A Comparative Study on Promotion of Modal Adjuncts in Research Article Introductions

Abstract

Promotion is a major strategy in Research article introductions (RAIs) to attract reader's attention and gain recognition. Building on previous researches that suggest promotion in RAIs could be realized by different kinds of linguistic elements and rhetoric structures, this study collected 100 SCI RAIs in the discipline of computer science as data and explored the promotion realized by interpersonal metafunction and rhetoric structure of modal adjuncts. Meanwhile, in order to identify if there are differences and similarities of promotion between Chinese EFL RAIs (English RAIs written by Chinese scholars) and English L1 RAIs (English RAIs written by English and American scholars), this study quantified lexical features by examining lexical density, lexical variety and position of modal adjuncts. Results showed that the modal adjuncts could realize promotion through varying interpersonal metafunctions (temporality, modality, intensity and comment) and the model of Create a Research Space (CARS). However, more comprehensive promotion was realized in English L1 RAIs through interpersonal metafunction conveyed by more frequent, more kinds of and more positions of modal adjuncts. Besides, this study also verified that modal adjuncts were encoded of CARS to realize promotion in both Chinese EFL RAIs and English L1 RAIs in the same way because of the same strategies (familiarity and logic) and similar linguistic features. These results are discussed in terms of "constraint communication", and discipline background drawn on for knowledge claims in same and different types of academic writing of promotion between Chinese EFL RAIs and English L1 authors.