A Multi-Dimensional Analysis of Conclusions in Research Articles of Linguistics

Abstract

The research article section, especially the introduction, has been a focus of scholarly discourse research for many years while linguistic strategies in the conclusion of research articles remain understudied. Moreover, most of the previous studies discussed linguistic features from the perspective of single-language strategies. Given this, this paper adopted an MDA (multi-dimensional analysis) method (Biber, 1988) to analyze the distribution of 67 linguistics features in the conclusions of 200 RAs (Research Articles) with the aid of the corpus tool MAT (Multi-dimensional Analysis Tagger) devised by Nini. The result showed that the dimension scores directed to the negative polarity for Dimension 1 (Mean=-15.80, SD=5.40), Dimension 2 (Mean=-2.61, SD=2.08) and Dimension 4 (Mean=-1.62, SD=2.74), and positive polarity for Dimension 3 (Mean=7.33, SD=2.85), Dimension 5 (Mean=5.47, SD=3.05), which indicated that conclusions of linguistic RAs are presented as informational-dense, relatively context-independent, less explicitly persuasive, highly technical, and abstract. Besides, the main linguistic features that contributed to the language variation of the RAs conclusion writing in Linguistics are Nouns, Attributive adjectives, Present tenses, Past participial WHIZ deletions, Phrasal coordination, Nominalization, Pied piping constructions, Infinitive TO, Possibility modals (e.g. may, might), Suasive verbs and Agentless passives. The study revealed the specific distribution of linguistic features of conclusion writing in RAs, highlighting the nature of informativeness and the abstractness of academic writing. This study may have some implications for writing academic papers, especially for graduates studying linguistics.