The communication of expertise: changes in academic writing

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Knowledge Transfer is now a key output of academic research, conveying how ideas move between the knowledge source and the potential users of that knowledge. This means scholars now have to write for audiences beyond their fellow-academics raising the question of whether these different audiences have an impact on writing practices. Focusing on the main genre of the academy, the research article, this chapter looks at writer-reader interactions to understand how persuasion may have changed in recent years. Based on a corpus of 2.2 million words from the same leading journals in four disciplines at three periods over the past 50 years, I explore changes in the use of stance and engagement. The results suggest changes in rhetorical conventions which accommodate more explicit interpersonal interactions in the sciences and more detached practices in the soft fields.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationScholarly pathways:
Subtitle of host publicationknowledge transfer and knowledge exchange in academia
EditorsMaurizio Gotti, Stefania Maci, Michele Sala
Place of PublicationBern
PublisherPeter Lang
Chapter1
Pages33-55
Number of pages23
ISBN (Electronic)9783034339261
ISBN (Print)9783034338608
Publication statusPublished - 14 Feb 2020

Publication series

NameLinguistic Insights
PublisherPeter Lang
Volume264

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