‘I/we focus on…’: A cross-cultural analysis of self-mentions in business management research articles

Abstract

Although research articles (RAs) have been frequently characterised by impersonal language, which entails the use of nominalisations and passive sentences, self-mentions, that is, explicit references to the RA author(s), are found to intermingle with those impersonal constructions. These self-references can be considered a rhetorical strategy that scholars may use to present themselves as authorial selves, promoting themselves and outlining their specific, novel contribution to their discipline. This paper aims at quantitatively and qualitatively analysing the use and distribution of self-mentions—realised by self-references (i.e., first person singular and plural pronouns and possessive adjectives) and self-citations—in a comparable corpus of business management RAs written in English for an international readership by scholars based at North American universities and RAs written in Spanish for a national readership by scholars based at Spanish universities. The former were found to make greater use of self-mentions than the latter. Significant differences were also found in the distribution of self-mentions and the rhetorical functions both groups of scholars most commonly perform through the use of exclusive we. The different results in both sub-corpora suggest that the use of self-mentions in RAs is not only conditioned by the discipline to which the authors belong but also by the specific cultural context in which RAs are produced and distributed.