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A cross-disciplinary and authorship-based study of retraction notices as a high-stakes academic genre
Author
Xu, Shaoxiong
Supervisor
Hu, Guangwei
Abstract
Since the late 1990s, more and more research has been investigating retraction of published research as an unexpected academic phenomenon, drawing on retraction notices as primary data. However, the literature shows a paucity of linguistic studies on retraction notices. Aiming to fill the gap, the study reported in this dissertation explored retraction notices as a high-stakes academic genre which serves three major communicative purposes, namely correcting the contaminated literature, deterring potential offenders, and repairing tarnished image. Specifically, the study focused on uncovering generic and grammatical differences in retraction notices authored by two groups of individuals (i.e., authors of retracted articles vs. journal authorities) and from two broad disciplinary groupings (i.e., hard vs. soft disciplines).
The study adopted a quantitative design and drew on a corpus of 255 retraction notices retrieved from academic journals indexed in the Web of Science. Of those retraction notices, 54 were published in academic journals of three soft disciplines (SD; i.e., Business, Finance, and Management), and 201 in those of one hard discipline (HD; i.e., Cell Biology). All the 54 SD retraction notices were identified as being authored by journal authorities, whereas 88 and 113 of the 201 HD retraction notices were identified as being produced by authors of retracted articles (BA) and journal authorities (BJ), respectively. Drawing on the English-for-Specific-Purposes approach to genre analysis (Swales, 1981, 1990) and Systemic Functional Grammar (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), the study identified important generic and grammatical features of retraction notices and examined whether there were disciplinary and authorship- based influences on the use of these features.
A total of 18 move types were identified: (1) Announcing a retraction, (2) Specifying the retracted article(s), (3) Citing publication(s) to confirm the problem(s) with the retracted article(s), (4) Identifying retraction performer(s) and/or initiator(s), (5) Exposing the questionable record/background of the retracted article or its author(s), (6) Recapping the research reported in the retracted article(s), (7) Revealing the retraction trigger, (8) Uncovering the problem(s) with the retracted article(s), (9) Justifying the retraction decision, (10) Distinguishing between the guilty and innocent authors of the retracted article(s), (11) Upholding research findings, (12) Reporting status of consent to the retraction, (13) Offering remedies for the retraction, (14) Expressing apologies, regrets and/or gratitude, (15) Declaring consequences of the retraction, (16) Revealing availability of the retracted article(s) and/or supporting document(s), (17) Notifying stakeholders of the retraction, and (18) Disclosing publication and/or contact information of the retraction notice. Of the 18 move types identified, five (Moves 1, 2, 4, 8, and 18) were obligatory, whereas the other 13 were optional. Moreover, 121 distinct move configurations were found in the corpus. In terms of transitivity analysis, the material process type (42.49%) was the most frequently adopted, followed by the relational (23.90%), verbal (19.89%), mental (12.11%), existential (1.59%), and behavioural (0.02%) process types. In addition, a total of 1,345 retraction-engendering acts committed by the authors of the retracted articles were identified in the corpus.
Quantitative analyses located statistically significant cross-disciplinary and authorship-based differences in the deployment of certain move types, move configurations, process types, as well as in the agent visibility with which the retraction-engendering acts were construed by different authors of the retraction notices. Specifically, authorship-based differences were found for eight move types (Moves 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, and 16), whereas cross-disciplinary differences were uncovered for three move types (Moves 7, 10, and 16). Notably, the deployment of two move types (Moves 7 and 16) was subject to both authorship-based and disciplinary influences. The deployment of two of the five most frequent move configurations (Moves 1^2^4^8^9^18 and Moves 1^2^4^8^12^18) was influenced by authorship, whereas the use of two such move configurations (Moves 1^2^4^8^10^16^18 and Moves 1^2^4^8^12^18) was affected by discipline. The relational process type was used significantly less often in the HD-BJ retraction notices than in their HD- BA and SD-BJ counterparts, whereas the material and verbal process types were employed significantly more often in the HD-BJ retraction notices than in their HD-BA and SD-BJ counterparts. The HD-BJ retraction notices tended to mark the agents involved in retraction-engendering acts less explicitly than their HD-BA and SD-BJ counterparts did.
Based on these findings, it can be concluded that retraction notices as an academic genre are still evolving and in the process of developing more stable generic, organisational and grammatical features. With these findings interpreted in light of Image Repair Theory (Benoit, 2015), it can be inferred that the journal authorities and the authors of retracted articles, as retraction notice writers, seemed to have prioritised one or two of the three communicative purposes of retraction notices over the other two or one, and thus tended to adopt different rhetorical and grammatical strategies. Therefore, it is argued that the correction of the contaminated literature should be prioritised so as to safeguard the integrity of the literature for the long-term interests of the academic community, and deterring potential offenders should require the clear demarcation of responsibilities. The study has provided a comprehensive rhetorical and grammatical profile of retraction notices, which can facilitate our understanding of this emerging high-stakes academic genre.
The study adopted a quantitative design and drew on a corpus of 255 retraction notices retrieved from academic journals indexed in the Web of Science. Of those retraction notices, 54 were published in academic journals of three soft disciplines (SD; i.e., Business, Finance, and Management), and 201 in those of one hard discipline (HD; i.e., Cell Biology). All the 54 SD retraction notices were identified as being authored by journal authorities, whereas 88 and 113 of the 201 HD retraction notices were identified as being produced by authors of retracted articles (BA) and journal authorities (BJ), respectively. Drawing on the English-for-Specific-Purposes approach to genre analysis (Swales, 1981, 1990) and Systemic Functional Grammar (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), the study identified important generic and grammatical features of retraction notices and examined whether there were disciplinary and authorship- based influences on the use of these features.
A total of 18 move types were identified: (1) Announcing a retraction, (2) Specifying the retracted article(s), (3) Citing publication(s) to confirm the problem(s) with the retracted article(s), (4) Identifying retraction performer(s) and/or initiator(s), (5) Exposing the questionable record/background of the retracted article or its author(s), (6) Recapping the research reported in the retracted article(s), (7) Revealing the retraction trigger, (8) Uncovering the problem(s) with the retracted article(s), (9) Justifying the retraction decision, (10) Distinguishing between the guilty and innocent authors of the retracted article(s), (11) Upholding research findings, (12) Reporting status of consent to the retraction, (13) Offering remedies for the retraction, (14) Expressing apologies, regrets and/or gratitude, (15) Declaring consequences of the retraction, (16) Revealing availability of the retracted article(s) and/or supporting document(s), (17) Notifying stakeholders of the retraction, and (18) Disclosing publication and/or contact information of the retraction notice. Of the 18 move types identified, five (Moves 1, 2, 4, 8, and 18) were obligatory, whereas the other 13 were optional. Moreover, 121 distinct move configurations were found in the corpus. In terms of transitivity analysis, the material process type (42.49%) was the most frequently adopted, followed by the relational (23.90%), verbal (19.89%), mental (12.11%), existential (1.59%), and behavioural (0.02%) process types. In addition, a total of 1,345 retraction-engendering acts committed by the authors of the retracted articles were identified in the corpus.
Quantitative analyses located statistically significant cross-disciplinary and authorship-based differences in the deployment of certain move types, move configurations, process types, as well as in the agent visibility with which the retraction-engendering acts were construed by different authors of the retraction notices. Specifically, authorship-based differences were found for eight move types (Moves 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, and 16), whereas cross-disciplinary differences were uncovered for three move types (Moves 7, 10, and 16). Notably, the deployment of two move types (Moves 7 and 16) was subject to both authorship-based and disciplinary influences. The deployment of two of the five most frequent move configurations (Moves 1^2^4^8^9^18 and Moves 1^2^4^8^12^18) was influenced by authorship, whereas the use of two such move configurations (Moves 1^2^4^8^10^16^18 and Moves 1^2^4^8^12^18) was affected by discipline. The relational process type was used significantly less often in the HD-BJ retraction notices than in their HD- BA and SD-BJ counterparts, whereas the material and verbal process types were employed significantly more often in the HD-BJ retraction notices than in their HD-BA and SD-BJ counterparts. The HD-BJ retraction notices tended to mark the agents involved in retraction-engendering acts less explicitly than their HD-BA and SD-BJ counterparts did.
Based on these findings, it can be concluded that retraction notices as an academic genre are still evolving and in the process of developing more stable generic, organisational and grammatical features. With these findings interpreted in light of Image Repair Theory (Benoit, 2015), it can be inferred that the journal authorities and the authors of retracted articles, as retraction notice writers, seemed to have prioritised one or two of the three communicative purposes of retraction notices over the other two or one, and thus tended to adopt different rhetorical and grammatical strategies. Therefore, it is argued that the correction of the contaminated literature should be prioritised so as to safeguard the integrity of the literature for the long-term interests of the academic community, and deterring potential offenders should require the clear demarcation of responsibilities. The study has provided a comprehensive rhetorical and grammatical profile of retraction notices, which can facilitate our understanding of this emerging high-stakes academic genre.
Date Issued
2017
Call Number
P53.3 Xu
Date Submitted
2017