A Pragma-dialectical Investigation Into The Pragmatic Argumentation In Research Article Introductions

Research articles(RAs)as a genre are not only presentations of research findings and academic views,but also social speech acts that the authors are highly involved in Though in the form of monologues,research articles are essentially social interactive communication between the authors and the readers.In order to convince the potential audience of the acceptability of their studies,the authors justify their academic positions by putting forward well-designed argumentation,and refuting the claims made by others after fully taking into account the possible doubts or objections that may exist among the readers.This characteristic offers us a good reason to study research articles from an argumentative perspective,which has not received enough attention.Among various parts of the academic paper,research article introduction(RAI),plays a vital role in the fate of the whole article,which requires authors to show their articles’persuasiveness effectively in justifying the significance and necessity of their research It is noticeable that in the introductory parts,the authors always resort to an argumentative pattern based on pragmatic argumentation to achieve an opportune argumentative goal.In using pragmatic argumentation,the authors sum up the favorable consequences of accepting their studiesIn view of this,within the research framework of Pragma-Dialectics,this study aims to reveal how pragmatic argumentation is prototypically used in RAIs.To be specific,this research tries to figure out three questions:(1)What are the institutional preconditions for RAIs?How could they constrain the use of pragmatic argumentation in RAIs?(2)What types and variants of pragmatic argumentation are prototypically used in RAIs under the constraint of the particular institutional preconditions?(3)How do the authors maneuver strategically by using pragmatic argumentation in their argumentative writings to convince their audience?As shown in the research results,firstly,RAIs can be viewed as a communicative activity type taking place in the academic domain.The institutional point of this particular activity type is to provide all the potential audience with valid and sufficient information about certain scholarly topic and to promote the academic acceptance of the paper in the academic community.In realizing these institutional points,the institutional preconditions concerning the content,the structure,as well as the academic regulations of writing and publishing RAIs are determined.These institutional preconditions define the room left for strategic maneuvering by pragmatic argumentation.Secondly,the prototypical pragmatic argumentation defending a standpoint that "my research should be carried out" can be generalized as:research X should be carried,because doing research X will lead to positive result Y,and if doing research[of type X]leads to a positive result[of type Y],that research[X]should be carried out.In actual application,there are two main extensions of the basic argument scheme,which are "the problem" type and the "consequence" type.The "problem" type defends the necessity of the current study by explicating the research gap to be filled,the serious problems to be solved and the counterclaim to be supported.The"consequence" type justifies the importance as well as the practical value of the research to support the specific research.Thirdly,when using the pragmatic argumentation,the authors always maneuver strategically to maintain the reasonableness and effectiveness in the RAIs.Specifically,the authors are prone to redefining the difference of opinion when narrowing the broad concept to a detailed topic,to emphasizing the desirable consequence in a direct way when adapting to the audience demand,and to exploiting attitude markers and arranging different types of pragmatic argumentation in different generic moves to present their argumentationTheoretically,this study surpasses the traditional research paradigm of research articles and provides a new argumentative perspective for the research on academic discourse.At the same time,it expands the scope of the institutional contexts research in pragma-dialectical theory and enriches the understanding of pragmatic argumentation in academic writing.At the practical level,by analyzing a typically used argumentative pattern,this thesis intends to provide feasible guidance for academic writers,especially for the writing of introductions in pursuit of the balance between reasonableness and effectiveness.