In:Constructing Collectivity: 'We' across languages and contexts
Edited by Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 239] 2014
► pp. 287–308
Bulgarian ‘we’ and audience involvement in academic writing
Published online: 27 February 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.239.19vas
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.239.19vas
The present paper examines the functions of the audience-involving pronoun ‘we’ in Bulgarian academic writing, more specifically in reviews of linguistics books. The analysis is based on a modified version of speech-act theory combined with discourse production strategies. A comparison is also made with the use and functions of the academic ‘we’ in the genre of the research article. Special attention is paid to the various linguistic means of expressing reference to the first person plural which are available in Bulgarian as a pro-drop language. The conclusions deal with some issues of review authors’ motivation for writing (or not writing) reviews, as well as with the academic standards concerning the choice of evaluation – positive or negative.
References (50)
. 1973. “Speech acts.” In
Readings for Applied Linguistics
, J.P.B. Allen and Pit S. Corder(eds), The Edinburgh Course in Applied Linguistics, vol.1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bakhtin, Mihail. 1986. “The problem of speech genres and the problem of the text in linguistics, philology and the human sciences: An experiment in philosophical analysis.” In
Speech Genres and Other Late Essays
(trans.V. McGee), Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist(eds), 250–317. Austin: University of Texas Press.
de Beaugrande, Robert and Dressler, Wolfgang.1981.
Introduction to Text Linguistics
. London: Longman.
Bondi, Marina and Silver, Mark S.2004. “Textual voices: A cross-disciplinary study of attribution in academic discourse.” In
Evaluation in Spoken and Written Academic Discourse
, Laurie Anderson and Julie Bamford(eds), 121–141. Roma: Officiana.
Bondi, Marina. 2009. “Polyphony in academic discourse: A cross-cultural perspective on historical discourse.” In
Cross-linguistic and Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Academic Discourse
, Eija Suomela-Salmi and Fred Dervin(eds), 83–108. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Cappelen, Herman. 2011. “Against Assertion.” In
Assertion
, Jessica Brown and Herman Cappelen(eds), 21–48. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Dahl, Trine. 2009. “Author identity in economics and linguistics abstracts.” In
Cross-linguistic and Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Academic Discourse
, Eija Suomela-Salmi and Fred Dervin(eds), 123–134. Amstedam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Diani, Guiliana. 2009. “Exploring the polyphonic dimension of academic book review articles in the discourse of linguistics.” In
Cross-linguistic and Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Academic Discourse
, Eija Suomela-Salmi and Fred Dervin(eds), 135–150. Amstedam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Van Dijk, Teun and Walter Kintsch. 1983.
Strategies of Discourse Comprehension
. London: Academic Press.
Eßer, Ruth.1997.
Kulturelle Geprägtheit Wissenschaftlicher Textproduktion und ihre Konsequenzen für den Universitären Unterricht von Deutsch als Fremdsprache
. München: iudicium Verlag.
Ferrara, Alesandro. 1985. “Pragmatics.” In
Handbook of Discourse Analysis, vol.2, Dimensions of Discourse
, Teun van Dijk(ed.), 137–158. London: Academic Press.
Fröhlich, Gerhard.2003. “Kontrolle durch Konkurrenz und Kritik? Das ‘wissenschaftliche Feld’ bei Pierre Bourdieu.” In
Pierre Bourdieus Theorie des Sozialen
, Boike Rehbein, Gernot Saalmann and Hermann Schwengel(eds), 117–129. Konstanz: UVK.
Fløttum, Kjersti, Kinn, Torodd and Dahl, Trine.2006.
Academic Voices: Across Languages and Disciplines
. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Gea-valor, Maria-Lluisa. 2010. “The emergence of the author’s voice in book reviewing: A contrastive study of academic vs. non-academic discourse.” In
Constructing Interpersonality: Multiple Perspectives on Written Academic Genres
, Rosa Lores-Sanz, Pilar Mur-Duenas and Enrique Lafuente-Millan(eds), 117–135. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Graefen, Gabriele. 1997.
Der Wissenschaftliche Artikel – Textart und Textorganisation
. Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang.
Hyland, Ken. 2004.
Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing
. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press.
Hyland, Ken and Diani, Giuliana.2009.
Academic Evaluation: Review Genres in University Settings
. Palgrave Macmillan.
Korhonen, Riitta and Kusch, Martin.1989. “The rhetorical function of the first person in philo-sophical texts – the influence of intellectual style, paradigm and language.” In
Text. Interpretation. Argumentation
, Martin Kusch and Hartmut Schröder(eds), 61–76. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.
Kretzenbacher, Heinz. 1995. “Wie durchsichtig ist die Sprache der Wissenschaften?” In
Linguistik der Wissenschaftssprache
, Heinz Kretzenbacher, Harald Weinrich(eds), 15–39. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Loffler-Laurian, Anne-Marie. 1980. “L’expression du locuteur dans les discours scientifiques.”
Revue de Linguistique Romane
44: 135–157.
Lores-Sanz, Rosa, Mur-Duenas, Pilar and Lafuente-Millan, Enrique(eds). 2010.
Constructing Interpersonality: Multiple Perspectives on Written Academic Genres
. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Myers, Greg. 1989. “The pragmatics of politeness in scientific articles.”
Applied Linguistics
10: 1–35.
Nicolova, Ruselina. 2008.
????????? ?????????: ??????????
. [Bulgarian grammar: morphology.] Sofia: University of Sofia Press.
Pavlidou, Theodossia-Soula. this volume. “Contructing collectivity with ‘we’: An introduction.” In
Constructing Collectivity: ‘We’ across Languages and Contexts
, Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou(ed.). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Poppi, Franca. 2009. “How stable is the construction of an author’s professional identity? Variations in five editions of P. A. Samuelson’s Economics.” In
Commonality and Individuality in Academic Discourse
, Maurizio Gotti(ed.), 215–232. Bern: Peter Lang.
Sanz, Rosa L.2009. “(Non-) Critical voices in the reviewing of history discourse: A cross-cultural study of evaluation.” In
Academic Evaluation: Review Genres in University Settings
, Ken Hyland and Giuliana Diani(eds), 143–160. Palgrave Macmillan.
Searle, John. 1969.
Speech Acts: An Essay the Philosophy of Language
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Spillner, Bernd. 1989. “Stilelemente im fachsprachlichen Diskurs.” In
Technische Sprache und Technolekte in der Romania
, Wolfgang Dahmen, Günter Holtus, Johannes Kramer and Michael Metzeltin(eds), 2–19. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
Stanchev, Svilen. 2007. “Pragmatics, word order and cross-reference: Some issues with pronominal clitics in Bulgarian.” In
Functional Perspectives on Grammar and Discourse
, Christopher S. Butler, Raquel Hidalgo Downing and Julia David(eds), 233–256. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Swales, John M., Ahmad, Ummul K., Chang, Yu-Ying, Chavez, Daniel, Dressen, Dacia F. and Seymour, Ruth.1998. “Consider this: The role of imperatives in scholarly writing.”
Applied Linguistics
19(1): 97–121.
Vassileva, Irena. 1998. “Who am I/who are we in academic writing?”
International Journal of Applied Linguistics
8(2): 163–190.
. 2000.
Who is the Author? (A Contrastive Analysis of Authorial Presence in English, German, French, Russian and Bulgarian Academic Discourse)
. Sankt Augustin: Asgard Verlag.
. 2002. “Speaker-audience interaction: The Case of Bulgarians Presenting in English.” In
The Language of Conferencing
, Eija Ventola, Celia Shalom and Susan Thompson(eds), 255–276. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
. 2010. “Critical book reviews in German.”
International Journal of Applied Linguistics
20(3): 354–367.
Ventola, Eija. 1998. “Meaningful choices in academic communities: Ideological issues.” In
Making Meaningful Choices in English
, Rainer Schulze(ed.), 277–294. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
Weinrich, Harald. 1989. “Formen der Wissenschaftssprache.” In
Jahrbuch 1988 der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin
, 119–158.
Cited by (1)
Cited by one other publication
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
