Dialogue, Science and Academic Writing

Book excerpt: This book investigates the dialogic nature of research articles from the perspective of discourse analysis, based on theories of dialogicity. It proposes a theoretical and applied framework for the understanding and exploration of scientific dialogicity. Focusing on some dialogic components, among them citations, concession, inclusive we and interrogatives, a combined model of scientific dialogicity is proposed, that reflects the place and role of various linguistic structures against the background of various theoretical approaches to dialogicity. Taking this combined model as a basis, the analysis demonstrates how scientific dialogicity is realized in an actual scientific dispute and how a scientific project is constructed step by step by means of a dialogue with its readers and discourse community. A number of different patterns of scientific dialogicity are offered, characterized by the different levels of the polemic held with the research world and other specific researchers – from the “classic”, moderate and polite dialogicity to a direct and personal confrontation between scientists.