Certainty across cultures: A comparison of the degree of certainty expressed by Greek and English speaking scientific authors

Koutsantoni, Dimitra

doi:10.1515/iprg.2005.2.2.121

Cited by 13 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…Difficulties associated with cultural differences and different rhetorical traditions: rhetorical patterns are subject to sensible differentiation according to each scholar's cultural background, ideological baggage, and to the communities' cultural practices. This has been studied, for instance, through the perspective of intercultural pragmatics (see for instance Dahl 2004 andKoutsantoni 2005), or of contrastive rhetoric (Mauranen 2004). Such studies have shown that the rhetoric choices which do not conform to the Anglo-Saxon model have less chances to be accepted; in actual fact, different cultural backgrounds seem to give rise to deep differences, affecting not only the stylistic properties of the work but, more significantly, the authoritative credibility of the whole argumentation and, ultimately, its effective impact on the readers' community (Dudley-Evans 1997, Mauranen 2004.…”

Section: Non-anglophone Scholars and The Use Of English As The Languamentioning

confidence: 99%

Stereotypes about English as the language of science

Guardiano

Favilla²,

Calaresu³

2007

AILA

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The progressive spread of English as the main language of the international scientific communication has been interpreted and justified in many different ways by several scholars. The paper suggests a brief review of the scientific debate on such topics, focusing on the main stereotypes which have been created in order to provide explanations for the development of English as the language of science, and on the perception of non-Anglophone scholars concerning the reasons for the predominance of English in scientific literature and their disadvantages with respect to native speakers.Frequently used stereotypes on English as the language of science are analyzed and discussed in reference to the motivations asserted by linguists and non-linguists. A double ideological evidence can be registered: 1. arguments essentially consist in a-posteriori justifications, 2. English – far away from representing a free choice for non-native scholars – is perceived as the repository of the linguistic power that is desired and worshipped. The overview closes with the results of a pilot investigation on the languages of scientific publications, conducted on a sample of Italian scholars belonging to various scientific fields

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Section: Non-anglophone Scholars and The Use Of English As The Languamentioning

confidence: 99%

Stereotypes about English as the language of science

Guardiano

Favilla²,

Calaresu³

2007

AILA

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“…Greek scholars have found that Greek politeness is motivated by a wish to enhance solidarity rather than the avoidance of face threats (Antonopoulou 2001;Georgakopoulou 2001; Brought to you by | University of Iowa Libraries Authenticated Download Date | 6/5/15 8:11 PM Pavlidou 1994). Linguistic behavior that is claimed to be face threatening and impolite by Brown and Levinson followers (e. g., interruptions and overlaps, abusive terms of address, imposition of opinion), has been found more often to function as solidarity building in Greek (Antonopoulou and Sifianou 2003;Koutsantoni 2004Koutsantoni , 2005aKoutsantoni , 2005bTzanne 2001). Such research suggests that theories and concepts alternative to Brown and Levinson might be more productive in explaining Greek modes of politeness.…”

Section: Background On Greek Cultural Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“I can now apologize to you twice from the bottom of my heart”: Apologies in Greek reality TV

Koutsantoni¹

2007

Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture

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While the speech act of apology has been investigated in a number of languages and cultures, there has been little research into apologies inGreek. Apology studies have tended to identify apology strategies, without taking into account the effect of the wider cultural context on apologies motivation and strategies, and have also tended not to include apology responses in their analyses. Remedial work, however, involves both apologies and replies to them (Goffman 1971). Based on data from a recent Greek TV reality game show, this paper looks at apologies and apology responses ("remedial interchanges", Goffman 1971), analyzing in detail the context in which they occurred and the relationship between interactants.The main aims are to identify: (1) the constituent elements of an offence and the factors that determine its weightiness; (2) the degree to which face, social distance and power determine the weightiness of an offence, the recipients' responses, and the strategies and language used in the remedial interchanges, and (3) the degree to which these are culturally determined. This involves an investigation of the components of face and relations of power and solidarity in Greek society as well as of the ways the game show manipulates interpersonal relations and foregrounds Greek traditions and cultural values by explicitly attempting to contravene them.

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“…To illustrate, a great deal of research has explored linguistic elements signalling metadiscourse functions in order to reveal tendencies in writing practices across different discourse communities (regarding language, culture and discipline) and genres (Akbari, 2017;Crawford Camiciottoli, 2010;D'Angelo, 2008;Hatipoğlu & Algı, 2017;Hu & Chao, 2015;Liu & Buckingham, 2018;Molino, 2010). Nevertheless, the research examining academic discourse in terms of such expected and accepted norms has mainly been related to what experienced scholars follow in their academic writing (for example, Koutsantoni, 2004Koutsantoni, , 2005Vassileva, 2001). In other words, there are studies which have compared the publications of experienced writers with a focus on various interpersonal relations in academic texts and this can be quite crucial for helping other members of these discourse communities to ind what is generally accepted.…”

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confidence: 99%

Strengthening or Weakening Claims in Academic Knowledge Construction: A Comparative Study of Hedges and Boosters in Postgraduate Academic Writing

Akbaş¹,

Hardman²

2018

EDUC SCI-THEOR PRACT

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From a cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective, this paper reports on the indings of an exploratory study examining the features of the academic texts produced by three groups of postgraduates: native speakers of Turkish (TL1), English (EL1) and Turkish speakers of English (EL2). To this end, the study involves a microdiscourse analysis of a corpus of ninety discussion sections of dissertations to identify and classify the choices made by the authors for expressing commitment/detachment in presenting knowledge claims. The results indicated interesting similarities and differences across the groups in the ways in which writers qualiied their level of commitment to a higher level and detachment from the claims in their writing. In other words, this can be described as a cline from the highest to the lowest, even intentionally withholding their commitment. By looking at the hedging and boosting devices contributing to the interactive side of academic writing, the discourse constructed by Turkish L1 writers appeared to be slightly less interpersonal but highly authoritative overall. In contrast, the results suggested that the Turkish writers of English were similar to their English L1 counterparts in terms of building a signiicantly more cautious strategy for presenting knowledge claims and making use of relatively fewer boosting devices when presenting their claims. It is hoped that the implications of the indings can be useful for teaching of academic writing to postgraduates within the contexts of the study.

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Certainty across cultures: A comparison of the degree of certainty expressed by Greek and English speaking scientific authors

Cited by 13 publications

References 30 publications

Stereotypes about English as the language of science

Stereotypes about English as the language of science

“I can now apologize to you twice from the bottom of my heart”: Apologies in Greek reality TV

Strengthening or Weakening Claims in Academic Knowledge Construction: A Comparative Study of Hedges and Boosters in Postgraduate Academic Writing

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