5.5　Summary

This chapter presents an investigation of how various types of CMs are distributed in three disciplines for construing authorial stance.Before the analysis,it is hypothesized that less CMs will be found in N since EAPs in N are usually thought to be features with less direct authorial intrusion.The final results prove the validity of the hypothesis.To round off this investigation,this part summarizes the distribution of the three types of CMs in N,S,and H.Figure 5.3 below draws a general tendency of the distribution of CMs in the three disciplines.

Figure 5.3　Comparison of CMs in three disciplines

As the above figure suggests,H takes the largest proportion in the use of CMFEs and CMCEs.Comparatively,N takes the smallest proportion in the use of the two types of CMs.

Apart from the general illustration of the overall features of CMs in the three disciplines,there are two similarities among N,S and H in using CMs.First,N makes the fewest use of CMs and their sub-categories but H makes the most uses of CMs in construing authorial stance.Second,compared with CMCEs,CMFEs account for a larger proportion of the total number of the CMs.Apart from these two commonalities,there are some conspicuous exceptions in the distribution of specific types of CMs or their sub-categories.As to the polysemous and,additive and is the most frequently used while adversative and is the least favored type in all the three disciplines.

It is argued in the current research that in each disciplinary community,the authors and readers should obey various conventions and practices.The quantitative analysis present that the authors in different disciplines have different inclinations in using CMs,and therefore show different tendencies in construing authorial stance.The influencing factors of these differences are research methodologies,contents of the papers,the author’s roles,types of knowledge and writing demands,etc.

The least frequently used CMs in N show that the authors show the least obvious inclination to explicitly align their readers and persuade them to trust their results and achievements.In the author-reader interaction,the writers in N mainly employ quantitative methodology,downplay their personal role and distance themselves from the contents with succinct writing style.Therefore,the readers will depend more on the factuality of the research to understand the author’s ideas rather than on the explicit signals such as CMs.Comparatively,the CMs in S and H are used more frequently,indicating that the authors in S and H tend to align their readers by either fulfilling or countering their expectations.The authors in these two disciplines incline to write their personal viewpoints,highlight their roles in form of argument with detailed interpretation.Thus,the author-reader interaction is much more vigorously in S and H and consequently CMs,as a kind of typical interpersonal markers,are more frequently and diversely used.

【注释】

[1]Seen from Figure 5.3,social sciences such as education stand in the middle between the two extremes at the two ends.They partly adopt the methods and analyzing perspectives in sciences but actually pay more attention to interpretation and argument.