Claiming centrality as promotion in applied linguistics research article introductions

Abstract

This study explores how promotion is realized in applied linguistics (AL) research article introductions (RAIs). We focus on one promotional strategy, claiming centrality, and examine what appeals and linguistic devices applied linguists (ALs) employ and how they deploy them in RAIs to achieve positive evaluation of the significance of the topic or the research area. Fifty-one RAIs from three top-tier journals in AL were selected for a corpus-based study. Qualitative analyses of the texts revealed four major types of appeals, that is, appeals to salience, magnitude, topicality, and problematicity of the topic in either the research world or the real world, which ALs made in varied ways. Linguistic devices realizing these appeals were also analyzed with the tool of appraisal. Quantitative analyses further unveiled ALs' frequent use of appeals, their reliance on indirect over direct approaches to promotion, and their preferred patterns in appeal deployment. The pervasion of promotional elements is interpreted as indicative of academic marketization and as discipline-specific, and the indirect way of promotion is viewed as indicating a compromise between the need for promotion and the need to maintain objectivity.