A Study On The Construction Of Writer Identity In Research Articles From The Metadiscourse Perspective

The aim of the research article determines that it does not simply demonstrate the facts to readers.In recent years,more and more research findings show that the writer not only states his opinions and research findings,but also inevitably intrudes into the text to construct appropriate identity by using linguistic resources,promotes his research and persuades readers to believe him and accept his work.As a kind of rhetorical resource,metadiscourse plays an important role in the process of identity construction and realize the rhetorical appeals of discourse.However,the previous studies on the construction of writer identity mainly focused on some explicit linguistic resources,few of them systematically studied other linguistic resources,especially few investigated the rhetorical strategies of the purposes of identity construction in research articles.The present study focuses on the construction of writer identity in research articles,investigates the characteristics of metadiscourse resources in terms of frequency and distribution,explores the approaches and methods of identity construction by presenting metadiscourse resources,and studies the realization of ultimate purpose of identity construction by means of ethos and pathos.In accordance with the theory of metadiscourse and the metadiscourse model of Hyland,in which evidentials,hedge,booster,attitude marker and self-mentions will be identified.The study combines with ethos and pathos of classical rhetorical theory of Aristotle to analyze how these metadiscourse resources help writers construct identity and how writers persuade readers to accept their arguments and research finding by constructing identities.The 60 research articles were collected from Elsevier Science Direct and The Oxford Journal Collection by means of random stratified sampling method.The present study combines quantitative and qualitative method based on the corpus.The research findings demonstrate that writers interact with readers,express their stance,construct identities,and apply metadiscourse resources to construct credibility and authority of themselves.Hedges,boosters,attitude markers and self-mentions show the credibility of the writer;evidentials,boosters,attitude markers and self-mentions construct the authority identity of the writer.The writer keeps an objective attitude in research articles while inevitably constructing identity to persuade readers to accept his arguments and research findings.The writer identity has a close relationship with the realization of ethos and pathos.Writers show readers a competent,trustworthy identity in their writing while taking the readers' attitudes and opinions to the research into consideration,establishing consensus with readers,and enabling readers to believe and accept claims.The present study not only investigates the process of writer identity construction,but also discusses the ultimate purpose of identity construction,and this study has both theoretical and practical significance.The research findings may have some reference significance for the teaching of English for academic purposes and English for specific purposes,the writing and publishing of research articles.