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Part of
Intercultural Perspectives on Research Writing
Edited by Pilar Mur-Dueñas and Jolanta Šinkūnienė
[AILA Applied Linguistics Series 18] 2018
► pp. 83–103

Chapter 4
“This dissonance”

Bolstering credibility in academic abstracts

| Paris Diderot University 7

Writing a convincing abstract requires the ability to demonstrate credibility through an adequate selection of keywords. A case in point is the selection of shell nouns determined by this. Based on a comparable interdisciplinary corpus of 400 PhD abstracts written in English by writers in an Anglophone and a Francophone context, the role of shell nouns determined by this is studied to (1) assess their impact on textual cohesion (2) evaluate the connection between the selected terms and the discipline’s epistemological values as perceived by newcomers (3) consider the influence of the writer’s linguistic origin on the handling of this device. This study aims to contribute to the assessment of the parameters which might undermine writers’ credibility in their scientific community.

Keywords: academic writing, EAP, labeling nouns determined by this, anaphors, abstracts, intercultural analysis, French, English
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background issues on labeling nouns and the uses of this as an anaphoric determiner in academic discourse
    • 2.1Labeling nouns also known as general, signalling, shell, or metadiscursive nouns
    • 2.2This as a determiner
  • 3.Corpus and methodology
    • 3.1A comparable corpus of PhD abstracts written in English by writers in a French and an English context
    • 3.2Approach and method for corpus study
    • 3.3Approach and method for case studies
  • 4.Results and discussion of the corpus-based study
    • 4.1Definition and distribution of a functional typology of this as a determiner
    • 4.2Definition and distribution of a semantic typology of encapsulating this + LN
  • 5.Back to the text: Gains and losses
    • 5.1Case study 1: Building an effective argumentative flow
    • 5.2Case study 2: Failing to inscribe the research project in the disciplinary field
    • 5.3Case study 3: Assessing the rhetorical impact of interpretive encapsulating this
    • 5.4Gains and losses
  • 6.Final discussion and conclusion
    • 6.1Final discussion
    • 6.2Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aals.18.04bor
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Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Murillo, Silvia
2018. Chapter 11. Not the same, but how different?. In Intercultural Perspectives on Research Writing [AILA Applied Linguistics Series, 18], ► pp. 237 ff. DOI logo
Varga, Mirna
2019. Intercultural Perspectives on Research Writing, Pilar Mur-Dueñas, Jolanta Šinkūnienė, eds. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia (2018). Kalbotyra 72 ► pp. 107 ff. DOI logo

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