Reporting In Literature Reviews Of English Dissertations

This dissertation is an attempt to study the linguistic phenomenon of reporting in Literature Reviews of English dissertations, especially that in English dissertations by doctoral candidates. It will propose a framework for the analysis of reporting based on a close examination of Literature Reviews in dissertations by native English speakers. In the framework, reporting verbs, their tenses and voices, reporting clauses and metadiscourse are regarded as important means to represent perspectives. Therefore, the current study introduces terms like perspectival that-clause, perspectival metadiscourse to refer to the natural joint of perspective with reporting in Literature Reviews. In this dissertation, perspectival that-clauses include IT + Passive +That–Clause, IT + Adj. + That-Clause, IT + N. + That-Clause, and Reporting V. +That-Clause. They function to allow the writer to make the attitudinal meaning the starting point of the message and the perspective from which the content of the that-clause is interpreted. Perspectival metadiscourse in this dissertation refers to clauses introduced by as (e.g. as stated above, as illustrated by Philip in Fig. 3.1, as we know), personal pronouns I and we and the linguistic structures like I think and I believe. They are known as endophoric markers, person markers and attitude markers respectively. These markers are chosen for study because their role is indispensable in realizing writer perspectives in reporting in Literature Reviews.This dissertation argues that the way that the writer chooses to construct his Literature Review by quoting what people have done in the subject under investigation, citing past researchers, reporting his own research and expressing his ideas obviously results from a variety of social backgrounds and psychological factors. Therefore, writers in sciences and humanities have different academic conventions and ways in which they portray their perspectives through the linguistic phenomenon of reporting. Accordingly, Literature Reviews show some disciplinary variations between disciplines in sciences and those in humanities both in linguistic devices used inreporting and the ways perspectives are portrayed through reporting. In this light, the study carried out in this dissertation is both theoretically and practically oriented. Theoretically, under the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics, it probes into the semantic relationship between reporting and discourse where perspectives are realized through reporting, and as a result, establishes the hypothesis that perspective exists at different levels of reporting language, from reporting verbs to reporting clauses and discourse. Practically, it focuses on three aspects, namely the generic features of Literature Reviews, the relationship between the generic structures of Literature Reviews and perspectives, and perspectives realized by various reporting devices in Literature Reviews. More specifically, because the generic structure of Literature Reviews is the foundation which all the linguistic analyses of the current study are based on, this dissertation begins with the analysis of the actual structure of Literature Reviews and finds a 4-element structure which comprises the four elements of a Literature Review: making topic generalization(s), reviewing and summarizing previous research, indicating research gaps, and announcing present research. Each of the four elements realizes its own functions by the use of different lexicogrammatical forms. The current study shows three general types of perspectives in Literature Reviews. The first type is the perspective realized by the writer when he makes general comments on previous research. The second type is the perspective taken by the writer when he makes detailed evaluation of previous research, and the third type is the perspective adopted by the writer when he indicates research gaps or announces present research. There is a close relationship between the four elements and the three perspectives. The first type of perspective runs through all the elements. It is sometimes closely linked to the second type which basically occurs in Elements 2 and 3. These two perspectives then interfere with the third perspective in Elements 3 and 4. Perspectives may be realized by numerous reporting verbs that suggest particular standpoints. Making a choice from these options often implies a perspectival choice. The use of reporting verbs, combined with their tenses and voices in the LiteratureReviews helps the writer to achieve his goal, namely the acceptance of his review by the academic community. Perspectives may also be expressed by reporting clauses. The main verb in the matrix clause is often judged fully responsible for the kind of perspectival that-clause which follows it. From the semantic and syntactic point of view, the analysis presented in this dissertation recognizes not only the importance of the semantics of the main verb but also the properties of the situation the sentence encodes. From the cognitive point of view, variations in the syntactic form of the perspectival that-clauses are treated as the reflection of variations in the construal of the that-clause scene. From the functional point of view, they are explicit ways to express the evaluation, attitude, opinion, subjectivity, and point of view of the writer towards the reported proposition, and provide the writer with more options and more space for discussion than the use of just a single verb. The present study holds that perspectival metadiscourse is one way of expressing the writer's comments as well as the writer's perspectives. It is a specialized form of discourse carrying the expressive and referential functions without which the reader would be unable to contextualize a text and the writer unable to gain acceptance for his work. In reporting in Literature Reviews, writer-perspectival metadiscourse is a central functional feature: the means by which the writer shows his comments, portrays his genre awareness of how to represent himself and his research, and expresses different perspectives. The current study not only serves to describe the ideational function of reporting in Literature Reviews, that is, how reporting works in Literature Reviews to construct a particular experience of the world, but also involves the interpersonal function of reporting, that is, how the writer labels, categorizes and shows relationships between reporting and perspective in Literature Reviews by selecting his reporting devices to engage with others and to present his ideas in ways that make most sense to his readers. Thus, the current study sees reporting in Literature Reviews in dissertations by doctoral candidates as an interactional, as well as functional, project.