LINGUIST List 22.4226 Wed Oct 26 2011 Diss: General Ling/Translation/Turkish: Çakır: 'Forms of ...' Editor for this issue: Xiyan Wang <xiyanlinguistlist.org> New! Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:             http://multitree.linguistlist.org/ To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.cfm. Directory         1.     Hamide Çakır , Forms of Constructing Scientific Knowledge and Encoding Writer’s Stance in Turkish and English Research Article Abstracts Message 1: Forms of Constructing Scientific Knowledge and Encoding Writer’s Stance in Turkish and English Research Article Abstracts Date: 25-Oct-2011 From: Hamide Çakır <hamidecyahoo.com> Subject: Forms of Constructing Scientific Knowledge and Encoding Writer’s Stance in Turkish and English Research Article Abstracts E-mail this message to a friend Institution: Dokuz Eylül University Program: General Linguistics Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2011 Author: Hamide Çakır Dissertation Title: Forms of Constructing Scientific Knowledge and Encoding Writer’s Stance in Turkish and English Research Article Abstracts Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics                             Translation Subject Language(s): English (eng)                             Turkish (tur) Dissertation Director: Neslihan Kansu Yetkiner Dissertation Abstract: Scientific discourse bears some unique linguistic features. Nominalization, a meaning making mechanism used in scientific texts, (Halliday, 1994; 1998) has grammatical and semantic functions. By nominalizing a process, we are able to pack a lot of information into a nominal group and semantically, the nominalized process becomes a participant (Banks, 2005). Thus through removal of human agency, objectivity and anonymity are achieved (Stålhammar, 2006). The passive voice and the personification of inanimate subjects (PGM) are other linguistic features in scientific discourse applied to achieve impersonality and objectivity. Personal pronouns on the other hand, enable the academic writer to establish a subjective writer's stance. Based on these assumptions, the present study attempts to analyze lexico-grammatical features in research article abstracts within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), focusing specifically on voice, personal pronouns and grammatical metaphor in the form of nominalization and PGM to examine how Turkish and English academic writers construct scientific knowledge and writer's stance. The corpus consists of 720 abstracts from the disciplines of economics, sociology, psychology, linguistics, engineering, physics, chemistry and biology. Considering variations in scientific languages across cultures and disciplines, this study presents an analysis of journal article abstracts written in Turkish (n=240) and their corresponding translations into English (n=240) as well as abstracts originally written in English (n=240). The study adopts a qualitative and quantitative corpus-based comparative approach. The findings indicate cross-linguistic and cross-disciplinary similarities and differences. Turkish and English original abstracts showed a similar distribution in the use of nominalization; however the parallel texts revealed instances of demetaphorization where implicit information in the original texts was made explicit in translated parallel texts. Differences also emerged in the use of voice and personal pronouns. The results revealed that an objective stance was established in Turkish as well as in English parallel abstracts by frequently referring to agentless passives and personification of inanimate subjects. English original abstracts, however, highlighted the authoritative stance and competition for space in the scientific discourse community with a more frequent use of personal pronouns matched by a high use of active voice. In addition, disciplinary comparisons revealed that abstracts in the soft sciences frequently applied nominalization, active voice and personal pronouns, whereas hard sciences referred more frequently to the passive voice. Consequently, it could be concluded that lexico-grammatical choices constructing scientific knowledge and writer's stance are determined by cultural and disciplinary writing expectations. Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 26-Oct-2011       About LINGUIST    |   Contact Us       While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.