Interacting with the Reader: Politeness in Engineering Research Article Discussions

• Main Authors: Luz Gil-Salom, Carmen Soler-Monreal
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad de Murcia 2009-12-01
• Series: International Journal of English Studies (IJES)
• Subjects: academic writing; research article; discussion section; interaction; face threatening act; politeness
• Online Access: http://revistas.um.es/ijes/article/view/99581

The writer&amp;rsquo;s strategy to combine the exposition of factual information with personal judgement and interaction with the reader has been analysed in a number of studies (Hunston, 1994; Hyland, 1998a, 1998b; Latour and Woolgar, 1979; Skelton, 1997). Myers&amp;rsquo; studies (1989, 1992) on the pragmatics of politeness in scientific articles analyse politeness strategies in regularities of scientific style that are usually explained in terms of conventions. In the context of scientific communication, the researcher performs two basic tasks: presenting a claim and contradicting former theories or beliefs. Both actions could be interpreted as impolite behaviours and constitute what Brown and Levinson (1987) call face threatening acts (FTAs). In this study we explore the presence of face-redressive politeness strategies in the discussion sections of engineering research articles. The data are drawn from a corpus of 46 discussion sections in the fields of computing, telecommunications, nanotechnology and robotics.<br>La estrategia del escritor de combinar la exposici&amp;oacute;n de informaci&amp;oacute;n factual a la vez que expresa sus opiniones personales y mantiene la interacci&amp;oacute;n con el lector ya ha sido objeto de an&amp;aacute;lisis (Hunston, 1994; Hyland, 1998a, 1998b; Latour y Woolgar, 1979; Skelton, 1997). Los estudios de Myers (1989, 1992), enfocados a la pragm&amp;aacute;tica de la cortes&amp;iacute;a en art&amp;iacute;culos cient&amp;iacute;ficos, analizan las estrategias de cortes&amp;iacute;a presentes en las regularidades del discurso cient&amp;iacute;fico, que tienden a ser consideradas como convenciones del g&amp;eacute;nero. En el contexto de la comunicaci&amp;oacute;n cient&amp;iacute;fica, el investigador realiza dos tareas b&amp;aacute;sicas: presentar una hip&amp;oacute;tesis o afirmaci&amp;oacute;n cient&amp;iacute;fica y contradecir teor&amp;iacute;as u opiniones asumidas por la comunidad cient&amp;iacute;fica. Ambas acciones son susceptibles de ser consideradas descorteses y constituyen lo que Brown y Levinson (1987) denominan &amp;lsquo;actos de amenaza de la imagen p&amp;uacute;blica&amp;rsquo; (face threatening acts en su denominaci&amp;oacute;n inglesa). En este estudio se describen las estrategias de cortes&amp;iacute;a destinadas a preservar la imagen en las secciones de discusi&amp;oacute;n de 46 art&amp;iacute;culos cient&amp;iacute;ficos pertenecientes a los campos de la inform&amp;aacute;tica, las telecomunicaciones, la nanotecnolog&amp;iacute;a y la rob&amp;oacute;tica.