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Writers' use of engagement resources in writing medical journal articles
Author
Huang, Rui
Supervisor
Cheung, Yin Ling
Abstract
Voice has always been an important and slippery concept in writing. Despite the fact that there have been studies on voice with different terms (Ivanic, 1998; Elbow, 1994, 2007; Hyland, 2002, 2008; Thompson & Hunston, 2000; Matsuda & Tardy, 2007, 2009), much of the studies have focused on the cross-cultural or cross-level aspect of the construal of the writer's voice and there is limited study on the voice in medical discourse. The present study aims to identify the writer's voice through the ENGAGEMENT system (Martin & White, 2005). The Discussion sections of 120 Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) from the five clinical subfields of Internal Medicine, Surgery, Obstetric & Gynecology, Pediatrics, and Infectious Diseases are coded with the heteroglossic ENGAGEMENT features. It has been observed that Internal Medicine writers strike a balance between objectivity and flexibility in their use of non-human agents, superscript numbers, and paraphrases or summaries to acknowledge an external source, while Surgery and Infectious Diseases writers make their presence more salient by using ACKNOWLEDGE with other dialogically contractive ENGAGEMENT features to strengthen the contractive features. In terms of the patterns of ENGAGEMENT features, Internal Medicine and Pediatrics share the same pattern of ENTERTAIN > DENY > COUNTER > ACKNOWLEDGE > PRONOUNCE > ENDORSE > JUSTIFY, as opposed to the pattern shared by Surgery, Obstetrics & Gynecology and Infectious Diseases: ENTERTAIN > DENY > ACKNOWLEDGE > PRONOUNCE > ENDORSE > JUSTIFY. The difference between the two patterns lies in the different frequencies of COUNTER and ACKNOWLEDGE.
Date Issued
2016
Call Number
P302 Hua
Date Submitted
2016