Stance in article highlights: The promotion of Covid‐19 research

• Published in: International journal of applied linguistics Vol. 34; no. 2; pp. 466 - 483
• Main Authors: Zou, Hang (Joanna), Hyland, Ken
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-05-2024
• Subjects: Academic discourse; Anxiety; biomedical publishing; Biomedical research; Covid research; COVID-19; Deaths; highlights; promotion; stance; 研究亮点、立场、新冠疫情研究、推广、生物医学发表
• ISSN: 0802-6106; 1473-4192
• DOI: 10.1111/ijal.12502

Covid‐19 was the greatest public health crisis of a century, accounting for millions of deaths and initiating an urgent surge of published biomedical research. In this climate of social anxiety, researchers scrambled to publicize their work and achieve a medical breakthrough. The use of journal highlights, a brief bullet pointed list summarising the novel results of a study, is an important tool in this promotional endeavour. In this study we focus on the stance taken by authors in this genre by examining 300 highlights dealing with the virus and comparing them with 300 from articles in the same 16 journals on other issues. Our results show significantly greater use of stance markers in the Covid highlights with hedges, boosters and self‐mention particularly marked. Our study offers both a description of stance in highlights and an understanding of the potential impact of the intense, high‐stakes competition generated by the pandemic in biomedical publishing. We believe this offers a valuable contribution to the literature on stance, academic discourse and rhetorical persuasion.
摘要
新冠疫情是自上世纪以来最为严重的全球公共卫生危机之一, 导致数百万人生命不幸逝去。研究人员全力投入相关的研究工作, 生物医学领域的研究论文数量急剧增加, 以为抗击疫情提供科学依据。期刊论文的研究亮点 (Highlights) 部分被用来概括和总结文章的创新之处或重要结论, 具有学术推介的作用。本研究基于收集的来自生物医学领域的16本学术期刊中300篇新冠疫情研究亮点和非疫情类研究亮点, 系统性地探究了作者在这两类研究亮点语篇中, 展示其立场和研究工作的差异性。研究结果揭示了话题、语境、受众等因素对于研究亮点中研究者立场表达的影响:在新冠疫情相关的研究亮点语篇中, 作者更高频地使用了立场表达元话语资源, 例如模糊语、增强语以及自我提及元话语。研究结论对于研究亮点语篇中的立场表达和说服性修辞策略的运用具有实际指导意义, 可帮助研究者在由疫情催生的激烈的学术发表竞争中, 有效地推广自己的研究成果, 获得学术认可。