Negotiating across languages: Metadiscourse in English and Spanish abstracts in Soil Science

Abstract

This study aimed to contrast metadiscourse use across languages in abstracts in the field of Soil Science. Three corpora were compared: abstracts published in Spanish by Spanish speakers; abstracts published in English by Spanish speakers; and abstracts published in English by English speakers. Metadiscourse occurrences were qualitatively coded using computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software and interpreted in relation to independent variables language of publication, writers’ dominant language, and abstract rhetorical structure. Findings suggest an overall preference for boosting and a tendency to rely heavily on interpersonal features when presenting and discussing research outcomes, which may be accounted for in terms of the promotional function of the genre. Contrastive corpus analysis indicates a shift from Spanish local patterns of interaction when publishing in English towards dominating patterns of negotiation in the additional language, which might be attributed to the external demands posed by differing socio-pragmatic contexts of publication. Few divergencies observed in the use of hedging features and in the setting up of research background might indicate coexisting communication patterns and deliberate participation strategies by Spanish speakers.

(De)Motivating Factors Among TESOL Professionals Writing in English for Publication From South America

“…A few implications can be drawn from this study. Higher education institutions in South America with TESOL programs can (a) incentivize the publication in languages other than English (Navarro et al, 2022) by offering awards or extra days off, (b) encourage lecturers to include publications authored by Latin American (TESOL) professionals in their reading lists, (c) offer courses based on critical plurilingual pedagogies (Englander & Corcoran, 2019) for writing for scholarly publication in national and regional journals, (d) set writing centers to support higher education professionals address genre, meta-discourse, and style-related issues in the writing of manuscripts for publication (Innocentini & Navarro, 2022;Janssen & Restrepo, 2019;Janssen & Ruecker, 2022), (e) organize intra-/inter-institutional, self-led writing groups to increase mentoring, collaboration, and research capacity (Carlino & Cordero Carpio, 2023;Rodas et al, 2021), and (f) liaise with regional professional associations and journals to discuss issues around research agendas and publishing practices. A focus on regional journals may echo an epistemologies-of-the-South perspective (de Sousa Santos & Meneses, 2014) since this emphasis may lead to emancipating logos that destabilize hegemonic and hierarchical ways of knowledge production sometimes reproduced in South America.…”

“…These have been often examined in relation to inequalities and inequities that publishing in English can lead to in detriment of knowledge dissemination from EAL scholars often based in so-called peripheral economies/countries (Flowerdew, 2019;Lillis & Curry, 2022;Rounsaville & Zemliansky, 2020). These studies suggest that EAL scholars are at a linguistic and economic disadvantage compared to their Anglophone counterparts (Navarro et al, 2022).…”