Citation Practices Among Novice and Expert Academic Writers

Abstract

Citation - one of the fundamental features of academic writing –serves numerous invaluable rhetorical functions ranging inter alia from establishing intellectual linkages to demonstrating paradigmatic allegiance, from contextualizing research to enhancing persuasiveness and managing interpersonal relationships (Paul, 2000), from attribution to exemplification, from further reference to statement of use, and from application to evaluation (Petric, 2007). Although citation has been subject to various cross-linguistic and cross-disciplinary research, it has not received due importance in studies on how Turkish academic writers employ it. Hence, this corpus-based exploratory study aims to investigate citation practices of novice Turkish writers and expert native English speaking academic writers, from a dialogic viewpoint, drawing on the systemic functional perspectives and formulations of appraisal theory (Martin & White, 2005). The data of the study come from articles from the field of Applied Linguistics. All the incidences of citation in the corpus were identified and examined in an integrative analytic framework that characterized multiple aspects of citations in terms of dialogic contraction or dialogic expansion. After a detailed analysis of the citation density and types, a chi-square test was conducted to determine the significance of the differences found. The qualitative and quantitative results have indicated similarities and substantial differences in the frequency, type, and function of citation practices. These similarities and differences are interpreted in reference to the nature of cited information, epistemologies underlying discoursal and cultural practices, ethnolinguistic norms of communication, and culturally valued interpersonal relationships. Pedagogical implications gleaned from these findings are discussed.