Variation in academic writing practices: The case of reporting verbs in English medium research articles

Abstract

Citations, i.e. references to previous research, serve scholars to construct their own authority and support their new knowledge claims. However, scholars from different linguacultural backgrounds may use citations differently to achieve these purposes. This study compares the use of reporting verbs in articles written in English by scholars from Anglophone contexts and EAL scholars, in order to identify divergent usage and examine to what extent diverse discursive patterns containing these verbs are used and accepted in international publications. Results show that, although the overall frequency of reporting verbs is similar in both corpora, there were differences in the types of verbs (i.e. research verbs, discourse verbs and mental verbs) most frequently used, in the variety of verbs, and in the frequency of some specific verbs. Further, the usage of reporting verbs in the texts written by the EAL scholars appears to be determined by their knowledge of and conformance to generic conventions but also by their bilingual literacy