Intradisciplinary heterogeneity of academic writing: A diachronic probe into interactional metadiscourse in medical research articles

IF 3.1 1区文学 Q1 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Journal of English for Academic Purposes Pub Date : 2025-06-19 DOI:10.1016/j.jeap.2025.101541

Chenchen Xu

{"title":"Intradisciplinary heterogeneity of academic writing: A diachronic probe into interactional metadiscourse in medical research articles","authors":"Chenchen Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.jeap.2025.101541","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While disciplinary variation of academic writing has been extensively documented, intradisciplinary investigations which promise to uncover rhetorical complexity within a discipline are relatively limited, especially from a diachronic perspective. This study examines intradisciplinary variation regarding interactional metadiscourse in medical research articles over the past 60 years. Based on a self-built corpus of 1530 research articles from 18 subdisciplines of medicine, this study revealed divergences between subdisciplines and the overall medical discipline in the use of interactional metadiscourse. Intradisciplinary variations were found in both the distribution of interactional metadiscourse across the 18 subdisciplines and the changes of these resources across the subdisciplines. The variations may be attributed to the nature of evidence, research methods, development stages, and realistic environments of subdisciplines. These findings offer diachronic evidence of intradisciplinary heterogeneity in academic writing and contribute to our understanding of changing writing practices and rhetorical complexity within a discipline.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47717,"journal":{"name":"Journal of English for Academic Purposes","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101541"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1000,"publicationDate":"2025-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of English for Academic Purposes","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1475158525000724","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

While disciplinary variation of academic writing has been extensively documented, intradisciplinary investigations which promise to uncover rhetorical complexity within a discipline are relatively limited, especially from a diachronic perspective. This study examines intradisciplinary variation regarding interactional metadiscourse in medical research articles over the past 60 years. Based on a self-built corpus of 1530 research articles from 18 subdisciplines of medicine, this study revealed divergences between subdisciplines and the overall medical discipline in the use of interactional metadiscourse. Intradisciplinary variations were found in both the distribution of interactional metadiscourse across the 18 subdisciplines and the changes of these resources across the subdisciplines. The variations may be attributed to the nature of evidence, research methods, development stages, and realistic environments of subdisciplines. These findings offer diachronic evidence of intradisciplinary heterogeneity in academic writing and contribute to our understanding of changing writing practices and rhetorical complexity within a discipline.

查看原文本刊更多论文

学术写作的学科内异质性：对医学研究论文中相互作用元话语的历时性探讨

虽然学术写作的学科差异已经被广泛记录，但学科内部的调查却相对有限，特别是从历时的角度来看，这些调查有望揭示学科内修辞的复杂性。本研究检视过去60年来医学研究文章中有关互动元语篇的学科内变异。本研究基于自建的医学18个分支学科1530篇研究论文的语料库，揭示了分支学科与整体医学学科在相互作用元话语使用方面的差异。交互元话语在18个子学科间的分布和这些资源在个子学科间的变化均存在学科内差异。这些差异可归因于证据的性质、研究方法、发展阶段和子学科的现实环境。这些发现为学术写作的跨学科异质性提供了历时性证据，并有助于我们理解学科内不断变化的写作实践和修辞复杂性。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Journal of English for Academic Purposes Multiple-

CiteScore

6.60

自引率

13.30%

发文量

审稿时长

57 days

期刊介绍： The Journal of English for Academic Purposes provides a forum for the dissemination of information and views which enables practitioners of and researchers in EAP to keep current with developments in their field and to contribute to its continued updating. JEAP publishes articles, book reviews, conference reports, and academic exchanges in the linguistic, sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic description of English as it occurs in the contexts of academic study and scholarly exchange itself.