecting an SFL modelling of projection as a clausecomplex relationship. Halliday (1993), for example, argues // that science has developed a highly sophisticated way of representing ideas. Science has developed a highly sophisticated way of representing ideas. However, if we approach the question of sourcing propositions from a discourse semantic orientation (Martin 1992a) this distinction is not so clear. Are the following instances of averral on the part of the writer or of nameless attribution?

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To be able to address the questions posed above we need to return to a linguistic focus on how research writers engage with other knowledge and other knowers in their written texts, beginning with the issue of the sourcing of propositions and values.

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An interesting question is: how does science represent ideas in ways that differ from commonsense interpretations? or

And how would we categorize the following? I would like to mention the works of Solvang (1994), Froestad (1995), Holme (1996), Rønn (1996) and Simonsen (1998). and I witnessed this most dramatically at “Research Day,” a department-wide celebration of research when students presented posters or gave spoken presentations. Murphy suggests that moving to a semantic orientation gives rise to what she calls a ‘grey area’, a ‘middle ground between averral and attribution’ (Murphy 2005: 132). She argues that ‘attribution can take place under so many lexico-grammatical forms that any attempt to pin these forms down is bound to be limited’ (2005: 132). Approaching the issue from a discourse-semantic perspective presents a considerable challenge to corpus studies of academic discourse that favour the readily searchable (such as the frequencies of usage of a given grammatical structure or of one or more lexical choices). A discourse-semantic orientation suggests the need for at least a complementary logogenetic analysis of unfolding meanings in individual texts to identify the range of resources that can be implicated. But more than that it offers an alternative starting point for analyses. If we begin with structural distinctions we are restricted to describing variations across disciplines in structural terms and any meaningful connections need to be intuited post hoc. If we begin with a semantic orientation we elaborate ways of meanings as a network of semantic options realisable across an array of lexicogrammatical and even graphophological systems. We can then consider differences across disciplines not only in structural terms but also in how different meaning choices are realised or the same meaning choice is realised differently. Martin & Rose (2007) identify the domains of meanings implicated in the process of engagement as including projection, counter-expectancy,

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There is considerable, although not unanimous, agreement on that.

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and modality and negation. Each domain of meaning is briefly explained and illustrated with an indication of its reference to an exploration of knowers and knowledge in the discourse.

The discussion of projection in this section picks up on and extends that begun in Chapter 4 (section 4.4). At the level of grammar in SFL, projection is explained thus: [t]hrough projection one clause is set up as the representation of the linguistic “content” of another – either the content of a ‘verbal’ clause of saying or the content of a ‘mental’ clause of sensing. (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 443) From a grammatical perspective mental processes project thoughts or ideas and verbal processes project wordings or locutions with those ideas and locutions representing separate clauses linked in a logicosemantic relationship of projection (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 443). Projecting verbal and mental processes are underlined and clause boundaries indicated as // in: Halliday (1993) argues // that science has developed a highly sophisticated way of representing ideas that makes writing science especially difficult for students. Halliday (1993) argues // “science has developed a highly sophisticated way of representing ideas that makes writing science especially difficult for students.” Halliday (1993) believes // that writing science is especially difficult for students because of the way ideas are represented. Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 470) identify a third related category that they refer to as ‘pre-projected facts’, that is, meanings that ‘come ... ready packaged in a projected form’. This results in a single clause rather than a clause-complex. Nonetheless we can identify a source (be it general or specific) to whom knowledge of the ‘fact’ is attributed, and such constructions contribute to the heteroglossic or multi-voiced nature of engagement in the discourse. In the following examples, the sources are implied but unnamed. The ‘facts’ are underlined. It is generally understood that science has developed a highly sophisticated way of representing ideas.

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6.3.2 Projection

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Scare quotes also offer us the meaning potential of projection where neither a specific nor a general category of source can be retrieved from the text itself. The implication in [6/1] is that it is retrievable intertextually, within a shared culture: [6/1] The many stories and ‘radical’ fragments within this work can be envisaged as a series of sites to which the reader is exposed. [Schlunke 1999] If we attend to projection from a semantic perspective all of the various realisations of projection exemplified above are captured in the analyses. However this is not the limit of what can be attended to. From a grammatical point of view the referenced sources in [6/2] (underlined) represent actors in the material process measured, rather than sayers or sensers in a verbal or mental process: [6/2] Van de Kooi and Knorr (1973) measured one office building and five small dwellings over a period from February 1967 to August 1967 in The Netherlands. [Kalamees et al. 2006] From a discourse-semantic perspective, however, we can interpret this as an implied projection that implicates the source not just as an actor in a material process, but additionally, as the reporter of that action. A verbal process is inserted in brackets to capture that implication and generate a projected clause, in: Van de Kooi and Knorr (1973) (report that they) measured one office building and five small dwellings over a period from February 1967 to August 1967 in The Netherlands. It is also important to identify instances of nominalisation and grammatical metaphor that can function to project meanings beyond the level of grammar. Nominalised verbal processes can for example project whole phases of discourse. Such terms are sometimes referred to as

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The fact that writing science is especially difficult for students is widely appreciated.

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Anderson (2004) offers a number of suggestions. First, ... . Secondly, ... Finally, ... . In the discussion of projection above we have shifted our orientation on projection from a grammatical level to a more abstracted discoursesemantic one. From this abstracted stratum of discourse semantics there is a greater dispersal of means for realising a semantic option (Martin & Matthiessen 1991: 358). We can shunt up to a further level of abstraction and, as noted in Chapter 4, we can discuss the projection of one field by another. In other words, in the context of academic research papers the dominant pattern is for the field that is the object of study to be metaphorically projected from the field of research. This is represented diagrammatically as speech and thought bubbles in Figure 6.6. At this abstract level the field of research can include the voice of the writer her/ himself, as well as the voices of other named or unnamed researchers. A discourse-semantic analysis of projection provides the means to identify other knowers in the discourse as the basis for then comparing the ways in which they are represented, and the resultant strengthening or weakening of the social relation as a legitimising strategy. An analysis of projecting sources also necessarily implicates the identification of what is projected, opening space too for analysis of variations in the contributions that sources make in the process of legitimating the writer’s study.

field: the object of study

field: research field: the object of study

Figure 6.6 The field of research projecting the object of study.

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‘meta-discourse’ (e.g. Martin & Rose 2007) in that they label a whole segment of discourse. In the example below, the nominalised verbal process suggestions labels the subsequent phase of text as projected wording:

Legitimising Space for New Knowledge

Modality and negation

A second dimension of meaning associated with the realm of engagement is that of modality. Modality incorporates both modalisation, or the semantic space between ‘it is’ and ‘it is not’, and modulation, or the semantic space between ‘do it’ and ‘don’t do it’ (Halliday 1994). Because modality represents a relative position within polar extremes, it functions to position a proposition (modalisation) or a proposal (modulation) as relative to other potential alternative positions, and as such is a resource for heteroglossia in discourse (Martin & Rose 2007: 53). So in [6/3] the writer engages with other potential voices that offer positions such as: ‘this is definitely due to ...’, or ‘it is unlikely that this is due to ...’: [6/3] this may be due to the potentiality that writing offers over speaking in that it is more concrete and durable [Wright 2008] Negation functions in a similar way in that it calls into being other potential voices that are then closed down (Martin & Rose 2007: 54). So in [6/4] potential positions such as ‘it is correct’ or ‘it may be correct’ are negated: [6/4] It is not correct to use the outdoor climatic data for a simulation that is situated far from the studied building site. [Kalamees et al. 2006] Modality and negation are key resources in representing the relative closure around or negotiability of ideas, and so are critical in the construction of claims to knowledge, and in persuading that there is space for new knowledge. They offer a further site for comparison of strategies of legitimation across disciplines. 6.3.4

Counter-expectancy

A further meaning choice that implicates the presence of other voices in a text is that of counter-expectancy. Counter-expectancy markers acknowledge expectations generated in the discourse or in the context and counter or adjust those expectations, thus acknowledging the other ‘countered’ position. For example, in [6/5] the underlined words

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6.3.3

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function to counter the expectation that more Indigenous women would have undertaken graduate research in science:

Yet in all those years, I only met two Indigenous women who went on to graduate research in science. [Brandt 2008] The resources that function in this way include concessive conjunctions such as however, but, although, yet, as well as a set of concessive contractors such as still, already, only, just, actually. The latter set function to counter expectations of, for example, how many, how far, how long, how soon, how real (Hood & Forey 2008; Weltman 2003; Thompson & Zhou 2000). An expectation of a shorter duration in time is countered in: [6/6] this building was still buzzing at 8:05 PM with students clustered around tables in the foyer, drinking coffee and studying together ... [Brandt 2008] Resources of counter-expectancy are frequently encountered in academic research warrants as writers align and dis-align readers with propositions in the discourse. Counter-expectancy necessarily functions to generate alternative positions and hence heteroglossic discourse. Readers are typically encouraged to align initially with a given proposition, but then to dis-align as the writer creates space for their own study. Such a strategy is evident in [6/7] and [6/8]. The concessive counter-expectancy marker is boxed, and contrasting values either side of the proposition are underlined to highlight the contrasting positions. [6/7] These orientations are very encouraging. However, I feel that the new approaches also have proposals which will be less fruitful, and that these result from an insufficiently clear understanding of what it means to say that language is learned by using it. [Painter 1986] [6/8] It is known that ruthenium complexes (...) and metallocyclic ruthenium and osmium compounds (...) can be readily coordinat[ed] to

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[6/5]

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[Fedorova et al. 2006] At other times the alignments are switched from a negative association to a positive one, as in [6/9]: [6/9] Due to the fact that these methods are often very laborious and timeconsuming they can only be used for off-line analyses. However, these methods are important tools to identify bottlenecks in the genetic design of the production strains or in the determination of so-called process-relevant marker genes. [Roychoudhury et a1. 1995] The counter-expectancy markers function to identify affiliations of knowers / knowledge by marking boundaries around those affiliations, in terms of what they are not. The affiliations may be around ways of knowing ([6/7] and [6/9]) or what is known ([6/8]). As with modality and negation, counter-expectancy functions to manage reader alignment and dis-alignment around ways of knowing or what is known. 6.3.5

Engagement and graduation in appraisal theory

Graduation is implicated in discussions of engagement from a number of perspectives. The projecting source can be graded, as can the projecting process. The projecting source can be graded in force as quantity: Some researchers suggest // that ... Many researchers suggest // that ... or force as intensity: Latour and Woolgar’s (1986) study provides ... Latour and Woolgar’s (1986) seminal study provides ... A projecting process can be graded in force as intensity: They state clearly that ...

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oxidases, (...) or horseradish peroxidase [4]. Coordinative binding occurs between the histidine residues of the protein and metal complexes possessing appropriate ligands. However, virtually nothing is known about the potential of Ru(II) complexes as redox mediators of laccase ...

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or in focus as completion: Some have tried to argue that ...

some researchers insist // that ... or the process can grade a whole proposition in focus as actualisation (with modality): some researchers suggest // that ... Interpreting modalisation from a discourse-semantic perspective within the system of graduation as fulfilment: actualisation positions modalisation as semantically associated with other options for grading as focus – as fulfilment: completion, or as valeur (see Figure 3.2f). This has implications for the identification of prosodies of value (see Chapter 4). It also allows us to consider how choices in a discoursesemantic system can be realised in a ‘dispersal’ of choices across strata and ranks (Martin & Matthiessen 1991: 358). This dispersal of realisations in relation to grading focus as fulfilment and valeur is evident in an analysis of a phase of an introduction to a cultural studies thesis on the history of the site of a massacre of

authenticity (eg a truth, a sort of truth) valeur specificity (eg in some sense) FOCUS

completion of a process (eg almost, attempt) fulfilment actualisation of a proposition (eg ephemeral)

Figure 6.7

The system network of GRADUATION as FOCUS.

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A projecting process can grade a whole proposal in force as intensity (with modulation):

187

Aboriginal people in Australia in 1844 (Schlunke 1999, see Hood 2007: 194–5). The segment in [6/10] begins with an abridged representation of the object of study and continues after the break with a reviewing representation of the writer’s contribution. The underlined choices represent the grading of ideational meanings as less than real, specific, complete or actualised. (See the partial network of graduation, as focus in Figure 6.7. The complete network of graduation is represented in Figure 3.2f). The choices in [6/10] include the softening of categorical boundaries around entities, processes and propositions (e.g. almost, some sense of, indicative, in its many forms, a myth, protean, ephemera, ephemeral, attempt, emergence and disappearance, loosely). The semantics of incompletion are even realized in the graphology in the three dots (is a protean tourist attraction, is a ...) and elsewhere in the text as interrogative mood choices and scare quotes. [6/10] The Bluff Rock Massacre is a myth, is a fact, is a truth, is a protean tourist attraction, is a ... [... 23 lines of differing interpretations of the ‘massacre’ citing 5 sources ...] So this thesis is organised loosely about five different sources; memory, published and unpublished diaries, letters, a tourist leaflet and some collected stories from a local historian. This list is itself indicative of the way in which this event is positioned as ephemeral and ephemera – it gives some sense of the event’s ability to appear and disappear (in its many forms) within history and is an almost hysterical formation of Raymond Williams’ patterns of history, since this event is always in a state of emergence and disappearance. But each moment a different story appears, the attempt can be made to map it within its own moment of difference while reflectively making of that past my own present. The tension between these two efforts is the stage upon which this particular performance is set. [Schlunke 1999] The writer of the cultural study thesis uses an extensive array of resources to grade meanings in terms of focus to represent meanings as less than real, less than complete and as potential rather than actual. These resources are the dominant means by which the writer suggests the unresolvedness of knowledge, positioning knowledge in the space between ‘it is’ and ‘it isn’t’, a point that I return to later in the chapter.

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The study was limited with only 25 respondents. The observation lasted for a two-week period only. The research to date has only focused on students in schools in the UK. The concessive contractor actually functions in relation to graduation as focus, countering an expectation of a proposition as ‘un-actualised’. It sharpens the categorical boundary around the proposition (Hood & Martin 2007), as in: The study was actually completed in 1999. In summary, the realm of appraisal that is most relevant to a study of the sourcing of propositions and values is that of engagement, although as evidenced above, graduation is also implicated (Martin & White 2005). The engagement network offers a system of semantic choices for constructing discourse as more or less monoglossic or heteroglossic, that is, as more or less single-voiced or multi-voiced. Within heteroglossic discourse a basic option is either to expand rhetorical space for other voices, or to contract that space. Beyond this basic distinction further gradations of meanings are possible, offering a rich pallette of semantic options by which the writer can subtly and carefully negotiate space for their own study in the context of the introduction to their research article. The options within heteroglossic discourse are represented in Figure 6.8. The examples give useful indications of the ways in which the resources discussed above are implicated in opening up and closing down rhetorical space. In managing the space for other voices in the discourse writers are, of course, managing the alignment of their readers, orchestrating a positioning towards a conclusion that the writer’s own study is warranted. In the remainder of the chapter, I look at some variations in the ways in which writers engage with other voices in their introductions. Particular strategies are seen as more or less likely in relation to different disciplinary areas, reflecting both preferred methods in the construction

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Finally, semantic options in the graduation network also accommodate resources of counter-expectation. Concessive contractors such as already, still, even, only, yet, actually, can all be seen to function to contract various dimensions of graduation (Hood & Forey 2008). The concessive contractor only, for example, can function to contract graduation as force in relation to amount or scope in time or space, as in:

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deny no, didn't, never disclaim

contract concur

affirm naturally, of course, obviously, etc concede admittedly ...(but); sure....[however] etc...

proclaim

pronounce I contend, the facts of the matter are..., indeed endorse the report demonstrates/shows/proves

entertain perhaps, it's probable that, this may be, must, it seems to me, apparently, expository questions expand

attribute

acknowledge Halliday argues that, many Australian believe that, it's said that, the report states distance Chomsky claimed to have shown that...

Figure 6.8 134).

The system of

ENGAGEMENT

in appraisal (from Martin & White 2005:

of new knowledge as well as differences in the ways in which knowledge builds or accumulates in relation to different knowledge–knower structures (Bernstein 2000; Maton 2000a, 2000b, 2007).

6.4

Differing representations of the knower

I return here to some of the questions raised earlier about the presence and role of other voices in the research warrant. 6.4.1

What kinds of voices are introduced into the discourse?

One aspect of projection to consider in an analysis of engagement is the field from which the projecting voice is ‘speaking’. Is the source contributing from within the field of research: is it a ‘researcher as critic

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counter yet, although, amazingly, but

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i. Roychoudhury et al (1995) argue // that “classroom interactions sanction male dominance as a norm”. ii. After 40 min, Cindy suggested we end the meeting so a group of them could study for an exam together. ‘‘Let’s feed our brains!’’ she yelled, and everyone joined her in laughter. iii. I noticed how the desks were arranged into a circle, (...) I recognized most of the students as biology majors who had at one time or another stopped by my office. In [6/11], [6/12] and [6/13], the writers are each constructing representations of their objects of study, all related to the general field of science education. Each is relying on sources of a different nature in the process. In other words the representations of the object of study are projected through different voices. In [6/11] we have a generalised representation of an object of study: generalised laboratory activities in generalised science classrooms with generalised students. This representation is not projected by the writer herself but by multiple other researcher voices (underlined). The status of these sources as published research articles and the multiplicity of the authorising sources is assumed to imply validity for the claims they make (a validity which may of course be later challenged but holds at this point in the discourse). Knowers are valued in terms of assumed acquired techniques and skills in research. Such discourse suggests relatively stronger epistemic relations, and hence is likely to be more characteristic of a knowledge code than a knower code (Maton 2007). [6/11] Some researchers (AAAS, 1989; Anderson & Smith, 1987; DeBoer, 1991; Driver, 1983; Singer et al., 2005) (...) have discussed the inherent challenges of using laboratory activities with regard to student learning. For example, Miller (2004) suggests that students’ experience with natural phenomena in laboratory activities can be messier and more ambiguous than other forms of instruction such as lectures and textbooks and because of this, they may present particular challenges for students trying to learn science. [Wright 2008]

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voice’? Or is it a voice from the world that is being investigated: is it a ‘participant voice’? Or does it fulfil both roles simultaneously: is it a ‘researcher as participant/observer voice’? (Hood 2004a). These possibilities are illustrated in i, ii and iii.

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In [6/12] it is not a generalised object of study that is represented but a specific individual science lesson in a specific classroom with a specific group of students, and this representation is projected not by other sources but by the writer himself. Only the writer’s voice is present. There are no other projecting sources in this phase of text (‘discuss’ and ‘refer’ are interpreted in [6/12] as non-projecting behavioural processes). The representation that is projected in this case is of a specific group of children in a specific location in time and place in which the writer is assumed to be present as an observer. The writer makes claims about the object of study that are implicitly presented as having legitimacy on the basis of direct personal observation by the writer (as researcher). The locus of the writer as researcher implicitly adds to the validity of the claims made. This suggests stronger social relations characteristic of a knower code (Maton 2007). [6/12] In a middle school science classroom in the suburbs of Washington, DC in 2003, an ethnically and linguistically diverse group of 8th grade students, Philip, Natalie, Gloria, and Sean, discuss the answer to a written question about a scientific phenomenon they are observing at their table. Prompted by a new set of curriculum materials, the students repeatedly refer to, point to, and even make pictures of, the objects of their discussion as these things lie on the table before them. [Massoud & Kuipers 2008] In [6/13] we see the object of study as projected for us by the writer as observer, and as particiant. In addition, in this case the writer also projects the voices of other participants in the object of study who themselves are represented as representing the world (see Figure 6.9). [6/13] As I looked around the room, I recognized most of the students as biology majors who had at one time or another stopped by my office. Of the twenty students gathered, most were women; a group of four young men sauntered in together just as the meeting began. As it turned out, many of the attendees had chemistry and biology classes together. Several women mentioned how they wanted to find some old exams, and one person asked if there were class notes from last week’s lecture that she missed. After 40 min, Cindy suggested we end the meeting so a group of them could study for an exam together. ‘‘Let’s feed our brains!’’ she yelled, and everyone joined her in laughter. [Brandt 2008]

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The writer says

let’s feed our brains

Figure 6.9

Layers of projection.

We could represent this a kind of relay of projection as in Figure 6.9. While both [6/11] and [6/13] include projections of the object of study by other sources, the nature of those sources differs, as does the kind of knowledge they project. In [6/11] the other voices are those of other academic researchers/theorists. The knowledge is generalised and it is authorised by multiple sources represented as beyond the bounds of a specific location in time and place. In [6/13] the projecting voices are those of participants in the domain of the object of study. They represent other individual knowers alongside the writer herself. The perspective of each individual source is local, that of a participant in the domain of the object of study, an insider. Such an inclusion of a participant representation of the object of study corresponds closely with the appropriation of the story genre as the means to represent the object of study and is therefore a feature that we associate more with writing in the humanities than in the sciences (as discussed in Chapter 2). The phase of text in [6/13], for example, is part of a story genre of exemplum (see Martin & Rose 2008) with which the writer begins her research warrant. We would also anticipate an association with particular methods of research favouring insider perspectives such as ethnography. A privileging of such a perspective is representative of a stronger social relation and suggestive of a knower code of legitimation. The location of the ‘voice’ is just one dimension of meaning provided about a projecting source in academic writing. There are several other possible dimensions to this information. I propose that it is not any one single feature of the discourse that is significant in the construction of a particular legitimation code but rather a syndrome or complex of choices. By identifying some of the differences in the nature or role of other voices in texts, we can begin to develop an understanding of how these syndromes might be comprised. A number of other choices with potential to contribute to this complex are explored in subsequent sections.

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Cindy says

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Where other knowers are introduced into the discourse, different meanings may be instantiated in relation to those knowers. In this regard the nature of the referencing convention can play a part. Harvard and APA referencing conventions, for example, require that the author’s surname and the year of publication appear in the flow of text, either as integral or non-integral citations. The sources are therefore visible in the text at a relevant point in the discourse, as underlined in [6/14]. Such referencing conventions mean that the many cited sources (be they integral or non-integral) are highly visible. [6/14] The disadvantage experienced by scholars who use English as an Additional Language (EAL) in writing for publication has been well documented both in the field of applied linguistics (e.g., Ammon, 2000, 2001; Belcher, 2007; Burrough-Boenisch, 2003; Flowerdew, 1999a, 1999b; Gosden, 1995; Kaplan & Baldauf, 2005; St. John, 1987) and that of science (e.g., Benfield & Feak, 2006; Benfield & Howard, 2000; Coates, Sturgeon, Bohannan, & Pasini, 2002; Kirkman, 1996). As well as needing more time to write (e.g., Curry & Lillis, 2004; Flowerdew, 1999a, 1999b; Lillis & Curry, 2006), EAL writers may encounter difficulties with reviewers and editors if their use of English is ‘‘non-standard.’’ While there is some evidence of journal editors’ and reviewers’ tolerance of non-native features in EAL authors’ submissions (Flowerdew, 2001), there are also reports of such gatekeepers criticizing these features. Ammon (2000, p. 113), for example, as a German editor of a book published in English, reports on criticisms of his work ... [Li & Flowerdew 2007] However in some fields, in some journals, notably in the sciences, writers are required to use a convention in which non-integral citations are referenced at the end of the article, with only a reference number visible in the flow of text, as underlined in [6/15]. While full citation information is retrievable from the list of references at the end of the paper, the consequence is to make the source relatively less visible, adding to the relative prominence of information over source. [6/15] Although many researchers believe that acetic acid is an important substrate for the removal of phosphate in anaerobic/aerobic activated sludge

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6.4.2 The visibility of other knowers in citations

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(AS) processes [1], it appears to be a minor substrate in municipal sewage [2, 3]. Therefore, novel methods of acetic acid production from sludges are still reported at the present time [4, 5]. The main organic compound in municipal sewage is particulate organic matter (POM) [6–8].

In [6/16] sources are arguably further backgrounded in favour of the information they contribute. The presence of the author is reduced to a small superscript reference number, with further detail having to be retrieved from the end of the text. [6/16] Therefore, reduction of these functional groups is carried out using stronger reducing agents like lithium aluminum hydride.2 Sodium borohydride can, however, be easily modified to stronger or more selective reducing agent.3 Examples include the borohydride reduction step in the industrial Sumitomo’s synthesis of D-biotin (vitamin H)4 and the selective hydroxy ester reduction in presence of non-substituted esters, employed in the synthesis of R-lipoic acid.5 [Saeed & Ashraf 2006] Citation conventions are therefore another means by which knowers can be represented as more or less visible in the discourse, contributing to the complex of means by which a discipline constructs itself as a particular kind of knowledge–knower structure. 6.4.3 Hierarchies of knowers At first sight the text in [6/17] seems to contradict an expectation that cultural studies, identified as a highly segmented horizontal knowledge structure (Maton 2000b), would foreground knowers over knowledge. It appears in this phase of text that in using the subscript numerals the writer is using similar citation practices to those in the chemical science text in [6/16]. [6/17] Disability studies has long worked to denaturalize disability. By now a large and heterogeneous body of work, disability studies have traced the normalizing efforts of medical practices, health care professions and institutions, and the politics of administrative categories.1 More recently, it has investigated the enactment of disability in a diversity of cultural

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[Ubukata 2007]

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and representational practices.2 Many of these studies owe much to the work of Michel Foucault and genealogical approaches focusing on the descent, regulation and generative power of discourse. ...

However, a closer examination reveals that in [6/17] the subscript numerals reference endnotes not reference sources. Elsewhere in the article sources are referenced using APA conventions. So the function of the subscript referencing serves quite a different purpose. In this case the discourse that is relegated to end-notes and removed entirely from the flow of the research warrant could well have constituted part of a report on other research within the body of the warrant, but the writer chose not to present it in this way. The implication is that certain sources are less significant to the writer’s positioning of their own study than other sources are. In this text, the sources included in the body of the introduction tend to reflect theoretical canons of the discipline (e.g. Foucault, and in subsequent text, Butler). This presents a kind of hierarchy of knowers, ‘a systematically principled and hierarchical organisation of knowers based on the image of an ideal knower’ (Maton 2007: 91, see Hyland 2009). Knower status may become another means by which we can differentiate between knower-oriented and knowledgeoriented intellectual fields. 6.4.4 Elaboration of projecting sources: personalising or objectifying Further distinctions can be made in terms of the amount and nature of the information provided on other knowers in the discourse. Where sources are named in the body of the text, writers also have the option of elaborating on the basic information of surname and year of publication. Additional information about the source may function to specify a particular kind of knower. Here I compare the ways in which two writers elaborate on other knowers. Both articles address science education as the object of study; one is written from the discipline of applied linguistics and the other from cultural studies. In [6/18] from the cultural studies article, the underlined information elaborates in relation to both general categories of knowers and specific individual knowers. [6/18] Recently, American Indian women have written autobiographies of their experiences in the academy, providing a look at how they

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[Moser 2005]

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incorporate their vision of themselves as Indigenous women into their framework of academic discourse. Lowrey (1997), from Laguna Pueblo, writes a self-study of her passage through a PhD program in sociology at the University of Washington. In her search for a sense of place in higher education, she hungered for stories of Indigenous people who struggled with the same issues of identity. McKinney (1998), a member of the Potawatomi tribe, uses “multivocality” or a crosscultural approach in her academic research and writing to represent her “self.” [Brandt 2008] The additional information provided about the source implies that this is relevant to the way we are positioned to align with the contribution from that source. The implication is that the validity of the contribution is in some way attributable to the specified nature of the source. In [6/18], this is in terms of personal attributes associated with cultural heritage, as a ‘born’ or ‘social’ gaze (Maton 2009), or associated with the locus of the knower – in the right place to know. This increased personalisation of knowers can be compared with other kinds of elaboration of the source. The phase of text in [6/19] is also taken from the applied linguistics article. The elaboration functions differently in this case. [6/19] Latour and Woolgar’s (1986) seminal study provides an ethnographic account of the scientific writing cycle in a professional laboratory. They document how scientists transform raw data by putting them into charts and graphs, and subsequently use them along with articles, books, and grant proposals to produce new articles. In turn, the articles are circulated to colleagues, submitted for publication, and, when published, often become part of the received body of knowledge. Their study demonstrates the importance of writing about laboratory findings, shows that writing becomes an objectified representation of hours of scientific work, and is a major part of what scientists do. [Wright 2008] In Latour and Woolgar’s (1986) seminal study the authors are not the head of the underlined nominal group but relegated to the role of premodifier for the entity study. The product is given prominence over

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the producers. It is the study that is then elaborated, in this case with positive evaluation of its significance (seminal). The implication is that the additional information (evaluation) is relevant to management of alignment with the projected contribution. The implication is that that which is projected by this source has greater validity, not on account of who the researchers are, as in [6/18], but on account of the quality and influence of their product. While the writer in [6/19] moves back and forth in representing the source as product and as authors (underlined), it is the objectified source as product that is given hyper-Theme prominence. The depersonalisation and objectification of the knowers weakens the social relation. 6.4.5 Knowers and know-how Writers introduce other voices into their texts in the process of negotiating the legitimacy of propositions and values, in other words of claims to knowledge. But other voices may also be used to negotiate the legitimacy of ways of knowing or in other words of know-how. Know-how may be represented as legitimate on the basis that it represents a more rigorous or more intensified process of enquiry. The underlined process is infused with graduation as intensity (see Chapter 3) in: Halliday and Martin (1993) also set out to explore ... Martin (1993) examines ... Whereas such intensity is lacking in: Deyhle and Margonis (1995) look at how ... The rigour of the research practices may also be implied in the level of detail of the procedures of enquiry. In [6/20] the process is graded in force through quantifying the steps involved: [6/20] In order to illustrate how [...] I first examine [...] Next, I trace [...] Specifically, I focus on [...] I analyze [...] Finally, [...] I explore [...] I highlight [...]. Through my analysis I argue that [...] [Wright 2008] Where the know-how has to do with sets of procedures and skills and/or intensity of their application in the process of enquiry the potential is

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Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing

to strengthen epistemic relations. But other kinds of know-how are also evident and legitimated in the discourses of research warrants. Knowhow may be legitimated not on the grounds of rigour in practices of enquiry about the object of study, but in the depth of self-reflection and the documentation of such self-reflection on personal engagement in the research process, as captured, for example, in extracts from Brandt [2008]: To self-identify, then, can become a narrative of one’s location. American Indian women have written autobiographies Lowrey (1997), from Laguna Pueblo, writes a self-study of her passage through a PhD program ... Such representations of self-consciousness as a legitimation strategy are indicative of stronger social relations. These contrasting representations of know-how factor out along different disciplinary takes on the same general object of study (science education), from an applied linguistic article [6/20] and from a cultural studies article (in the instances from Brandt [2008] above). I argue here that differences in the kinds of know-how that are represented are one more meaning potential for writers to enact different strengths of the epistemic and social relation in their discourse. The more emphasis given in the text to the rigour or enactment of procedures of enquiry, the stronger the reliance on the epistemic relation as a legitimating strategy; the more emphasis that is given to the process of self-reflection on engagement in the research, the stronger the reliance on the social relation as a legitimating strategy. 6.4.6

The writer as knower

While our main focus in this discussion is on the ways in which writers engage with other knowers in the context of differentiating knowledge–knower structures, we can also analyse how the voice of the writer as knower is represented. An absence of the writer/knower as personalised entity has been traditionally discouraged in much academic literacy education. Novice academic writers may, for example, be discouraged from expressing modality in explicit subjective terms such as ‘I think’ or ‘in my opinion’, and in some cases are required to avoid all use of first person singular pronominal references to self. However, such rigid requirements are no longer so widely proposed, and evidence is readily available that writers across diverse disciplines frequently make first person pronominal reference to themselves

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as researchers as in [6/21]. In [6/22], the plural we, while somewhat ambiguous in that it has been traditionally used a distance marker, here can be interpreted as referring to the group of researchers responsible for the paper:

These orientations are very encouraging. However, I feel that the new approaches also have proposals which will be less fruitful ... [Painter 1986] [6/22] In this work, we study the potential of coordinative modification of Coriolus hirsutus laccase with ruthenium complexes ... [Fedorova et al. 2006] More interesting to this discussion of the presence or otherwise of the writer is what this indicates in terms of their locus in relation to the object of study. In a cultural studies article on a science classroom in [6/23], the writer refers to herself firstly in terms of her co-location within the world of the object of study, a shared presence in time and space (I entered, I noticed, I waved, I felt, etc), and then in terms of the kind of gaze she directs to the object of study (as a feminist researcher, I...). The strategy of legitimation favours a strong social relation. [6/23] As I entered the classroom with its glaring fluorescent lights, I noticed how the desks were arranged into a circle, and a table pulled from its position at the edge of the room, was now filled with cakes, cups, jugs of juice, and plates of cookies. I waved hello to Ramona and Cindy who were surrounded by other American Indian women, and I slid into one of the seats. The room was awash with conversation interspersed with laughter and I felt my weariness melt as students said hello to me. (...) As a feminist researcher, I want to understand and describe this significant transformation of self where one’s identities and the doing of science are complexly intertwined. [Brandt 2008]

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[6/21]

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The positioning of self as a particularised gaze on the object of study (As a feminist researcher) is indicative of what is referred to as standpoint epistemology (e.g. Harding 2004). This is also evident in [6/24]:

In this story I position myself as a white Western woman and my values, beliefs, prejudices and aspirations form a complex lens through which I have come to understand myself in a particular social context that was at once strange and familiar over time. [Ryan 2008] The way in which the writer represents her/himself as a knower provides further indication of the relative strength of social or epistemic relations in the discourse, and an indication of the kind of knowledge–knower structure that is being enacted. Personalised representations of self as knower are typically absent from research warrants in the sciences and may have a more or less pronounced position in research in the social sciences, reflecting to some extent an author’s acceptance of the argument for explicitly articulated reflexivity – that they ‘should explicitly position themselves in relation to their objects of study so that one may assess researchers’ knowledge claims in terms of situated aspects of their social selves’ (Maton 2003: 54). Maton suggests that while ‘there is little agreement about what comprises reflexivity’, it has in some contexts become ‘a hegemonic value of the social scientific field’ and promoted as an indication of a ‘virtuous researcher’ (Maton 2003: 54). The issue of reflexivity highlights one important feature of the strength of social and epistemic relations as they are expressed in the discourses of a field, and that is that they are not fixed. A given intellectual field may migrate over time along the axes or relative strength of either of these relations. In other words, the relative strength of a dominant legitimation code of a discipline may shift. Maton (2003) suggests such a shift is evident in the social sciences from the late 1980s to the present, from an ‘antipathy’ towards reflexivity to a situation where it has become ‘a sin not to be reflexive’ (p. 54). He goes on to critique various ways in which social science researchers have (mis)interpreted Bourdieu’s concept of ‘epistemic reflexivity’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992), resulting in forms of practice that attend only to the knowers’ objectifying relation to the object of study and neglect the epistemic relation altogether. Such intellectual arguments potentially open up space for further shifts in the dominant legitimating practices of the social

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[6/24]

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sciences in terms of the ways in which social relations are expressed in the discourses of research.

Still further information can be specified in relation to introduced sources in a research warrant. A source can be identified as a specific singular author/study in a field or as one that is affiliated with a larger body of authors/studies. The nature of the affiliation (the generalised category that is represented as inclusive of one or more individual sources) may be identified as an object of study, as knowledge of the object of study, or as a way of knowing that may have no specific association with the object of study. If the affiliation is motivated by a shared object of study, the level of specificity of the category of knowledge that constitutes the basis for the affiliation can then be more or less sharply or strongly delineated. In [6/25] the affiliating domain of knowledge (underlined) is quite sharply specified, while in [6/26] the initial affiliation that brings together the multiple citations (Miller 1987, Featherstone 1991, Slater 1997, Nava et al. 1997, Lee 2000, Schor and Holt 2000) is identified as a loosely bounded field of the study of consumer culture. It is represented as extensive, expanded in a multitude of interdisciplinary directions over the past two decades. The writer’s own niche of anti-consumerist activism is then represented as an area around which there is as yet no identified affiliation, and hence as an area for new knowledge. [6/25] Outdoor climatic conditions for hygrothermal calculations are analyzed in many studies: Rode (1993), Sanders (1996), Geving (1997), Harderup (1998), Cornick (2003), Vinha and Kalamees (2003), Kalamees and Vinha (2004). [Kalamees et al. 2006] [6/26] Yet, whilst the study of consumer culture has notoriously expanded in a multitude of interdisciplinary directions over the past two decades (Miller 1987, Featherstone 1991, Slater 1997, Nava et al. 1997, Lee 2000, Schor and Holt 2000) academic studies of, or indeed engagements with, anti-consumerist activism have been sparse. [Littler 2005] Representing sources in affiliations around an object of study is a rhetorical strategy that writers use to persuade readers of the legitimacy

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6.4.7 Individuating or affiliating sources

of their own object of study, either in terms of its endorsement by the field, as in [6/25], or in terms of its neglect by the field, as in [6/26]. It seems that this strategy can be employed across a wide range of disciplines and different kinds of knowledge–knower structures. If the affiliation concerns knowledge of the object of study, we can anticipate that the relative mass of the affiliation will be taken to imply the interpretable weight of the projected proposition or value. In [6/27] the weight is increased by reference to two named sources, Vygotsky and Bruner, as well as by the implication of more in such as. Here too we need to account for the individual intellectual weight of each source, as high status knowers in the field. In [6/28] the affiliation is developed over a phase of text, not just in a list of sources. In both, the projected knowledge claims are underlined. [6/27] Some, such as Vygotsky (1962) and Bruner (1971), have posited that writing aids the ‘higher’ cognitive functions of analysis and synthesis [Wright 2008] [6/28] Others have treated writing as a disciplinary skill; Russell (1994) for example, shows that writing has presented challenges for the academy since it became the dominant form of evaluation in the late 1800s (...) Dewey (1947), too, considered writing to be a disciplinary skill, stating that it was a way to develop a “response to a specialized, text-based, discourse community, highly embedded in the differentiated practices of that community”. [Wright 2008] A strategy of building affiliations around an object of study has the potential to relatively strengthen the epistemic relation so that what is known is represented as a more dominant strategy for legitimation than who knows. Given the discussion of legitimation codes, we might anticipate some differences across disciplines in the functions that other sources fulfil in the discourse. We might anticipate, for example, more evidence of affiliations of sources that project knowledge about the object of study in the sciences and less in the humanities. The focus in the discussion above has been on ways in which writers can choose to represent others (or themselves) as knowers, suggesting a number of dimensions that can be explored in an analysis of differences

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across disciplines in the construction of the genre of research warrant. The presence or absence of knowers in the flow of the discourse, the fields from which they are drawn, the meanings that are instantiated around knowers in the discourse, the kinds of affiliations they form with other knowers, all offer the potential for writers to vary the relative significance they place on knowers or knowledge in legitimating their own studies.

6.5

Differing representations of knowledge

In this section the focus shifts to representations of knowledge. Here I explore the potential to represent knowledge differently in the discourse of the research warrant, differences in the ways some contributions to knowledge are related to others, and differences in the representations of knowledge as fixed or as negotiable. The aim is to identify some further means by which research writers construct different codes of legitimation, and in particular differing strengths of the epistemic relation (Maton 2007). 6.5.1 Relating contributions to knowledge in time or space In the theoretical framing of this chapter, I introduce Bernstein’s distinction between hierarchical and horizontal knowledge structures. In hierarchical knowledge structures knowledge construction builds through integration of other knowledge, hence its diagrammatic representation as a triangle (Figure 6.2). In horizontal knowledge structures, knowledge accumulates as additional discrete segmented knowledges. New knowledge is represented as a break with, rather than integrative of, previous knowledge (Figure 6.3). To what extent can we track these different processes of knowledge construction in the discourses of research warrants? In this endeavour I analyse the ways in which two writers, one from the science of building physics ([6/29]) and one from applied linguistics ([6/30]), work to construct space for their own study in relation to other studies. [6/29] A number of researchers (Fhyr and Rasmuson, 1997; Johanson et al., 1997) solved the equations describing the drying process separately for each phase (gas, liquid and solid). These equations contain various thermophysical properties for each phase. More experimental work is necessary for the determination of these properties. In addition, it is very difficult to identify exactly the boundaries among the phases.

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Younsi et al. (2006) studied experimentally and numerically the high temperature treatment of wood. The authors used the Luikov’s approach for the mathematical formulation. The numerical solution is, however, complicated (Liu and Cheng, 1991). Lewis et al. (1996) and Malan and Lewis (2003) solved the highly non-linear equations describing drying systems using the finite element method. Sanga et al. (2002) solved the diffusion model for transient heat and mass transfer processes to analyze the drying of a shrinking solid surrounding a nonshrinking material using microwave energy. In literature, the models describing the water migration in wood are usually 1D or 2D, which neglect the real variation of thermophysical properties in 3D. Most of the models are developed to simulate conventional drying, and there are few reported studies on the modeling of high temperature treatment of wood. [Younsi et al. 2006] In [6/29] we see an unfolding process in which research findings give rise to new questions, then to partial solutions, and to further questions. The relationship of one study to another is articulated in terms of a progressive movement of closing and opening knowledge claims. The integration of previous knowledge is intrinsic to this process. This process is distilled and illustrated below. A. An initial closure is established: A number of researchers (Fhyr and Rasmuson, 1997; Johanson et al., 1997) solved the equations describing the drying process separately for each phase (gas, liquid and solid). B. New fronts for knowledge are opened up in that process: (1) More experimental work is necessary for the determination of these properties (2) very difficult to identify exactly the boundaries among the phases C. Researchers attempt to address those gaps: Younsi et al. (2006) ... used the Luikov’s approach for the mathematical formulation. D. A problem arises in that attempt: The numerical solution is, however, complicated E. Studies result in partial successes: (1) Lewis et al. (1996) and Malan and Lewis (2003) solved the ... . (2) Sanga et al. (2002) solved the ...

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?B1 C

E1

?F1

E2

?F2

?D

?B2

time Figure 6.10

A temporal causal process in the integration of knowledge.

F. Two remaining problems emerge to be addressed by the writer: (1) the models are usually 1D or 2D, (2) few ... modeling of high temperature treatment of wood This represents what is essentially a temporal causal process of integration, with some spatial features in terms of aspects of a bigger question, as loosely illustrated in Figure 6.10. Locating in space

Contrast this with the kind of relationships evident in a phase of text in a social sciences text in [6/30]. [6/30] The disadvantage experienced by scholars who use English as an Additional Language (EAL) in writing for publication has been well documented both in the field of applied linguistics (e.g., Ammon, 2000, 2001; Belcher, 2007; Burrough-Boenisch, 2003; Flowerdew, 1999a, 1999b; Gosden, 1995; Kaplan & Baldauf, 2005; St. John, 1987) and that of science (e.g., Benfield & Feak, 2006; Benfield & Howard, 2000; Coates, Sturgeon, Bohannan, & Pasini, 2002; Kirkman, 1996). As well as needing more time to write (e.g., Curry & Lillis, 2004; Flowerdew, 1999a, 1999b; Lillis & Curry, 2006), EAL writers may encounter difficulties with reviewers and editors if their use of English is ‘‘non-standard.’’ While there is some evidence of journal editors’ and reviewers’ tolerance of non-native features in EAL authors’ submissions (Flowerdew, 2001), there are also reports of such gatekeepers criticizing these features. Ammon (2000, p. 113), for example, as a German editor of a book published in English, reports on criticisms of his work on the grounds of its ‘‘near unintelligibility [because] the grammatical mistakes are so severe.’’ Similarly, Curry and Lillis

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A

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(2004, p. 678) report on a Hungarian psychologist who made the following remarks: ‘‘if the style or the form of the paper is not native or not current, reviewers think that ‘this is a stupid man, this is not acceptable material’.

In this case the spatial positioning and segmentation is more prominent than the temporal integration. The flow of the text that positions the writer’s own study moves from a general space to a number of more specific spaces. The segmentation is tracked and illustrated below. The most general spatial category is established: The disadvantage experienced by scholars who use English as an Additional Language (EAL) in writing for publication This is narrowed in metaphorical space to two specific disciplinary areas: applied linguistics science Then narrowed further to one specific issue: time to write And to another: tolerance (and) gatekeepers Then narrowed further to located instances: German writers of English Hungarian writers of English The dominant approach to integration in [6/30] could be visualised as plotting segmented spatial relations, as in Figure 6.11. The writer of [6/30] continues to plot the spatial relations of topically related studies towards identifying a very specific niche for the research they report on in their article, namely the writing in EAL of Chinese doctoral students and more specifically still, the role played by others in the shaping of their texts. In the examples explored in this section, the texts differ in the dimensions of relevance established by the writer. In [6/29] the relevance is in terms of the questions that remain to be answered in relation to an on-going quest for knowledge. Integration is foregrounded, and boundaries have to do with the relative fulfilment of knowledge claims. This contrasts to the strategy in [6/30] where the relevance is in terms of mapping out territory in order to locate an area that has yet to be occupied, laying claim to a space for research. Segmentation of

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time applied linguistics

tolerance

gatekeeping German

science

Hungarian

space Figure 6.11 Spatial mapping of field of research into disadvantage of EAL scholars publishing in English.

knowledge is foregrounded in this process. Boundaries are to do with specifications of topic focus. 6.5.2 Establishing space for new knowledge: fending off other possibilities In section 6.4.1 the focus was on relationships between and amongst other sources and the contributions they make to the writer’s warrant for their own study. Here I shift focus to consider the ways in which knowledge is represented as contested, that is, on what basis are claims for space established? Who, if anyone, does the writer fend off in the process of establishing space for their own study. We might say that the writer of the science text in [6/29] fends off the idea of the fulfilment of knowledge, while the writer of applied linguistics text in [6/30] fends off other occupied spaces of knowledge. But within [6/30] we also find that the writer represents knowledge in some areas as contested and unfulfilled. The concessive (boxed) establishes this relationship of contestation and the graduation of quantity italicised as some evidence and in the plural form of reports reinforces this. The underlined modality (may) specifically encodes the knowledge as unfulfilled [6/301]: [6/301] EAL writers may encounter difficulties with reviewers and editors if their use of English is “non-standard.” While there is some evidence

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disadvantage...scholars...EAL

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of journal editors’ and reviewers’ tolerance of non-native features in EAL authors’ submissions (Flowerdew, 2001), there are also reports of such gatekeepers criticizing these features.

The positioning in [6/30] is therefore somewhat more complex than is represented in Figure 6.11, with an additional dimension of integration in some segmented spatial domains. Turning to a collection of texts from journals in cultural studies, we find that as with the applied linguistic text in [6/30], we find some evidence of the segmentation of the object of study and the identification of a relatively unoccupied niche, as underlined in [6/31]. [6/31] Yet, whilst the study of consumer culture has notoriously expanded in a multitude of interdisciplinary directions over the past two decades (Miller 1987, Featherstone 1991, Slater 1997, Nava et al. 1997, Lee 2000, Schor and Holt 2000) academic studies of, or indeed engagements with, anti-consumerist activism have been sparse. Most academic work has tended to focus on histories of consumer activism (Hilton 2003), and the little study of contemporary anti-consumerism there is available is often more celebratory than critically interrogative. [Littler 2005] An apparently more dominant strategy, however, is where what is contested is neither the fulfilment of knowledge, nor the existence of new territories for occupation, but the gaze that is applied to the object of study. In [6/32], [6/33] and [6/33] each writer counters a ‘wrong’ or flawed gaze, and in each case does so not on the basis of procedures for knowing or of limitations in knowledge of the object of study, but on the basis of a gaze that is negatively judged on the grounds of social esteem or social sanction (see Martin & White 2005 on judgement). The counter move is boxed and the negative judgement is italicized and underlined: [6/32] Both of these authors speak from disciplines that accept a cultural approach to research and representation in the academy, as opposed to the ‘‘objective’’ researcher in the sciences. [Brandt 2008]

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Many of these studies owe much to the work of Michel Foucault and genealogical approaches focusing on the descent, regulation and generative power of discourse. Often, however, a simple and problematic inference is drawn: that this discursive ordering shapes how people perceive and think, and materializes in practices, bodies and relations, in a manner that is coherent. (...). But is this really the case? And if so, how does it work and enforce itself? (...) The objective in this essay then is to pursue a different approach that (...) [Moser 2005] [6/34] I have chosen to use postcolonial discourse to help provide a framework for understanding the relationships (...) This is important in the context of science curriculum development because it allows us to think beyond the narrow and deadening influences of economic rationalist objectives and Western theoretical frameworks that are often taken for granted in current practice. [Ryan 2008] The position of the knower and the social relation to the object of study is once again foregrounded in the cultural studies texts.

6.6 Conclusion and implications for research As MacDonald (1994: 21) argues, ‘[i]f academic writing is a form of knowledge making, then differences in knowledge problems or ways of addressing such problems should account for much of the variation among the disciplines’. What has emerged in the analyses in this chapter is a syndrome of features that reflect differences in the ways in which disciplines engage with knowledge, in particular in the context constructing the warrant for their own research. My aim has been to broaden the ways in which we conceive of, and hence analyse, disciplinary differences from an applied linguistic perspective. Engaging with sociological theorisations of knowledge–knower structures (e.g. Maton 2007, 2009) has suggested a number of fruitful directions for the analysis and explanation of difference. There has been much recent discussion in studies of academic literacy around the need to address disciplinary differences. An understanding of the ways in which different disciplines use language differently is

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[6/33]

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fundamental to understanding the potential for effective collaboration, and to providing meaningful support for those who study and or research across disciplinary boundaries. This is especially relevant in an evolving academic context in which cross- or trans-disciplinary study is actively encouraged. It is hoped that the explication of the ways in which different disciplines legitimise research from a linguistic perspective can assist to clarify what is at stake. But there is much more to know. So rather than end with suggestions for interpretation into the domain of pedagogy as in previous chapters, I suggest some directions for further research. Some comments on the potential for further research

The response to a concern for understanding disciplinary difference in language studies has largely been corpus-based research, dominantly focused on identifying disciplinary-specific genres or move structures (e.g. Hyland 2000a; Huckin 2001; Yang & Allison 2004) or disciplinary preferences for particular grammatical constructions or lexical choices (e.g. Hyland 1999; Hewings & Hewings 2001). The approach taken in this chapter varies in a number of ways from such research, and offers a complementary perspective. In this chapter I draw on a close analysis of phases of text from different disciplines. The analyses focus in how different writers construct representations of knowers and knowledge in the process of legitimating their own research. Interpretations of these representations are then made with reference to Bernstein’s theorisation of knowledge and Maton’s studies of the structuring of knowledge in higher education (Maton 2000a, 2000b; Moore & Maton 2001). Such an analysis aims to reveal the potentials that writers have for varying the representation of knowledge. However, there is a need for more substantial studies of just how some of these strategies factor out in specific disciplines, how they vary across different academic genres, how they shift over time, and just what kind of knowledge–knower structures emerge in interdisciplinary studies of various kinds. Some of these strategies may well be readily searchable in large corpus-based studies, but others are less so with the tools currently available. There is still a need for continued careful, systematic and rich analyses of meanings in the logogenesis of individual texts.

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Ahmad, U.K. 1997. Research article introductions in Malay: Rhetoric in an emerging research community. In A. Duszak (ed.), Culture and Styles of Academic Discourse. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 272–303. Atkinson, D & A. Curtis. 2000. Preparing to write your MPhil/PhD. Hong Kong: Department of English, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Bakhtin, M.M. 1935 [1981]. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Edited by M. Holquist, translated by C. Emerson & M. Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press. Bakhtin, M.M. 1986. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Edited by M. Holquist, translated by V.W. McGee. Austin: University of Texas Press. Barton, E.L. 1993. Evidentials, argumentation, and epistemological stance. College English, 55 (7): 745–69. Bazerman, C. 1988. Shaping Written Knowledge. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Bazerman, C. 1994. Systems of genres and the enactment of social intentions. In A. Freedman & B. Medway (eds.) Genres and the New Rhetoric. London: Taylor. pp. 79–101. Bednarek, M. 2008. Emotion Talk Across Corpora. Basingstoke/ New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bednarek, M. & J. R. Martin (eds.) 2010. New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity, and Affiliation. London / New York: Continuum. Berkenkotter, C. & T.N. Huckin 1995. Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication: Cognition / Culture / Power. Hillsdale, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum. Bereiter, C. & M. Scardamalia. 1987. The Psychology of Written Composition. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Bernstein, B. 1975. Class, Codes and Control, Volume III: Towards a Theory of Educational Transmissions. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Bernstein, B. 1996. Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research and Critique. London: Taylor and Francis. Bernstein, B. 1990. Class, Codes and Control, Volume IV: The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. London: Routledge. Bernstein, B. 1999. Vertical and horizontal discourse: An essay. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20 (2): 157–73. Bernstein, B. 2000. Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. Revised edn. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield. Berry, M. 1981. Systemic linguistics and discourse analysis: A multi-layered approach to exchange structure. In M.C. Coulthard & M. Montogmery (eds.), Studies in Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. pp. 120–45. Bhatia, V.K. 1993. Analyzing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings. London: Longman. Biber, D. & S. Conrad 2001. Register variation: A corpus approach. In D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen & H. Hamilton (eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Malden, MA: Blackwell. pp. 175–96. 211

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academic discourse, 4, 121 academic argument 18 academic English, 3, 4 academic literacy, 3 see also academic discourse community, 8, 131 academic research articles 6, 16; see also introductions to research articles actualisation, 104, 186; see also graduation; focus affect , 25, 77; see also appraisal; attitude affiliation, 201–2 amount, 97; see also graduation; quantification; force applied linguistics, 175; see also social sciences appraisal, 2, 7, 17, 22–6, 46, 109; see also engagement; attitude; graduation appreciation, 25, 46, 77, 13, 111–14 composition, 112 reaction, 111 valuation, 111 see also appraisal; attitude attitude, 17, 24–5, 46–8, 75–7 inscribed attitude, 47–50, 53, 75 invoked attitude, 47, 53, 128 see also affect; judgement; appreciation; harmony attribution, 55, 57; see also voices; citation authenticity, 101–2; see also graduation; focus; valeur Bakhtin, M.M., 26, 4, 173 Bernstein. B., 5, 46, 71, 135, 172, 203 Christie, F., 135–6 circumstances of manner, 87, 92; see also graduation; force citation, 93

completion, 103; see also graduation; fulfilment; focus concession, 151, 161; see also counterexpectancy concessive contractors, 184, 188 contextual metaphor, 38, 46, 70 corpus-based studies, 4, 10, 14, 16, 28 counter-expectancy, 26, 163, 183; see also engagement; concession coupling, 143–7 cultural studies, 5, 45, 52, 67, 70, 82, 174, 194; see also humanities delicacy, 27–8 disciplines, 4, 65, 80, 177, 209–10; see also knowledge structures; interdisciplinary discourse semantics, 22–3, 26, 31, 74, 179; see also Systemic Functional Linguistics downtoners, 15 engagement, 19, 24–5, 172, 179, 185; see also appraisal English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and genre, 8–10 epistemic relations, 176; see also, Maton; Legitimation Code Theory ethnography, 10, 192 evaluation, 2, 7, 13 as discourse, 17–22 as discourse semantics, 22–5 as genre, 7–12 as grammar, 13–14 as lexis, 14–17 see also stance evidentials, 15, 17–18 extent, 98–100; see also graduation; force; quantification 225

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Index

Index

field , 32–6, 116–27 flagging, 91; see also graduation; invoking attitude focus, 16, 26, 88, 101, 129; see also graduation; valeur; fulfilment force, 16, 26, 87, 91, 128 124–6, 128; see also graduation; intensity, amount; extent; frequency frequency, 97; see also graduation; force fulfilment, 88, 103, 186; see also focus Fuller, G., 25 genre, 5–12, 23, 30–2, 37, 81, 171 of description, 36–7, 45, 60 of report, 38, 43, 45–6 story genres, 4, 5, 46, 171 see also macro-genre; research warrant graduation, 16, 24–6, 85, 114–16, 185; see also invoking attitude; flagging; force; focus Halliday,M.A.K. 12, 93, 120, 132, 152 harmonies of attitude, 148–9, 151 hedging, 18–20, 104 heterogloss, 26, 41, 173, 188 hierarchical knowledge structure, 5, 174–6, 203; see also Bernstein; knowledge–knower structures horizontal discourse, 173; see also vertical discourse; Bernstein horizontal knowledge structure, 5, 174–5, 203; see also Bernstein; knowledge–knower structures humanities, 41, 45, 52, 54, 67, 110, 175, 192; see also cultural studies Hunston, S, 7, 13, 20 Hyland, K., 4, 15, 18 Hyon, S., 8 infusion, 76, 92; see also graduation; force intensification, 16, 75, 86, 92; see also graduation; force interdisciplinary 210; see also disciplines introductions to research articles, 30–2, 121; see also research warrant

judgement, 25, 46, 77; see also appraisal; attitude know-how, 197 knowledge–knower structures, 46, 189, 198, 209; see also Bernstein; Maton Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), 46, 173, 176; see also Maton; epistemic relations; social relations lexical relations, 118, 143–5, 148; see also discourse semantics literature review, 8, 10–11 logogenesis, 28, 179 macro-genre, 6, 37–8, 45, 65, 69; see also genre Martin, J.R., 7, 16, 22–6, 31, 120 Maton, K., 46, 172, 176, 189, 200 Matthiessen, C.M.I.M., 12, 52 metadiscourse, 9, 17–18, 21–2, 182 metafunctions (interpersonal, ideational textual), 11; see also prosody; periodicity modality, 13, 17, 20, 26, 93, 183 moves (in genre analysis), 9, 11, 31–2 negation, 26, 183; see also engagement New Rhetoric, 8; see also genre pedagogy, 70–2, 105–7, 135, 138–9, 169–70 periodicity, 152–3 hyper-Theme, macro-Theme, 154 hyper-New, 154 see also metafunctions Poynton, C., 25 premodification, 75–6; see also graduation pragmatics, 17, 19–20, 22, 104 projection, 26, 132–7, 180–2; see also engagement prosody, 16, 141–2, 156 prosody of domination, 156–7 prosody of intensification, 156, 158–60 prosody of saturation, 156–7, 160 shifting prosody, 160

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quantification, 16, 86, 93–7; see also graduation; force reader position, 74 reflexivity, 200 repetition, 77; see also graduation; force research warrant, 6, 38, 41, 43, 65, 70; see also introductions to research articles; macro-genre Rose, D., 7–8, 22–3, 26, 31, 120 sciences, 5, 41, 54, 63, 68, 80, 110, 174, 175, 193 semantic prosody, 16, 142 social relations, 176; see also Legitmation Code Theory; Maton social sciences, 5, 41, 51–2, 54, 110, 119, 175 social semiotics, 5, 9–10 sociology, 174 of knowledge, 5 solidarity, 131

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specificity, 102; see also graduation; valeur; focus stance, 2, 7, 13, 21; see also evaluation Swales, J., 8–9, 31; see also moves Sydney School, 8, 17; see also genre Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), 2–3, 8, 11–12, 15, 22, 74, 141; see also discourse semantics Thetala, P., 16 Thompson, G., 7, 13, 20 topographic, 82, 113 typographic, 82 vague language, 15 valeur, 88, 102; see also graduation; focus vertical discourse, 173; see also horizontal discourse; Bernstein voices, 41, 57, 190; see also attribution; citation White, P.R.R., 16, 19, 25, 17

10.1057/9780230274662 - Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing, Susan Hood

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Index