Corpus—based Study of First Person Pronouns in Research Articles

【Abstract】Research articles have long been employed as the most common method of disseminating research findings. With the progress of internationalization， an increasingly number of Chinese postgraduates and doctoral students now tend to write English research articles to present their research achievements to the international academic community. This paper investigated the use of first person pronouns in research articles written by native English scholars and compared the similarities and differences in the use of first person pronouns between natural science and social science academic writing. Through corpus-based analysis， the author hopes to find out some features and functions of the use of first person pronouns in English research articles， and to offer Chinese novice researchers some valuable reference to their English academic writing.

【Key words】first person pronouns； academic writing； collocation； discourse functions

1. Introduction

Research articles have long been characterized by the use of nominalizations and passive sentences. However， recent studies （Clark， 1992； Ivanic， 1998； Ivanic & Simpson， 1992； Lillis， 1997） suggest a growing trend of the use of first person pronouns in research articles. According to Hyland （2001）， the use of first person pronouns becomes an important rhetorical strategy that realizes the authorial presence in the academic writing. Therefore， significance lies in the study of the use of first person pronouns in English academic writing.

This paper focused on the use of first person pronouns in 200 research articles written by native English scholars. Features of the use of first person pronouns in these research articles were analyzed， and similarities and differences in the use of first person pronouns between natural science and social science academic writing were discussed； the discourse functions of the first person pronouns in research articles were summarized. In this study， the author hopes to find out some features and functions of the use of first person pronouns in English research articles.

2. Literature review

According to Halliday （1994）， personal pronouns are one of the devices used to create cohesion in English； pronouns， together with demonstratives and comparatives， give reference points for the reader or hearer to understand a speech event. （Halliday， 309-312） In his book An Introduction to Functional Grammar， Halliday generalized the functions of language as three “metafunctions”： the ideational， the interpersonal and the textual functions， and he further defined that first person pronouns， which reflect the interpersonal meaning， refer to the speakers or writers who play a dominant role in the interaction of speech event.

With the use of first person pronouns in research articles， scholars began to study the function of first person pronouns in academic writing. Among those studies， many have got valuable findings. Kuo （1999） suggests that the presence or non-presence of first person pronouns in research articles reveals the authors perception of their own role in scientific research process and of the relations with the readers and with their discourse community they belong to. Hyland （2002） points out that the first person pronoun is a powerful means by which writers express an identity by asserting their claim to speak as an authority. Harwood （2005） notes that first person pronouns play a critical role in emphasizing the authors contribution to their research. Pilar Mur Duenas （2007） states that establishing a positive self-representation can be seen as a key aspect of a persuasion in written academic discourse.

Unlike the traditional notion of academic writing as impersonal， the current academic writing may make use of first person pronouns as an effective strategy to realize academic writing purpose.

3. Research method

The methodology implemented in this paper is a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis. Wordsmith 5.0 was used to carry out the concordance， collocations analysis and frequency statistics； SPSS 18.0 was used for judging whether significant differences in the use of first person pronouns exist between natural science and social science research articles.

A corpus of 200 English research articles was built up. Articles were collected from influential foreign academic journals in the past two years. In order to compare natural science and social science research articles， the corpus was divided into two sub-corpora： natural science sub-corpus and social science sub-corpus. To make it relatively objective， the disciplines included in the corpus were chosen at random. For the natural science sub-corpus （NS Sub-corpus）， there are Chemistry， Material Science， Environmental Science and Technology， Mechanical Engineering， and Geoscience； for the social science sub-corpus （SS Sub-corpus）， there are Sociology， Politics， Management， History， and Pedagogy. Each discipline consists of 20 research articles. The basic statistics and arrangement of ERA corpus is shown in Table 1：

In this study， the use of first person pronouns in each sub-corpus was analyzed， and the interdisciplinary comparison was made. According to various collocations， the discourse functions of first person pronouns in English research articles were also summarized.

4. Results and discussion

4.1 Results of first person pronouns in ERA corpus

By using Concordance in Wordsmith 5.0， a search of the words “I”， “we”， “my”， “our”， “me” and “us” in the ERA corpus was carried out. Occurrences and frequency of each of those words related to self-mention were counted and calculated. The result can be shown in Table 2：

From Table 2， we can see that first person pronouns are used in English research articles. The occurrence frequency of first person pronouns in ERA corpus is about 50.78 per 10，000 words. Specifically speaking， the occurrence frequency of first person subject pronouns is the highest which accounts for 68.35%； next comes the occurrence frequency of first person possessive pronouns which accounts for 25.09%； the use of the first person object pronouns is the lowest whose frequency is only 3.33. Because some of the collected articles were written by one author while others were done by more than one author， a further comparison between the use of first person singular forms and plural forms was not made.

4.2 Comparison of the use of first person pronouns across disciplines

4.2.1 Results of first person pronouns in each sub-corpus

The statistics shows that the frequency of use of the word “we” is the highest； then the possessive pronoun “our” comes second. The occurrences of the first person plural forms “we” and “our” occupy the large majority of the total occurrences of the first person pronouns with its proportion as 93.43%. As a whole， the occurrences of first person subject pronouns account for about 70.25%； the occurrences of first person possessive pronouns account for about 26.57%； and the occurrences of first person object pronouns account for only 3.18%. The data can be seen in Table 3：

Meanwhile， the use of first person pronouns in social science research articles was also examined. Form Table 4， it can be seen that the occurrence frequency of first person subject pronouns is the highest which accounts for 67.87%； the occurrences of first person possessive pronouns comes next with its proportion of 24.69%； the use frequency of first person object pronouns is the lowest with its occurrences of about 5.12 per 10，000 words. Besides， the occurrences of first person plural forms “we” and “our” together occupy 71.37% of the total occurrences of the first person pronouns while the use of first person singular forms “I” and “my” takes about 21.19%. The statistics data obtained from social science sub-corpus can be shown in Table 4：

4.2.2 Comparison between NS and SS sub-corpus and further discussions

From the above data in NS and SS sub-corpus， it can be seen that for both natural science and social science academic writing， the most common use form of first person pronouns is the first person subject pronoun； and the lowest use frequency of the word form is the first person object pronoun. This may reflect the tendency of native English scholars to use subject pronoun rather than other forms in academic writing， regardless of the differences in disciplines.

As for the differences in the use of first person pronouns， the frequency of first person pronouns in SS sub-corpus is 68.82 while in NS sub-corpus it is only 25.53. Specifically speaking， in NS sub-corpus， the occurrences of “we” and “our” account for 93.43% of the total occurrences of the first person pronouns， while in SS sub-corpus， the proportion is 71.37%. This imply that compared with social science scholars， natural science scholars are more willing to use first person plural forms to emphasize their team work than to use first person singular forms while presenting personal research findings.

In order to further examine whether significant differences lie in the use of first person pronouns between natural science and social science research articles， Chi-square tests were performed with the help of statistic software SPSS 18.0. The result can be shown in Table 5：

The results of Chi-square test （p = .000 < 0.01） indicate that significant differences exist in the use of first person pronouns between natural science and social science research articles. Compared with natural science academic writing， social science academic writing tends to use first person pronouns more frequently. This may imply that social science academic writing highlight authors opinions or conduct in a research while natural science academic writing emphasize more on the data and objective results.

4.3 Analysis of the discourse function of the first person pronouns

Halliday （2000） points out that to a large extent our choices in language are functionally motivated. Therefore， considering the highest frequency of occurrence， this paper takes the first person subject pronoun “we” as a case study. Collocations of the word “we” in the ERA corpus were examined and the discourse functions of “we” were summarized.

By using Collocates in Wordsmith 5.0， a list of the right collocations of the word “we” was made. Some high co-occurrence frequency words of valuable reference were selected and categorized for various rhetorical functions. The result are as follows：

1） Highlighting researchers efforts and research methodology

Through the observation of the right collocations of the word “we”， it can be found that many of the high frequency words are verbs showing what researchers have done in the whole research process. By using “we” as self-mention， the researcher described their efforts. As a result， “we” and those verbs may work together as an emphasis on the research methodology and authors efforts and contribution to the research. The frequency of those words is given in Table 6.1.1：

Also， related examples were found through Concordance in Wordsmith 5.0， the result is shown in Table 6.1.2：

2） Emphasizing personal opinions and research findings

Research findings are the most important part of a study or research. In academic writing， authors sometimes use first person pronouns in the result and discussion part of a research article. This may imply that authors intend to emphasize his personal or teams special opinion or achievement and their contribution to natural or social science. The statistics result of related collocations can be seen in Table 6.2.1 and some examples are given in Table 6.2.2.

3） Shortening the distance from readers and guiding readers

Sometimes authors use the first person pronouns to tell readers what will be studied or discussed in the article and how it will be stated. In this way authors hope to get closer to their readers； and by using words like “first” and “next”， they want to make their statement in a logic way， which will help to make their research more acceptable and easier to understand by their readers. Examples can be seen in the ERA corpus. Some of the related collocation words and sentences are presented in Table 6.3.1 and Table 6.3.2 below：

4） Stressing personal or groups research value and motivation

In research articles authors use words like “expect”， “hope”， “aim” and “want” after the use of first person pronouns to express their research motivations. This can be a quite direct way to point out their research purposes and to highlight the expected research value. This can be seen as a strategy to impress readers what authors want to emphasize. The related collocations were found in the ERA corpus. The frequency of those words and illustrative sentences are given in Table 6.4.1 and Table 6.4.2 as follows：

From the data analysis and summary above， it can be seen that the use of first person pronouns in research articles may realize various writing purposes， which may be a valuable reference to academic writing.

5. Conclusion

In this paper， a corpus-based contrastive study of the use of first person pronouns in research articles across disciplines was carried out. Result shows that first person pronouns are used in English research article. Specifically speaking， first person subject pronouns are the most common use forms while first person object pronouns are the lowest use forms. Furthermore， significant differences exist in the use of first person pronouns between natural science and social science research articles. Social science academic writing use first person pronouns more frequently to highlight authors opinions or conduct in researches； while natural science academic writing tends to emphasize more on data and objective results. Meanwhile， the use of first person pronouns in academic writing may help realizing various writing purposes： 1） highlighting researchers efforts and research methodology； 2） emphasizing personal opinions and research findings； 3） shortening the distance from readers and guiding readers； 4） stressing personal or groups research value and motivation.

The random choice of disciplines， the ignorance of the number of authors in a research and the incomplete summary of the discourse functions of the use of first person pronouns in research articles are potential deficiencies in this paper. Therefore， more valid samples and more specific category of the samples are needed for further analysis.

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作者简介：王琛（1989-），女，回族，硕士，助教，研究方向：英汉互译、语料库语言学。