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In:Corpora, Grammar and Discourse: In honour of Susan Hunston
Edited by Nicholas Groom, Maggie Charles and Suganthi John
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 73] 2015
► pp. 161–182

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Chapter 7. Probably most important of all

Importance markers in academic and popular history articles

ORCiD logo with link | University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
Published online: 30 October 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.73.08bon
Evaluations of importance are central to the nature of academic discourse, with its need to establish and share disciplinary knowledge. This study shows how importance markers help guide the reader in recognising coherence relations, while reflecting the value system of the community. Using corpora of journal and popular articles in history, the analysis examines nouns and adjectives of importance, adverbials and framing statements. By constituting identification and cohesive structures that thematise evaluation and increase writer visibility, importance markers contribute greatly to knowledge construction in research articles, while in knowledge dissemination they are less frequent and oriented towards generalising.
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