Claiming centrality as promotion in applied linguistics research article introductions

Abstract

This study explores how promotion is realized in applied linguistics (AL) research article introductions (RAIs). We focus on one promotional strategy, claiming centrality, and examine what appeals and linguistic devices applied linguists (ALs) employ and how they employ them in RAIs to achieve positive evaluation of the significance of the topic or the research area. Fifty-one RAIs from three top-tier journals in AL were selected for a corpusbased study. Qualitative analysis of the texts revealed four major types of appeals, that is, appeals to salience, magnitude, topicality, and problematicity of the topic in either the research world or the real world, which ALs made in varied ways. Linguistic devices realizing these appeals were also analyzed with the tool of appraisal. Quantitative analysis further unveiled ALs' frequent use of appeals, their reliance on indirect over direct approaches to promotion, and their preferred patterns in appeal deployment. The pervasion of promotional elements is interpreted as indicative of academic marketization and as discipline-specific, and the indirect way of promotion is viewed as indicating a compromise between the need for promotion and the need to maintain objectivity.

Promotion through claiming centrality in L1 and L2 English Research Article Introductions

“…Claiming centrality, as one of the promotional strategies, has been investigated by Lindeberg (2004) in a study which dealt with promotion in the three disciplines of Financing, Organization and Management, and Marketing, some of the findings of which were reported above. Another study in this regard was conducted by Wang and Yang (2015), who analyzed claiming centrality in the discipline of Applied Linguistics, which was also reported above. To the best of our knowledge, no study has investigated intercultural differences in the ways through which academic writers claim centrality.…”

“…The units of analysis for this study were taken from Wang and Yang's (2015). Through identifying the types of values foregrounded in texts, they identified four types of appeals in the introduction section of Applied Linguistics RAs, namely, appeals to salience, magnitude, topicality, and problematicity.…”

“…As discussed earlier, Wang and Yang (2015) have identified four types of appeals in claiming centrality by authors: appeals to salience, magnitude, topicality and problematicity.…”

“…In an in-depth analysis, Wang and Yang (2015) Although they used CARS model as the starting point, they did not confine themselves to the first move of the model. Noting that centrality claims can appear in other moves as well, they searched for its realization throughout the introduction section.…”

“…After completing the qualitative part, Wang and Yang (2015) also conducted a quantitative analysis to investigate the prevalence of each type of appeals and their orientation. They found that claiming centrality through appeal to magnitude had the highest prevalence.…”