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Article published In: International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Vol. 28:1 (2023) ► pp.91–119

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Question illocutionary force indicating devices in academic writing

A corpus-pragmatic and contrastive approach to identifying and analysing direct and indirect questions in English, French, and Spanish

ORCiD logo with link | Coventry University
Published online: 18 July 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.20065.cur
Abstract
Corpus research on questions as reader engagement markers in academic writing typically focuses on direct questions. Such questions are signalled by question marks and are relatively easily searchable in a corpus. However, indirect questions can be more challenging to identify, as they can be introduced by a range of forms. Based on a contrastive analysis of a corpus of English, French, and Spanish economics research articles, this paper provides pertinent evidence on direct and indirect questions as reader engagement markers. Firstly, it shows that direct and indirect questions as reader engagement markers are a rhetorical and generic feature of academic writing in the economics research article and, secondly, it presents a comprehensive list of indirect question illocutionary force indicating devices, valuable for future studies of indirect questions. Methodologically, this paper illustrates a replicable process for functional analysis and discusses the value of theoretically merging corpus and contrastive linguistic approaches.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Questions as reader engagement markers: Finding direct and indirect questions in function-to-form analyses
    • 2.1Questions as reader engagement markers in English, French, and Spanish academic writing
    • 2.2Function-to-form corpus-based contrastive analysis
  • 3.Data and methodology
    • 3.1Data: KIAP-EEFS
    • 3.2Finding questions in KIAP-EEFS
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1Questions in KIAP-EEFS
    • 4.2Direct and indirect questions in KIAP-EEFS
      • 4.2.1Nouns as indirect question IFIDs in KIAP-EEFS
      • 4.2.2Adjectives as indirect question IFIDs in KIAP-EEFS
      • 4.2.3Verbs as indirect question IFIDs in KIAP-EEFS
  • 5.Questions as reader engagement makers: Discussion of findings
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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