Discussion
This section has focused on the use of engagement markers in undergraduate textbooks and RAs. The most common device in the two genres is the pronoun we, accounting for approximately 70% of engagement markers in both genres. The high number of engagement markers in linguistics textbooks indicated their interactive character. Textbook authors addressed readers directly (the pronoun you, directives), or engaged them in the discourse using inclusive we. The asymmetrical relationship between the writer as an expert and the readers as novices in the discipline can be seen in the use of pronoun you, which might imply a certain distance between participants, and the use of directives. On the other hand, inclusive we can mitigate the distribution of power by drawing students into the shared world of disciplinary understanding. Another reason for employing engagement markers is educational. Relating the topic to students, showing how we as human beings use language, helps to make the exposition more interesting, relevant and approachable.
Generally, the main difference in the use of pronoun we between undergraduate textbooks and RAs seems to result from the character of the genres themselves. According to Martin (1997), genres are social processes so they reflect the relationship between the subjects that participate in them. The same forms of engagement markers have different functions in the two genres. A high frequency of the pronoun we in textbooks suggests their interactive character, engaging readers in the discourse, addressing them as discourse participants. Various uses of the pronoun may suggest the atmosphere in the classroom, which enables the teacher to use we even for the actions that he does himself (e.g. we emphasized that). The main aim seems to be to engage and motivate readers/students since it complies with the main communicative purpose of the genre, which is educational.
On the other hand, the pronoun we seems to fulfil other functions besides engagement in RAs. The writer engages the reader but with an additional aim of disguising himself as the real agent. If the writer says we argue that (as in the example 20 above), when [s]he is the one making the claim, it seems much harder for the reader to disagree. Similarly, in (29) it is the author who found 19 parallel examples, but using we enables him to seek agreement.
(29) It is seen that all of the nominalizations of Motte’s translation were also nominalized processes in Newton’s original Latin, where we find the 19 parallel examples for the 168 word Latin text. (RA1: 352)
As Muhlhausler and Harre (1990) point out, “the use of ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ also diminishes the responsibilities of the speaker, since he or she is portrayed as collaborating with the hearer” (p. 175). That is also probably why a number of cases of the ‘authorial we’ function as a hedge at the same time:
- (30) We could say that linguistic cooperation can expand like an accordion to encompass what has been described as ‘extra-linguistic cooperation’ [...]. (RA8: 1902)
- (31) We may explain these differences by reference to differences in the ideology and epistemology of the two disciplines. (RA4: 313)
Even though this strategy appears in textbooks as well, it is not so prominent and mostly neutralized by other uses of the pronoun.
Different functions of the pronoun we also account for the fact that I decided not to treat the examples of exclusive authorial we as engagement markers in RAs, but I did so in textbooks. The division exclusive/inclusive seems too simplified to be able to explain all the complex relations, and it can be argued that even these uses of we for I may be interpreted by the addressee as inclusive signs, especially in the textbooks (see Rounds 1987 above). On the other hand, they seem to fulfil a different function in RAs since they are used rather to disguise the writer than to engage readers in the discourse, which is why they have not been classified as engagement markers. Generally, the use of pronoun we may diminish writer responsibility, which can be shared with his colleagues, readers etc.
It remains to be said that there are other motivations for the use of pronouns in academic writing which, however, are not the subject of this study. In studying language as a meaning potential (Halliday 1978) we ask why certain expressions are preferred over others in particular contexts. These choices might result not only from the pragmatic interpretations of functions outlined above, but, more generally, from the functioning of language itself. For example, the use of active/passive forms may be conditioned by the information structure of the sentence, specifically by the principles of end-focus and end-weight. Studies have shown that although the passive voice plays an important role in academic writing, it is the active voice that prevails; Duskova, for example, found out that the passive voice accounted for 20.68% of finite verb forms in her corpus of scientific writing (1999, p. 140). She also points out that “the use of we + the active voice of a transitive verb makes possible late placement of the rhematic element, the object, which in the passive would come as the subject first” (ibid.). Similar cases can undoubtedly be found in my corpus (in both genres), for example:
(32) In the list here, we also find the word acidity, plus four other derivatives of it (subacidity, nonacidity, hypoacidity, hyperacidity). (TB7: 65)
Another tendency influencing the choice of active/passive voice is connected with thematic progression and the tendency to maintain the same subject in certain passages.
Finally, academic writing has its own conventions which also concern the use of pronouns and have to be taken into account in the analysis. While authorial we is still quite frequent in Czech academic discourse, it seems to be rejected in English style manuals and certain scientific journals.[1]
- [1] See e.g. Wales (1996, p. 65) who discusses different views of the so-called ‘authorial we’.According to Henry David Thoreau “it should only be used by royalty, editors, pregnant womenand people who ate worms” (ibid.).
