Authorial Presence Research Articles

Grammatical Cohesion in the Introduction Chapters of Linguistics Ph.D. Theses Written by Anglophone Academic Writers

Effective formal writing skills are crucial for educational success and improved academic status; however, writing in English can be challenging, especially for inexperienced English writers and for those individuals for whom English is not their primary language. One often experienced challenge is the appropriate use of cohesive devices (CDs) to organize texts and enhance their semantic potential. Thus, this study analyzed the grammatical CDs utilized by Anglophone Academic Writers (AAWs) in the introduction chapters of 45 Ph.D. theses (86,000 words) in the field of linguistics using Halliday and Hasan’s CDs taxonomy. The analysis showed that AAWs mainly employed references, particularly personal and demonstrative, followed by conjunctions, particularly additive ones, as their dominant CDs. Additive conjunctions helped establish the coherent progressions of ideas in the introductions, while personal references, especially first-person pronouns, conveyed authorial presence. Demonstrative references emphasized important ideas discussed in the theses. The strategic application of these grammatical CDs effectively directed readers through the introductions, creating a logical flow for the writers’ points. Therefore, this study presents valuable insights into the cohesive writing practices of AAWs, which can be used to enhance writing instruction and help novice English writers in improving their formal writing skills.

Does ChatGPT Argue Like Students? Bundles in Argumentative Essays

Abstract The advent of ChatGPT, a novel AI-powered language model able to create grammatically accurate and coherent texts, has generated considerable concern among educationalists anxious about its potential to enable cheating among students and to undermine the development of critical thinking, problem-solving, and literacy skills. The similarities and differences between ChatGPT texts and human writing, however, remain underexplored. This study aims to bridge this gap by comparing the use of 3-word bundles in A-level argumentative essays written by British students with those generated by ChatGPT. Our findings show that ChatGPT essays contain a lower frequency of bundles but these have a higher type/token ratio, suggesting that its bundles are more rigid and formulaic. We also found noun and preposition-based bundles are more prevalent in ChatGPT texts, employed for abstract descriptions and to provide transitional and structuring cues. Student essays are characterized by more epistemic stances and authorial presence, crucial in persuasive argumentation. We attribute these distinct patterns in ChatGPT’s output to its processing of vast training data and underlying statistical algorithms. The study points to pedagogical implications for incorporating ChatGPT in writing instruction.

“Here, We Investigate If There Is …”: A Functional Investigation of Self-Mentions in Research Article Abstracts

Abstract The present study explored authorial presence in the abstracts across three purpose-built discipline-specific corpora of RAs in major but relatively less represented disciplines in corpus studies: Civil Engineering (CE), Political Sciences (PS) and Veterinary Medicine (VM). In particular, due to less attention having been paid to these fields, we examined explicit authorial references with a functional perspective in a corpus of abstracts totaling over one million words. To this end, we first conducted a preliminary search for explicit third-person plural author references in the corpora and manually analysed a total of over 6,000 instances to check if they were all markers signaling an authorial presence in the text. Following this, the second manual analyses concentrated on categorizing the rhetorical functions of self-mentions based on Xia’s (2018) framework. The preliminary findings showed that the frequency of “we”-based authorial references in PS outweighed that in the other disciplines (PS: 722.13; CE: 636.81; VM: 481.30 per 100,000 words). Regarding the density of authorial references, we found that each discipline favored being more visible with divergent authorial roles in their abstracts. For example, PS were more rhetorically present in their abstracts by “proposing a theory or approach” whereas CE and VM authors used fewer self-mentions to mark their presence frequently with this rhetorical device. With respect to the functional analyses of the self-mentions of “we”, all three disciplines displayed more low-stakes functions such as “recount experimental procedure and methodology”. We focused on the significance of cross-disciplinary and functional analysis in the study in order to contribute to designing activities in EAP for each discipline.

THE SKETCH STORY IN THE EARLY WORKS OF I.A. BUNIN: LITERARY GENEALOGY OF THE GENRE

The article delves into the sketch-like inclinations present in the early works of Ivan Bunin, while also examining the synchronous and diachronic literary contexts surrounding these narratives. The sketch-like aspect apparent in young Bunin’s writing is evidently linked to the traditions of the naturalist school of the 1840s. In a similar vein, the author minimizes intrigue and authorial presence, instead ‘capturing’ fragments of life, abstaining from describing any substantial plot-driving events, and restraining the use of artistic devices. On the whole, these stories unfold over a single day in the lives of the characters - from dawn to dusk - portraying a distinct social archetype of a small-town landowner who, in many aspects, shares commonalities with the peasantry. However, amidst these formal techniques, Bunin introduces new motivations that were hitherto unexplored in Russian literary tradition but discernible within the contemporary European modernist practice. These include an aesthetic gaze, a fascination with decay, contemplative minutiae, the whims of chance, and a particular philosophical ambiance, all of which appear to guide the stories towards a parabolic interpretation. The article concludes that within Bunin’s early prose, impressionistic and inherently modernist elements are seamlessly woven into the sketch-like narrative structure. This integration would subsequently gain greater prevalence and significance in his future works, particularly during his emigrant period. The essence of this amalgamation is not rooted in the realm of prose, but rather in the domain of poetry. Even within his early prose endeavors, Bunin, a poet with classical inclinations, attempts to synthesize the qualities of poetry and prose, drawing from his poetic background to enrich his prose compositions. Consequently, the contemplative quality we mentioned earlier is likely rooted in elegiac themes, whereas impressionism and occasional attributes bear resemblance to elements found within landscapes.

The Gentleman from the Gem of the Sea: The 1834 Edinburgh Dinner Revisited

Abstract: Most modern biographies of Dickens refer to his first major assignment for the Morning Chronicle : a trip to Edinburgh to report on a Festival in honor of Lord Grey. The visit has become celebrated by the inclusion, in the resulting newspaper copy, of a 238-word passage which, it has been remarked, "would not have been out of place in one of Boz's Monthly tales" (Slater 43). The present paper considers the fiercely bipartisan political atmosphere at the time, its expression in the contemporary press, and the impact on it of the famous passage. It is suggested that a jokey contemporary comment on the passage represents the earliest recovered quasi-personification of Dickens's authorial presence.

‘The problem of other minds’: disappropriation and the limits of polyphony in Ben Lerner’s The Topeka School

ABSTRACT This essay argues that Ben Lerner’s The Topeka School (2019) complicates Mikhail Bakhtin’s dichotomy between monologism and polyphony through strategies resonating with Cristina Rivera Garza’s concept of disappropriation. In contrast to Bakhtinian polyphony, Lerner’s novel posits the necessity of exposing the author’s agency behind the characters’ voices to refrain from appropriating them; it thus embraces authorial fallibility and turns it into an ethical project. Despite comprising multiple narrators, The Topeka School is metafictionally presented as authored by an older version of its teenage protagonist Adam Gordon, serving as Lerner’s alter ego. Adam’s overarching authorial presence is suggested by the narrative’s frequent rejection of individuation and mimesis in its depiction of different characters’ speeches; yet, by presenting individual voices as interwoven, the novel also emphasises the collective nature of language. I discuss how this tension between authorial control and interconnectedness is reflected in textual interferences across different narrative perspectives, in the oscillation between authorial and figural narration in the interludes dedicated to the character Darren, and in the infiltration of various intra and intertextual references into Amber’s as well as Adam’s voice. Through these disappropriative techniques, Lerner’s novel avoids solipsism while also moving beyond the dialogic strategies of previous post-postmodern metafiction.

Authorial Presence in English Research Articles in Medicine Written by American and Indonesian Authors

The present research attempts to investigate authorial presence in English research articles in medicine written by American and Indonesian authors. In doing so, the study first attempts to describe first-person pronouns used to express authorial presence. Secondly, the research aims to examine the discourse functions of first-person pronouns in the research articles. Data for the present research were taken from 20 English research articles in medicine, consisting of 10 articles published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians (Wiley) and 10 in Medical Journal of Indonesia. A corpus of 81,657 words was analyzed with the help of a concordance program, WordSmith Tools 5.0 (Scott, 2008), to identify the occurrences of first-person pronouns used in research articles. A qualitative analysis was also conducted to examine the discourse functions of each first-person pronoun using the classification proposed by Filimonova (2005) and Tang and John (1999). Hopefully, the present research findings could indicate the intention of authorial presence in academic writing, specifically in medical research articles. The findings also contribute to investigating the difference between American and Indonesian authors in presenting themselves in academic writing.

Exploring the boundaries of authorship: a comparative analysis of AI-generated text and human academic writing in English literature

As artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly permeates educational landscapes, its impact on academic writing has become a subject of intense scrutiny. This research delved into the nuanced dimensions of authorship and voice in academic writing, specifically focusing on the application of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. In this study, the research team compared and contrasted an essay written by one second-year English student for a course on English literature with a similar essay produced by ChatGPT. The current research also, tried to clarify whether artificial intelligence can satisfy the formal requirements of academic writing and maintain the distinctive voice inherent in human-authored content. The examination hinges on parameters such as assertiveness, self-identification, and authorial presence. Additionally, the researchers shed light on the challenges inherent in producing AI-generated academic text. While ChatGPT presented an ability to generate contextually relevant content, the results highlighted its need for support in guaranteeing factual accuracy and capturing the complex aspects of authorship that are common in human writing. Notably, when compared to human-generated text, the AI-generated text was deficient in terms of specificity, depth, and accurate source referencing. While AI has potential as an additional tool for academic writing, this study’s findings indicated that its current capabilities—particularly in producing academic text are limited, and remain constrained. This study emphasizes upon the imperative for continued refinement and augmentation of AI models to bridge the existing gaps in achieving a more seamless integration into the academic writing landscape.

A Comparison of Explicit and Implicit Approaches to EAP Teaching to Postgraduate Students

The present study aims to explore the role of explicit and implicit approaches in developing pragmatic competence in postgraduate students as part of the Foreign Language course. 32 students were divided into two groups depending on the type of teaching approach for six weeks of instruction. Research proposals written by each group after the interventions were examined with the aim of comparing the employment of pragmatic features such as stance-taking resources and their frequencies. In order to investigate the effects of stance-taking instruction, this study adopted a combination of quantitative and interpretative analysis methods. The results revealed significant differences in the use of stance resources by the postgraduate students exposed to explicit vs implicit instruction. In terms of compliance with the academic writing norms, the explicit instruction was found to be more effective than the implicit one. The analysis found that while the explicit group tended to mitigate their claims and hide authorial presence, the students exposed to the implicit instruction expressed stronger commitments to propositional content and showed writer visibility in the text, which considers to be inappropriate in English-language academic writing. The findings point to important considerations for EAP teaching and future research into academic discourse and contribute to previous studies of the benefits of instruction in the development of pragmatic competence. The results may be employed by curriculum designers to create materials for L2 writers and EAP instructors in their teaching practice.

Author self-reference: A cross-linguistic/cultural and cross-disciplinary analysis

This study explored the use of author self-reference from cross-linguistic/cultural and cross-disciplinary perspectives in research articles (RAs). Based on a self-built corpus consisting of two disciplines (Computer Science and Linguistics) and two languages (Chinese and English), this study extracted the self-reference markers and compared their uses across the linguistic/cultural and disciplinary corpora. The cross-linguistic/cultural analysis showed that English RAs contain a higher frequency of first-person pronouns, while Chinese RAs tend to utilize more inanimate NPs in both disciplines. The cross-disciplinary comparison identified that English Computer Science texts are characterized by a more explicit authorial persona, while Chinese RAs display a mitigated authorial presence in the text construction. The findings contribute to our knowledge of how the specific disciplinary community and cultural conventions influence writers’ manifestation of their authorial presence.

Marked Themes in academic writing: a comparative look at the sciences and humanities

Abstract Differences between science writing and humanities writing often appear as glosses in guidebooks, but empirical studies comparing these two genres of writing are uncommon. This study investigated the use of a highlighting mechanism – the Hallidayan notion of the marked Theme (MT) – to understand how the sciences and humanities foreground contextual information, and what this implies about the nature of writing in these two broad disciplines. The corpus comprised 80 research articles, 40 each from the sciences and humanities. MTs were analyzed for their grammatical forms and functions using the Hallidayan framework. The findings revealed that while both genres of writing had roughly the same proportions of MTs used, they differed in their use of thematized clauses. More non-finite clauses were found in science writing, and more finite clauses in humanities writing. Science writing favored the use of Cause MTs, whereas humanities writing used more Contingency and Angle MTs. These findings suggest that science writing values brevity and authorial presence. Humanities writing, by contrast, prefers a more elaborate writing style, with a focus on establishing the conditions needed for the authors’ interpretations, and integrating the viewpoints from other scholars. Suggestions for further research involving other disciplines and multi-disciplinary fields of study are recommended.

Metatextual Commentary to the Heroic Poem Suvoroida by I. I. Zavalishin: Authorial Manifestation and Understanding of the Genre

Issues concerning the emergence and decline of the epic poem are fairly well researched in Russian literary criticism. Irinarkh Ivanovich Zavalishin was the second author who successfully completed works of this genre following in the footsteps of M. M. Kheraskov. Yet, this author’s poems are often considered superficially as having had no serious influence on the literary process or the consciousness of contemporaries. This article looks at the unique aspect of his poem, Suvoroida, its extensive metatextual and paratextual structure, its relation to the core text and impact on the further development of the genre. The article demonstrates how in his commentary on the poem, the author expresses a new approach to the genre itself, i.e. a decisive rejection of classical fantastic elements of the traditional epic poem of the eighteenth century, postulating the value of historical accuracy and personal attitude to historical events. The article considers the immediate features of historical commentary, noting that, first of all, the author seeks to convey accurate historical information about the obstacles overcome by Suvorov and the losses of the enemy, which serves to formalize the image of the invincible hero. Finally, attention is drawn to the conceptual tension between the text of the poem and the author’s commentary on it, manifesting an active authorial presence in the text. From this tension comes the complexity in the interpretation of Suvorov’s image. As a character of the poetic text, he appears in the image of a classicist hero, sublime, magnificent, formidable, and gracious. The Suvorov of the metatext is down-to-earth, surrounded by everyday details and realities, and easy to deal with.

ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES IN SOCIAL ACTORS' RESPONSES TO THE #ENDSARS PROTEST

Studies on the #EndSARS protest have examined the movement from a non-linguistic standpoint, providing perspectives on the human right violations leading up to the stifling and abrupt end of the protesters’ activities, the potential consequences of the government’s response in relation to foreign ties with global communities, and the economic implications of the protest on the nation. There exists a gap of knowledge in linguistic-related studies on the protest, especially on the techniques protesters employ in establishing meaning and building solidarity with the audience in the communication processes. The study, therefore, examined the engagement strategies in the responses of social actors to events following the #EndSARS protest, and James Martin and Peter White's Appraisal framework constituted the theoretical framework. For data, two newspaper reports on the Lagos State inquiry panel on the protest and the Nigerian government's response to Cable News Network (CNN) were purposively drawn from two Nigerian newspapers, and the analyses were carried out using a descriptive approach. The results showed that of the three selected social actors, only two efficiently engaged readers, providing lucid evidence to corroborate stance in the meaning-negotiation process. Negative connotations were evoked to disclaim, condemn, and disendorse other social actors in the entrenchment of propositional values, and authorial presence was extensively engaged to reveal authors’ evaluative stance.

TRANSGRESSIVE LANGUAGE OF POSTMODERNIST AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITING: INTERTEXT AND METALEPSIS

Background. Intertext and metalepsis in the proposed study are considered as the phenomena of transgressive poetics, means of creating the ontological dimension of an artistic text and tools for textualization of life. Transgressive language contributes to the correction of preconceived notions about postmodernism, facilitate the disclosure of changing nature of autobiography by revealing and analyzing internal contradictions − the amphibology of meaning. Self-generated paradoxes are revealed in the pluralized text due to metalepsis that registered dissolving borders between the levels of narration − author (reality), narrator (extra-diegetic), narratee (intra-diegetic) and intertextuality that creates an ambivalent space for co-existing multilayered experiences . The pronouns «I», «he», «they», constantly alternating, refer to each other, preventing the re-creation of an unambiguous original signified, i.e. a real biographical author who created an autobiographical text − the basis of the genre of autobiography. 
 The purpose of the article is to analyze the role of intertext and metalepsis in creating an autobiographically transgressive text on the example of a novel by the postmodernist writer Stephen Dixon.
 Methods. The poststructuralist approach in the context of literary theory along with elements of intertextual, narrative, stylistic analysis was used. 
 Results. The study of the peculiarities of transgressive language in the autobiographical postmodernist writing shows that Dixon's I-texts are sustained in the parameters of a classic novel: there is neither hypertextuality nor open polemical intertextuality. However, the transformation of the artistic matter of literature and the nature of autobiography is multifaceted and noted at all levels of the text. 
 Discussion. Dixon’s innovations lie in the further transformation of the modus of the author's presence, begun by Modernists. The artistic strategy of transgression of the experience of classical autobiography, applied by Dixon, is embodied in using the reconceptualized stylistic devices. One of them is ontological metalepsis that reveals transgressive dynamics on all levels of artistic conventions and, above all, the boundaries of fiction and reality in the act of creativity. The representative texts of the American writer reveal the growing sense of the thinning line between language and reality in the autobiographical prose of recent decades. This is accompanied by the development of innovative breakthroughs to reflect one's life experience, dictated by the existential need to restore ties with the material, which runs into the ambivalence of language structures.

MODALITY AS A TOOL OF AUTHORIAL PRESENCE IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS

This study explores how modality is used in editorials related to Covid-19 from two Pakistani newspapers, to establish the author's presence in the text. A purposive sampling technique was used to select 50 editorials, and a concordance tool was employed to categorize the data. Modal verbs and other linguistic elements with modal meanings were analyzed using the interpersonal metafunction, as per Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics. The findings indicate that editorial writers predominantly employed modal verbs of prediction such as 'will' and 'would' when discussing the pandemic, and generic phrases were frequently used to express an objective, explicit orientation of modality. The fact that predictive modals are utilized in editorials implies that the main aim of the writers is to forecast upcoming occurrences. Additionally, the study found that the editors from both newspapers showed an equal interest in finding solutions to the pandemic by using obligatory modals such as 'should' and 'must'. It was found that the editors employed various linguistic techniques, including modality, in their editorials with the aim of impacting and molding the way readers view the pandemic. Keywords: modality, authorial presence, modal expressions, modal verbs.

A comparative study on the perceptions of Dutch and British Muslim leadership regarding social-political challenges

PurposeThis paper aims to analyze and compare attitudes and perceptions of Muslim leadership toward society and politics based on their personal experiences in England and the Netherlands.Design/methodology/approachThis study provides valuable insights into how Muslim leadership experiences socio-political realities from own perspectives. The comparative analysis of Muslim leadership in England and the Netherlands highlights the unique qualities of each community, while also demonstrating shared communal awareness regarding political participation and concerns regarding the rise of Islamophobia and populism.FindingsThe study reveals significant differences between Dutch and British Muslim leadership regarding attitudes toward politics. While the Dutch political system enables minorities to have political parties, British leaders prefer peaceful resistance, internal cooperation and voting power for influence. Muslim communities in both countries face similar challenges, such as access to politics, rising Islamophobia and populism. However, there are variations in leadership maturity and attitudes toward communal unification and political participation.Research limitations/implicationsEspecially Dutch Muslims were much more open toward cooperation once approached. The biggest challenge was to get into the Muslim communities in England. Even though British Muslims showed a much greater aptitude toward their civic duties, British Muslims were much more careful and wished that interviews were written down instead of being recorded. But once the author was part of the community, community leaders were more accepting and tolerant towards the author's presence. From that point on, to be recommended (snowballing) became easier.Practical implicationsThis research shows clearly how different ethnic Muslim communities differ across two different countries. Even though both countries have their own advantages and disadvantages, understanding how civic responsibilities and the progressive development of minority attitudes can be best approached is important to policymakers.Social implicationsOne major social implication is the way minorities perceive social and political equality and how these minority expectations can be met. Research shows that there is much fear and anxiety to growing sentiments of populism and right-wing appraisals. For a better integration and inclusion, a sound assessment of social and religious expectations is crucial.Originality/valueAs far as the author knows, there are no qualitative research studies that compare Muslim minority conditions in the Netherlands and England. This research makes this even more interesting for how to create policy that contributes to a European understanding of Muslim existence in Europe and a common European identity. This is crucial for a more stable and stronger European future.

‘Life among these unknown revolutionaries’: traces of Lucy Hutchinson’s Memoirs in the Spanish and Italian historiography of the English revolution

ABSTRACT Translations of Lucy Hutchinson’s Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson seem to be limited to the French, thanks to the translation included in volumes X and XI of François Guizot’s Collection des mémoires relatifs à la révolution d’Angleterre (1827). The ‘pictures of life’ that she depicted and her eye for registering the significance of the English Revolution were known to predecessors and contemporaries of Guizot, from Villemain to Macaulay, Taine and Thierry, whose essays were widely translated. This article examines the traces of Lucy Hutchinson’s authorial presence in the Spanish and Italian historiography of the English Revolution. However scarce, mediated by the French, and subject to diverse political agendas and gender biases, I will argue that these accounts represent Lucy Hutchinson as an apt historian who captures the nuances of microhistory in one of the most convoluted episodes in European revolutionary past.

Introduction: "House Rules"—Reading with Authorial Instructions

Introduction:"House Rules"—Reading with Authorial Instructions Tatyana Gershkovich (bio) "The novels we know best have an architecture," writes Zadie Smith in an essay on reading (43). "Not only a door going in and another leading out, but rooms, hallways, stairs, little gardens front and back, trapdoors, hidden passageways, etcetera. It's a fortunate rereader who knows half a dozen novels this way in their lifetime" (42). Despite having their "own ideas of the floor plan," however, Smith reminds readers that they are only tenants, not landlords, let alone architects. Readers fashion a "wonderful way of living in" a novel, but they must still abide by "the house rules […] the author's peculiar terms" (Smith 43, 57). This was not always Smith's view; she describes her way of reading as evolving over time. Like many modern readers, Smith has tried to navigate two contradictory impulses. The first is to embrace linguistic skepticism and to accept—even to revel in—the multiple meanings it is possible to find in texts when they are unmoored from an authorial anchor. The second is to grieve that loss of a shared textual center and to search for ways to restore it. For Smith, the first impulse is personified by Roland Barthes, the second by Vladimir Nabokov. As a college student she thrilled to Barthes' brash disregard for the supposedly dubious project of pinning down the meaning of a text. Barthes declared that the "unity of the text is not in its origin, but its destination"—not in the writer, but in the reader (Barthes 129). And Smith relished her readerly prerogative to "inscribe dusty old novels into [her] own interests and [End Page 111] concerns" (Smith 51). In hindsight, though, she realizes that reading this way made her "feel lonely," for it meant abandoning one's faith in writing "as an intentional, directional act, an expression of an individual consciousness" (57, 44). This faith is something she feels the need to retain. Barthes's suspicion of the text—of its monopoly on its own meaning—was intended to enrich our reading. But it took something away, too: it robbed us of the pleasurable sense that in reading we come to know the mind of another person. Perhaps it stands to reason that as Smith became a writer herself, she turned from Barthes to Nabokov. Few authors have felt as keenly as Nabokov the pathos of our shattered faith in the communicative function of language; fewer still have tried so hard to restore that faith for readers. Charles Kinbote, the mad commentator of Nabokov's Pale Fire, wonders with horror: "What if we awake one day, all of us, and find ourselves utterly unable to read?" (289). In a way, that is just what happens to him: he loses faith in a writer's capacity to make himself known to a reader. But Nabokov himself never loses that faith, nor does he relegate his readers to a world without it. By haunting his texts, never letting the reader forget his presence, he insists on the communicative capacity of literature—and on his ownership rights to the meaning of his work. He is always reminding us (as Smith puts it) that "the only perfect tenant of the house that Nabokov built is Nabokov" (Smith 53). Barthes pronounced the death of the author, but "Nabokov refused to lie down and die" (46). Many readers experience his authorial presence as overbearing, even tyrannical. But Smith delights in it, in trying to replicate Nabokov's way of dwelling in his works. Though the modern reader knows she can never truly grasp the mind of the author, Nabokov's fictions convince her that if she reads according to his rules, she can approximate this knowledge "by degrees" (48). Nabokov's authorial instructions enable Smith to "make a connection with a consciousness other than my own" (57). Of course, not all authors are intent on dictating the rules of the house. Some are long-absent proprietors, happy to give us the run of the place. Others are tyrants and despots, meddlers and micromanagers, who like Kinbote's landlord have "taken stupendous pains to write out on slips of paper recommendations...

Authorial Presence in Academic Book Reviews: A Thai-English Comparison

Authorial presence indicates the existence of authors in a text. It also suggests the authoritativeness of writers as they demonstrate their opinions. Closely similar terms are authorial voice or authorial identity and others. This paper defines the concept of authorial presence in relation to one of the marginalised disciplinary discourse – an academic book review. The author in the text here is, therefore, the reviewer. Based on a bilingual multidisciplinary corpus of contemporary academic book reviews in five fields of study, a qualitative text analysis with the use of computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software is carried out to elucidate exponents of authorial presence in the texts and to compare the Thai and English reviews in different disciplines. The findings reveal various exponents of authorial presence, which are categorised into overt and covert entities with various sub-categories, e.g. the first-person point of view, the third-person point of view, self-citation, inclusive we, pro-dropping, and the review. Quantified data also indicate striking differences concerning not only linguistic and/or cultural issues but also disciplinary ones. It is expected that this study can contribute to the understanding of authorial presence, which is significant for readers’ comprehension of the text, including the position of the author that is portrayed in it. Keywords: authorial presence; academic book review; disciplinary discourse; interpersonal issues; cultural differences

Review: The Print Collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo. II: Architecture, Topography and Military Maps

Review: <i>The Print Collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo. II: Architecture, Topography and Military Maps</i>