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Journal
of Pragmatlcs
17 (1992) 295-313
295
North-Holland
‘In this paper we report . . .’ : Speech acts and scientific facts
Greg Myers
Received June 1991, rewed version November 1991
Correspondence to G Myers, Dept of Lmgmstlcs Lancaster, Lancaster LA1 4YT, UK 0378-2166/92/$05 00 Q 1992 and Modern Enghsh Language, Umverslty of
Elsevler Science Pubhshers
In a collectlon of fifty related articles m molecular genettcs, most had one mtroductory selfreferential sentence that had (1) a first person pronoun, (2) a present tense verb, (3) most often report, (4) with a nommal complement, and (5) an adverbial referrmg delctlcally to the present or the paper Itself A typlcal sentence of this type IS ‘In this paper we report thefinding of a novel mechamsm of RNA processmg’ These sentences mark each article’s mam knowledge claim, the dssertlon that the authors do not attrlbute to anyone else and for which they hope to be cited Though they are not performatlve utterances (the sentence Just quoted does not Itself report the novel mechamsm) they share some features of exphcltly marked assertive speech acts, and raise some of the same Issues concermng the form and status of assertlons of fact Different choices of verb and tense make for different assertlons and different kmds of knowledge In the texts studled, these self-referential mtroductory statements can be recognized m contrast to the other declarative sentences before or after them by the shifts In SubJects, verbs, tenses, or the use of delctlc expresslons A comparison to claims In another discourse, that of hngmstlcs, suggests how pragmatic analysis of texts may contribute to an understandmg of social acts m the productlon of sclentlfic knowledge
wenku.baidu.com
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296
G Myers / Speech acts and sclent@
facts
how each part of this stereotypical form relates to the mstltutlon of the scientific article These are particularly important sentences they state the article’s mam knowledge claim, the assertion for which the authors hope to be cited - and credited - m future articles In performing such an act they dre like the stereotypical sentences m patent claims The stereotypical form of such sentences leads to these five questIons 1 What about these particular features accounts for their use to make a claim? 2 What IS the effect of the use of other verbs, other tenses, other complements? 3 How are these sentences recognized m contmuous discourse? 4 What 1s the relation between the sentence marked this way and other possible claims? 5 Do different dlsclphnes use different forms? I will draw my examples from a selection of fifty related articles m molecular genetics (see Myers 1990a), and compare them to similar sentences m other contexts I am assuming that these sentences beginning ‘In this article we report’ are recognizably different from all the others m a sclentlfic article, that is, from the sentences that state knowledge taken from earlier articles, or that detail steps of an experiment, or that suggest future work, or that thank sponsors and collaborators Readers must be able to pick these sentences out easily, and must Interpret them as mdlcatlons of potential facts The reader must be able to locate the shift from the part of the mtroductlon that relates the earlier work on which the report IS based, the accepted facts, from the summary of the claim m this particular article, the potential fact (see Swales 1990, Bazerman 1988) But if we are to see how these sentences establish facts. we cannot learn much Just from the isolated sentences, we need to see them m the context of the sequence of the discourse, and of relation of the writers to their readers within the scientific discourse community The claim must also be made m a way that 1s polite m relation to other researchers (Myers 1989, 1991), so we can use the framework of Brown and Levmson (1978, 1987) as a guide to the relations of writer and reader How do issues of politeness arise? In this collection of articles, as m almost any collection dealing with rapidly developmg scientific fields, there are are several instances of what was later consldered simultaneous discovery The authors of these papers had to do two things make interpretations that seem to follow definitely from observations of external facts, while retaining a tentativeness of statement that acknowledges that the community must evaluate the claim and attribute any discovery If I know, say, that five other groups have found split genes m eukaryotes, and
By ‘something like this’, I mean that the sentence has some (but maybe not all) of the following features (1) a first person pronoun sublect, (2) a verb of saying, what Austin (1962) classified as an ‘exposltlve’, (3) m the present tense, (4) with a nominal complement, (5) and with an adverbial referrmg to the paper itself, or to here or now Though such sentences are by no means universal m any scientific dlsaphne, they are common enough to make us ask
When one reads the opemngs of sclentlfic articles m many fields, one often comes to a sentence somethIng like this (1) In this paper we report the finding of a novel mechanism processmg (Alom et al 1977) of RNA
of Pragmatlcs
17 (1992) 295-313
295
North-Holland
‘In this paper we report . . .’ : Speech acts and scientific facts
Greg Myers
Received June 1991, rewed version November 1991
Correspondence to G Myers, Dept of Lmgmstlcs Lancaster, Lancaster LA1 4YT, UK 0378-2166/92/$05 00 Q 1992 and Modern Enghsh Language, Umverslty of
Elsevler Science Pubhshers
In a collectlon of fifty related articles m molecular genettcs, most had one mtroductory selfreferential sentence that had (1) a first person pronoun, (2) a present tense verb, (3) most often report, (4) with a nommal complement, and (5) an adverbial referrmg delctlcally to the present or the paper Itself A typlcal sentence of this type IS ‘In this paper we report thefinding of a novel mechamsm of RNA processmg’ These sentences mark each article’s mam knowledge claim, the dssertlon that the authors do not attrlbute to anyone else and for which they hope to be cited Though they are not performatlve utterances (the sentence Just quoted does not Itself report the novel mechamsm) they share some features of exphcltly marked assertive speech acts, and raise some of the same Issues concermng the form and status of assertlons of fact Different choices of verb and tense make for different assertlons and different kmds of knowledge In the texts studled, these self-referential mtroductory statements can be recognized m contrast to the other declarative sentences before or after them by the shifts In SubJects, verbs, tenses, or the use of delctlc expresslons A comparison to claims In another discourse, that of hngmstlcs, suggests how pragmatic analysis of texts may contribute to an understandmg of social acts m the productlon of sclentlfic knowledge
wenku.baidu.com
All rights
reserved
296
G Myers / Speech acts and sclent@
facts
how each part of this stereotypical form relates to the mstltutlon of the scientific article These are particularly important sentences they state the article’s mam knowledge claim, the assertion for which the authors hope to be cited - and credited - m future articles In performing such an act they dre like the stereotypical sentences m patent claims The stereotypical form of such sentences leads to these five questIons 1 What about these particular features accounts for their use to make a claim? 2 What IS the effect of the use of other verbs, other tenses, other complements? 3 How are these sentences recognized m contmuous discourse? 4 What 1s the relation between the sentence marked this way and other possible claims? 5 Do different dlsclphnes use different forms? I will draw my examples from a selection of fifty related articles m molecular genetics (see Myers 1990a), and compare them to similar sentences m other contexts I am assuming that these sentences beginning ‘In this article we report’ are recognizably different from all the others m a sclentlfic article, that is, from the sentences that state knowledge taken from earlier articles, or that detail steps of an experiment, or that suggest future work, or that thank sponsors and collaborators Readers must be able to pick these sentences out easily, and must Interpret them as mdlcatlons of potential facts The reader must be able to locate the shift from the part of the mtroductlon that relates the earlier work on which the report IS based, the accepted facts, from the summary of the claim m this particular article, the potential fact (see Swales 1990, Bazerman 1988) But if we are to see how these sentences establish facts. we cannot learn much Just from the isolated sentences, we need to see them m the context of the sequence of the discourse, and of relation of the writers to their readers within the scientific discourse community The claim must also be made m a way that 1s polite m relation to other researchers (Myers 1989, 1991), so we can use the framework of Brown and Levmson (1978, 1987) as a guide to the relations of writer and reader How do issues of politeness arise? In this collection of articles, as m almost any collection dealing with rapidly developmg scientific fields, there are are several instances of what was later consldered simultaneous discovery The authors of these papers had to do two things make interpretations that seem to follow definitely from observations of external facts, while retaining a tentativeness of statement that acknowledges that the community must evaluate the claim and attribute any discovery If I know, say, that five other groups have found split genes m eukaryotes, and
By ‘something like this’, I mean that the sentence has some (but maybe not all) of the following features (1) a first person pronoun sublect, (2) a verb of saying, what Austin (1962) classified as an ‘exposltlve’, (3) m the present tense, (4) with a nominal complement, (5) and with an adverbial referrmg to the paper itself, or to here or now Though such sentences are by no means universal m any scientific dlsaphne, they are common enough to make us ask
When one reads the opemngs of sclentlfic articles m many fields, one often comes to a sentence somethIng like this (1) In this paper we report the finding of a novel mechanism processmg (Alom et al 1977) of RNA