Journal of English for Academic Purposes 3 (2004) 163182

www.elsevier.com/locate/jeap

Attitude, certainty and allusions to common

knowledge in scientic research articles
Dimitra Koutsantoni 
Language Research Centre, University of Luton, The Spires, 2, Adelaide Street, Luton,
Bedfordshire, LU1 5DU, UK

Abstract
Acceptance of claims made in scientic research articles depends on the stance authors
take and their resources for appraisal (Martin and White, http://www.grammatics.com/
appraisal). Stance has been dened as the ways authors project themselves into their texts to
communicate their relationship to subject matter and the readers, (Writing Texts, Processes
and Practices (1999)), while appraisal represents the ways authors evaluations, attitude and
emotions are expressed and managed interpersonally (http://www.grammatics.com/
appraisal/AppraisalGuide/Unframed/Appraisal-Overview.htm).
This paper explores some appraisal resources employed by authors of research articles,
and the means by which scientic authors are positioned interpersonally and intertextually.
It looks at resources by which authors express their attitude and certainty to claims, and create solidarity between themselves and their readers. The paper explores three categories of
markers: attitude, certainty, and common knowledge markers, and its main aim is to compile
a taxonomy of the lexical and discourse-based realisations of these markers and their pragmatic functions, as they are manifested in RAs from the eld of electronic and electrical
engineering.
The analysis indicates that employment of these markers by authors assists them in asserting their authority and expertise by presenting claims as given based on shared knowledge
and consensual understandings, exploiting the complex dynamics of power and solidarity in
order to gain readers agreement and community consensus.
# 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Attitude; Certainty; Common knowledge; Power; Solidarity

Tel.: +44-1582-743791.
E-mail address: dimitra.koutsantoni@luton.ac.uk (D. Koutsantoni).

1475-1585/$ - see front matter # 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2003.08.001

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D. Koutsantoni / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 3 (2004) 163182

1. Introduction
The research article occupies a prominent position in research publications, and
is considered the main means employed by the hard sciences for the dissemination
of knowledge, the publicisation of claims, and their ratication. The structure of an
article, its language and style, the authors persona and use of the literature are
mainly determined by the social structure of the scientic community, the process
of negotiation through which the community constructs knowledge, and in eect,
the way a disciplines gatekeepers expect them to be and nd them more persuasive
(Myers, 1990). Acceptance of claims depends on the stance authors take and their
resources for appraisal (Martin, 2000; White, 2002, 2003, http://www.grammatics.
com/appraisal). Stance has been dened as the ways authors project themselves
into their texts to communicate their relationship to subject matter and the readers, and the ways their persona is socially dened (Hyland, 1999a: 101). Hyland
writes that stance has three components: evidentiality, aect, and relation. Evidentiality refers to the writers expressed commitment to the truth of propositions and
their strategic manipulation for interpersonal goals. Aect involves the declaration
of a range of attitudes, including emotions, perspectives and beliefs. Relation concerns the extent to which writers choose to engage with readers, and their degree of
intimacy or remoteness (1999a: 101). Along similar lines, Conrad and Biber (2000)
regard stance as comprising both epistemic (commenting on certainty, reliability,
and limitations of propositions) and attitudinal (conveying attitudes, feelings, or
value judgments) stance, and use the term as cover term for the expression of personal feelings and assessments in both of the above domains. In agreement with
the above, appraisal has been dened as the ways authors evaluations, attitude and
emotions are expressed and managed interpersonally (http://www.grammatics.
com/appraisal/AppraisalGuide/Unframed/Appraisal-Overview.htm). Attitudinal
values can be managed and negotiated interpersonally, and constitute the means by
which writers vary and negotiate arguability by adjusting the dialogic status of
propositions. These negotiations of arguability are referred to in the Appraisal
framework
as
engagement
(http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/stage5Engagement.htm). Authors can engage with alternative positions by acknowledging and entertaining, disclaiming (denying and counter-expecting), and proclaiming (concurring and pronouncing) propositions (White, 2003).
This paper looks at resources by which scientic authors disclaim alternative
positions and proclaim their own (http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/stage5Engagement.htm), by stating their personal attitude and opinion towards propositions, expressing their certainty and conviction to claims, and strengthening their
positions by making explicit allusions to common knowledge. It classies these
resources under three types of marker: attitude, certainty and common knowledge
markers. Such formulations are shown to contract the dialogic space between
authors and readers (http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/stage5-Engagement.
htm), imposing either directly or indirectly opinions and interpretations on readers
while presenting them as given and consensual. The main aim of this paper is to
provide a taxonomy of these markers, drawn from a small corpus of RAs from the

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165

eld of electronic and electrical engineering, and to investigate the ways scientic
authors exploit the complex dynamics of power and solidarity in order to solicit
readers acceptance for claims.
The ndings of this paper are part of a larger PhD study on engineering rhetoric, which analyses both RAs and students writing (Koutsantoni, 2003).

2. Materials and methods

The choice of discipline was instigated by the limited attention electronic and
electrical engineering has received in studies on scientic discourse. Scientic discourse and its conventions have been investigated by a number of researchers
(Bazerman, 1988; Myers, 1989, 1990; Hyland, 1996a, 1996b, 1998a, 1998b, 1999a,
2000, 2001a, 2001b, 2002a, 2002b; Salager-Meyer, 1994; Vartalla, 1998; Kuo, 1999;
Martinez, 2000; Soler, 2002, to name but a few). Electronic and electrical engineering features only in Hyland (1998a, 1999a, 2001a, 2001b, 2002a, 2002b) and in
Kuo (1999), but it has not been investigated exclusively.
The corpus of this paper consists of 34 articles taken from relatively recent issues
of leading electronic and electrical engineering journals, namely The International
Electronic and Electric Engineering (IEEE) Transactions on Communications, Information Theory, Magnetics, Biomedical Engineering, Multimedia, Image Processing,
The IEEE Signal Processing Letters, and The International Journal of Electronics,
dating from 1989 to 2000.1 These particular journals were selected because they
were found to be referenced in students work, and because specialist informants
recommended them as key journals in their eld. Some of the articles that were
analysed were actually referenced in students work, while others were randomly
chosen.2
The methodological approach adopted in this thesis was both qualitative and
quantitative. The quantitative approach served to identify frequency of occurrences
and to produce comparable data, while the qualitative approach was used to identify pragmatic usage. Certain lexical and discourse-based items that indicated attitude, certainty and alluded to common knowledge were identied and counted.
Following that, the functions of all the items were examined qualitatively based on
their actual occurrences in context. My corpus of materials is not electronic, so the
counting of items was conducted manually and particular attention was paid to the
context in which they were used. The frequency of occurrence of each group of
items was calculated in percentages.
1
The IEEE publishes 21 of the top 25 journals in electrical and electronics engineering, according to
recently released results from the annual Institute for Scientic Information Journal Citation Study
(2001 edition) (http://www.ieee.org/products/citations.html). The International Journal of Electronics
publishes papers in experimental and theoretical aspects of electronics, and major universities (such as
the University of Birmingham) are included in its list of subscribers.
2
A complete list of the materials of the analysis is supplied in the Further Reading section at the end
of this article.

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3. Taxonomies of attitude, certainty, and common knowledge markers

The taxonomies of attitude, certainty, and common knowledge markers this
paper presents are based on a combination of attitude markers, certainty markers,
emphatics and boosters taxonomies suggested by researchers, such as Vande Kopple (1985), Crismore et al. (1993) and Hyland (1998a, 1998b, 1999a, 1999b, 2000),
together with some additions and modications informed by the materials of this
study.
Attitude markers have been dened as devices that express writers aective
values, and their attitudes towards the propositional content and/or readers
(Vande Kopple, 1985; Crismore et al., 1993; Hyland, 1998b, 1999a, 1999b).
Emphatics have been dened as devices that allow writers to underscore what they
really believe or want their readers to believe (Vande Kopple, 1985) and as devices
that emphasise force or writers certainty in the message (Hyland, 1998b, 1999a,
1999b). Certainty markers are dened as items that express writers full commitment to the truth-value of the proposition (Crismore et al., 1993), while boosters
are maintained to allow writers to express conviction and assert a proposition with
condence (Hyland, 1998a, 2000).
All the above types of marker present authors views as obvious based on shared
knowledge, and presuppose readers endorsement of these attitudes, conviction,
and certainty on the basis of shared understandings. However, there are certain
words and expressions that exclusively underscore authors beliefs by presenting
them as given, as knowledge shared by all members of the community. I call this
type of marker common knowledge markers, and dierentiate it from the other two
as it explicitly invokes received knowledge and takes certain propositions for granted.
The research on use of what have been referred to as attitude markers, boosters,
certainty markers, and emphatics in scientic writing has not provided us with
detailed taxonomies of linguistic expressions that fall into each of these categories.
Vande Kopple (1985) proposed that emphatics include items such as clearly, undoubtedly, its obvious that, and that attitude markers are expressed by words and
clauses such as surprisingly, I nd it interesting that, and its alarming to note that.
Crismore et al.s (1993) certainty markers taxonomy includes adverbs like certainly, while their attitude markers taxonomy includes expressions of surprise, of
thinking that something is important, of concessions, agreement and disagreement,
higher verbs expressing attitude (I hope, I agree, I disagree) and sentence adverbials (unfortunately, most importantly) (Crismore et al., 1993: 53). Hyland (1998a,
2000) investigated frequency of use of boosters by searching for items that were listed in grammars, dictionaries or earlier studies, as well as from the most frequent
items in the texts themselves. The most frequently occurring devices in his data
include verbs such as show, nd, determine, demonstrate, will, and know, adverbs
such as clearly, and particularly, and expressions such as the fact that (Hyland,
2000: 91). These researchers suggestions were helpful indications of the kind of
items that usually function as attitude, certainty and common knowledge markers,
and formed the starting point of the taxonomy that is presented in this paper. The

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167

taxonomies have, however, been enriched with other items that were identied in
this particular corpus of RAs and were found to dene authors attitudinal and
epistemic stance.
4. Attitude markers
The analysis of this particular corpus of RAs indicated that attitude markers
comprise:
. evaluative adjectives (such as signicant, interesting, important)
. evaluative, intensifying, and attitudinal stance adverbs (such as signicantly, considerably, unfortunately, respectively)
. obligation and necessity expressions and modals (it is necessary, must, should), and
. discourse-based negative evaluations of previous research.
The frequency by which each category occurs in the corpus is shown in Table 1.
Evaluative adjectives are the most frequently occurring linguistic realizations of
attitude markers (60% of all items). They are expressions of authors appreciation,
that is, evaluation of propositions, methods, results, or points (Martin, 2000,
http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/Guide/Unframed/stage3-Attitude-Appreciation.htm). These adjectives are considered to render the text more subjective, as
they add either a positive or negative judgment to the modied noun, and reect
the writers favourable or unfavourable position towards the modied noun
(Soler, 2002: 155):
1. For test pattern generation the ability to propagate fault eects to the primary
outputs is very important and the ExOr gates in this circuit play a crucial role
(Moore, 1998).
2. There are fundamental diculties associated with the design and analysis of such
systems (Williams, Benson & Duy, 1997).
3. The ULTRAHIGH frequency (UHF) band has become increasingly attractive
for medical and biological implant communications (Scanlon, Burns & Evans,
2000).

Table 1
Frequency of lexical and discourse-based expressions of attitude markers
Attitude markers

No of items
Percentages

Adjectives

Adverbs

Obligation expressions and modals

Discourse-based Totals
expressions of
negative evaluation

211
60%

53
15%

62
18%

21
6%

347

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Evaluative adjectives with positive values can emphasise the importance of the
research area and function, therefore, as justications of researchers working in it:
4. The camera tracking module is the most crucial part of virtual studio systems
(Xiroudakis, Drossopoulos & Delopoulos, 2001).
5. The most promising solution to this challenging task seems to lie in data handling techniques (Bassia, Pittas & Nikolaidis, 2001).
6. One of the major advantages of a code-division multiple-access (CDMA) system
is its exibility (Halford & Brandt-Pearce, 1998).
They are additionally employed to stress the originality of the authors work:
7. In this paper a novel methodology for direct mapping on N-dimensional. . . is
presented (Soudris et al., 1998).
8. The evolutionary strategy we adopted is an example. . . (Robertson, Miller &
Thompson, 1996)
9. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the experimental results obtained from
the analysis of BS recorded from controls and patients with gastrointestinal dysfunction show very reliable and robust performance (Hadjileontiadis, Liatsos,
Mavrogiannis, Rokkas & Panas, 2000).
Such adjectives are also employed to positively or negatively evaluate previous
research, methods, algorithms, or models, emphasise authors intertextual positioning, and their endorsement or disendorsement of attributions (http://
www.grammatics.com/appraisal/appraisalGuide/UnFramed/stage4-Intertextuality.htm):
10. Perturbation techniques are widely used to determine unknown dialectic
properties (Donovan et al., 1993). They provide very accurate results when
used with controlled geometries over an appropriate frequency range (Williams, Benson & Duy, 1997).
11. These techniques are often unreliable and limited to special cases (Vassiliadis,
Angelidis & Sergiadis, 1993).
Appreciation can also be expressed with evaluative adverbs, such as successfully:
12. A guard ring structure has been demonstrated successfully by Zhu et al. (1985).
(Irvine & Woods, 1997)
13. We see that the estimator performance improves signicantly as the observation interval length is increased (Hebley & Taylor, 1998).
Expressions of appreciation are intensied and emphasised with intensifying
adverbs, such as highly:
14. Electromagnetical tracking has been widely adopted, since it can be highly

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169

accurate (Xiroudakis, Drossopoulos & Delopoulos, 2001).

15. The estimator is remarkably insensitive to symbol timing osets over a wide
range of osets (Hebley & Taylor, 1998).
The meaning of evaluative adjectives and adverbs acquires signicance within the
understandings of the particular disciplinary community, and depends on the
value-system of the scientic community in which discourse is generated (Soler,
2002). Whether a method is novel, a result accurate, or a structure has been demonstrated successfully, ultimately depends on what the particular disciplinary community considers novel, accurate or successful, in accordance with its standards and
ideals. These adjectives on the one hand express authors appreciation of models,
techniques, or methods, and impose it on readers, since, if a diculty is evaluated
as fundamental or a solution as most promising, readers are guided into seeing them
this way too. However, as it is the community which assigns positive or negative
values to these adjectives (Hunston, 1989), they also allude to shared understandings within the community and emphasise community membership.
Adverbs constitute 15% of all attitude markers. In them are included what Conrad and Biber (2000) refer to as attitudinal stance adverbs that convey feelings or
expectations ((un)fortunately, surprisingly, amazingly). Such adverbs evaluate claims
in aectual terms, which foreground authors subjective presence (http://
www.grammatics.com/appraisal/appraisalGuide/UnFramed/stage1-AttitudeAect.htm). Formulations with such adverbs and adjectives usually engage readers
in disclaiming propositions. By using them, authors invoke alternative propositions
only to deny and replace them, and therefore contract the dialogic space, as they
reject alternative positions and emphasise the one put forth. At the same time,
however, they try to establish an interpersonal bond with readers, asking them to
see their aectual responses as justied and valid in some way (http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/appraisalGuide/UnFramed/stage1-Attitude-Aect.htm):
16. From the available studies related to BS analysis, only two take into account
the necessity of separating bowel sounds from inevitable superimposed noise
and extracting their original structure before any further diagnostic evaluation
(8), (9). Unfortunately, the method used for noise reduction in [8] was based
only on assumptions . . . (Hadjileontiadis, Liatsos, Mavrogiannis, Rokkas &
Panas, 2000)
17. Forest and Mitchell (1993) found the performance of their random mutation
hill-climber (RMHC) vastly superior to both the NAHC and SAHC on a set
of theoretical tness functions (Royal Road) designed to study GA performance. Unfortunately, the RMHC is of no use in practical search spaces due to
its inability to escape local optima (Robertson, Miller & Thompson, 1996).
Other linguistic means used to express authors opinions are obligation and necessity expressions and modals (18% of all attitude markers), which focus attention
and emphasise important points (Hyland, 2001a). Authors pronounce their posi-

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tions towards certain points, make it clear that they consider them important, and
stress how important they believe it is to take certain actions. Authors are foregrounded as the responsible sources of the utterance as they claim the authority to
declare certain actions as necessary and direct readers towards particular directions
(Hyland, 2001a, 2002b):
18. Another fact that should not be neglected is the realisation of self-checking
capabilities within an array (Soudris et al., 1998).
19. It must be noted that the processing of the same uorescent signals with the
implementation of the single algebraic algorithms which are based on the
intensity dierence of the recorded spectra did not have the same rate of success (Rovithakis et al., 2001).
20. The authors claim that the watermark must be placed in perceptually signicant regions of a signal (Bassia, Pittas & Nikolaidis, 2001).
Such devices are classied as directives (Hyland, 2002b) and constitute an explicit
expression of authors desire to control their readers inferences, to lead them
towards actions that they consider to be correct, and to impose their opinion on
readers in this way. However, the implication is that these courses of action are
necessary for accurate understanding of procedures (Hyland, 2001a), for the benet
of the whole scientic community and the progress of the discipline, and stress
therefore the collective nature of scientic endeavour. The interplay of power and
solidarity and the fact that they are manifested with the same linguistic means
become rather clear in such cases. Despite the belief that power precludes solidarity
and that solidarity operates only in the absence of power (Hodge & Kress, 1988), it
has been argued that in reality they entail each other (Tannen, 1986). Tannen has
demonstrated that controlling others involves them in a relationship (power entailing solidarity), the same way that claiming intimacy has an element of control
(solidarity entailing power). By emphasising certainty in and attitude towards
claims, and by presenting them as given and shared, authors control readers inferences and demand their agreement and sharing of their views (power entailing solidarity). On the other hand, by alluding to shared understandings and common
knowledge they oblige readers to see views presented as consensual and to agree
with them (solidarity entailing power). The use of directives in the form of obligation and necessity expressions by scientic authors displays a desire to control
the thoughts, inferences, and actions of their readers, and to demonstrate power,
but with a view to soliciting their agreement and involvement, and, therefore, their
solidarity.
Apart from lexical realisations of attitude markers, discourse-based expressions
can express authors attitude towards propositions. Such discourse-based expressions are expressions that constitute negative evaluations of previous research (6%
of all attitude markers). Negative evaluation can be made both explicitly and
implicitly. Sentences may contain what appraisalists refer to as inscribed values of
negative appreciation or judgment (http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/
Guide/Unframed/stage2-Attitude-Judgment.htm) (for instance, nouns such as

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171

shortcome, disadvantage, or problem) together with other features that evoke negative judgment in the form of limitations and gaps in knowledge:
21. A major shortcome of those techniques is that although they give useful information regarding the mechanical and geometrical features of the vessel they do
not acquire data related to the biochemical composition of the tissue (Rovithakis
et al., 2001).
22. Fault-tolerant array design is generally not supported at all by the existing array
complier systems (. . .). This approach has several disadvantages. It is only applicable to mesh-type architectures. . . (Soudris et al., 1998)
23. Characterisation of this infrared channel has been performed using experimental measurements (1), (2) and simulation through ray-tracing techniques
(3), which both have drawbacks as the primary technique for modelling (Carruthers & Kahn, 1997).
24. Knowledge of bowel sounds (BS) has advanced little since Cannons pioneering
work [1], which used the sounds as a way of studying the mechanical activity
of the gastrointestinal tract. This lack of interest in abdominal auscultation is
due in part to its lack of support in scientic fact and denitely not due to its
lack of diagnostic information. Bowel sounds patterns in normal people have
not been clearly dened as only a small number of them have been studied (2)
(5). The trivial signal processing methods which have been involved (6), (7)
have also been a problem (Hadjileontiadis, Liatsos, Mavrogiannis, Rokkas &
Panas, 2000).
25. Some results in testing exclusive-OR CLA adders are given by Gizopoulos et
al. (1996a,b). However, although Gizopoulos et al. (1996a,b) give a non-minimal 12-test set for a 4-bit exclusive-OR CLA, their haphazard choice of test
vector leads to non-minimum test sets for block CLAs. They suggest modifying
the CLA logic to avoid this increase in test size but this is not necessary, as is
shown later (Moore, 1998).
Negative judgments can also be made implicitly, with absence of items that carry
negative value, but with tokens that evoke negative judgment from readers (http://
www.grammatics.com/appraisal/appraisalGuide/UnFramed/stage2-AttitudeJudgment.htm):
26. Of the previous papers on parallel acquisition none of them have focused on
optimal detection rules for frequency-selective fading channels (Rick & Milstein, 1998).
27. The numerical study of implanted UHF sources within a realistic model of the
human body has not yet appeared in the literature (Scanlon, Burns & Evans,
2000).
Even though the use of none or not yet are general indications of negativity, there
is no explicit accusation of limitations or gaps in previous research in the examples
above. However, the sentences have the ability to evoke negative judgments of lim-

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itations or gap of knowledge to readers who are familiar with the eld. As such,
they allude to shared understandings and communality of opinion.
Negative evaluation of previous research is the expression of overt disagreement
and criticism of previous research using evaluative language with negative values.
By using it authors convey negative judgment of other researchers or negative
appreciation of their models, techniques, results, etc., or disclaim and deny alternative positions. Authors impose their negative evaluation to readers, as deny values
are essentially non-negotiatory with respect to alternative positions (White, 2002).
Disagreement is traditionally seen as disaliative and as largely destructive of
social solidarity (Heritage, 1984: 269), and as an exhibition of power in the sense
that it enforces authors evaluations and opinions on readers. In reality, however,
it can be seen as representing scientists attempt to make readers see their point of
view, bring authors and readers together in criticising previous research only in
order to make clear that they agree that more research is needed in order to rectify
the existing limitations and oversights, which is necessary for the benet of the
whole of the community.
5. Certainty markers
In the RAs analysed, certainty markers were found to comprise:
.
.
.
.
.

certainty adverbs (such as clearly, obviously);

certainty adjectives (such as obvious, apparent, evident);
verbs such as will and be going to; and
demonstrate and show;
discourse-based expressions of condence in results or contributions of research.

The frequency of occurrence of each category is shown in Table 2.

With certainty markers authors emphasise their certainty and conviction to
claims and ideas. Typical ways are adverbs and adjectives that express certainty
and conviction as regards the interpretation of results (30 and 20% of all items, respectively):
28. Clearly, this is a valuable tool and increased condence will help to address
some problems that have otherwise not been tackled (Williams, Benson &
Duy, 1997).
29. It is clear that the overall level of agreement between two sets of results is
excellent (Williams, Benson & Duy, 1997).
30. From this gure it is evident that. . . (Larsen & Frost, 1997)
31. From this table it is apparent that . . . (Rovithakis et al., 2001)
Their use can be motivated by epistemological reasons and be based on the results
and ndings themselves, and combined with social goals in scientic communities,
such as gaining agreement and consensus by appealing to common knowledge and

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173

Table 2
Frequency of lexical and discourse-based expressions of certainty markers
Certainty markers

No of items
Percentages

Adverbs Adjectives

Will/going to Demonstrate/show

Discourse-based
expressions of
condence in
results

Totals

47
30%

21
13%

47
30%

158

31
20%

12
8%

shared understandings. Hyland (1998a, 2000) maintains that expressions of certainty impose views on readers, control readers inferences, do not allow room for
disagreement or negotiations, and regard readers as passive recipients of ideas
unable to make their own evaluations and judgements. However, as Hyland
(1998a) adds, expressions of certainty work towards the acceptance of claims by
addressing readers as knowledgeable peers who are familiar with the ideas presented and able to follow the authors reasoning. By saying that an observation is
clear or obvious authors imply that it is so not only to themselves, but should be to
their readers as well, based on their ability to make the same inferences (Hyland,
1998a). They also make it very dicult for readers to disagree with or oppose the
claim, as readers who do not nd the claim obvious or clear may suspect their own
judgments rather than the authors, and think that they are missing the obvious
(Hoey, 2000: 3334).
Certainty adjectives and adverbs are also used to express values of proclaim:
expect (former term) or proclaim: concur (revised term) in the engagement
framework (White, 2003: 5):
32. Of course this is a particular implementation of the ripple-carry adder cell and
as such is not very interesting to the general testing of CLA adders (Moore,
1998).
33. Obviously, grid nodes that do not possess any discriminatory power should be
discarded (Kotropoulos, Tefas & Pittas, 2000).
Such evaluations can be said to be averrals which are expressed as though deriving
from a source, in this case, implied consensus (Hunston, 2000). As White writes,
such formulations present propositions as uncontentious, as given, being in accord
with what is generally known or accepted (2003: 5). They explicitly invest in the
viewpoint being advanced, and head o contradictions or rule out possible alternatives (White, 2003: 5), while at the same time presenting them as given, as generally held and as consensual (White, 2002).
Other ways of expressing certainty include verbs such as show and demonstrate:
34. The performance of Gas has been shown to be better than that of. . . (Irvine &
Woods, 1997)

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35. We have demonstrated that the statistical phenomenon of self-similarity can be

observed in a deterministic model of data transfer (Deane, Smythe & Jeries,
1996).
36. We will show that a single parameter of the channel impulse response, the normalised delay spread, is an excellent predictor. . . (Carruthers & Kahn, 1997)
. . . and will and going to, which are often combined with show and demonstrate:
37. The work described below will therefore have direct implications for future studies in these systems (Scanlon, Burns & Evans, 2000).
38. Our analysis will clearly show that one has to apply. . . (Hadjileontiadis &
Panas, 1997)
39. It will be demonstrated that the output of the DIPA is a linear function. . .
(Efstathiou & Papadopoulos, 2000)
Expressions of certainty with will, and going to constitute 13% of all certainty markers, while certainty is expressed with demonstrate and show at 8%. The verbs demonstrate and show carry the assumption of an objective fact (Myers, 1992), and
pronounce authors certainty and conviction regarding what the research has
accomplished or can accomplish. Uses of the modal verb will and the verb be going
to pronounce authors certainty in expected outcomes (Hyland, 1998a) and the
implications of the research. Formulations with all the above verbs channel readers
towards seeing that the aims set out are accomplished or will be accomplished, and
underscore what authors want their readers to believe.
Authors also express certainty by discourse-based expressions of condence in
results or contributions of their research (30% of all certainty markers). These may
not contain items from the above categories, but it may be the general tone of the
sentence that expresses this condence, together with positive evaluative nouns
such as advantage, novelty, etc., or verbs such as be able to, ensure, guarantee, or
verify. These discourse-based expressions of condence can be instigated by certainty that derives from hard data and the desire to give certain knowledge and
indicate great commitment to claims. It is argued that with such formulations
authors pronounce their evaluation of results and guide readers towards also evaluating them positively:
40. Although the development in this paper is necessarily complex it does not hide
the clear minimality of the test sets (Moore, 1998).
41. The overall gains are smaller; however, the pilot-signal-based erasure agging
once again proves to be the most accurate method (Welburn & Cavers, 1999).
42. The WTST-NST lter used in this study proved to be a very ecient tool for
noise removal and the enhancement of BS morphology (Hadjileontiadis, Liatsos, Mavrogiannis, Rokkas & Panas, 2000).
43. In this experiment we had 100% success in watermark detection (Bassia, Pittas
& Nikolaidis, 2001).
44. The results veried that the method is inherently robust to this kind of attack

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175

(Bassia, Pittas & Nikolaidis, 2001).

45. One additional advantage of the proposed approach is that features are distinguished without enlarging the key-color region and in a well-dened and accurate manner, in contrast to marker-based approaches (Xiroudakis et al., 2001).
Such expressions also acquire signicance within the discourse and the understandings and value system of this particular discourse community. The elements
of methods, techniques, tools that are referred to as being advantageous are considered to be so depending on the research that has been conducted before, the
gaps in that research, the community expectations of any new research in the eld,
and its needs. Even though such expressions impose evaluations on readers, they
do so by creating a sense of solidarity between authors and readers; the dynamics
of power and solidarity once again at play. This is especially obvious when the
evaluation is implicit and the positive judgment is evoked:
46. We avoid using tricks (e.g. to reduce the resolution of the original image in
order to claim a faster algorithm execution or to report computational time on
more powerful platforms, etc.) (Kotropoulos, Tefas & Pittas, 2000)
47. The probabilistic mutation was implemented in the following way (. . .) No
optimisation of the populations size was attempted, nor did we try to ascertain
the most advantageous probability density function (Robertson, Miller &
Thompson, 1996).
48. A similarity in rst and second heart sound is assumed in both previous schemes
(. . .). In our scheme, the LOREE algorithm searches for true locations of the
two heart sounds, without assuming similarity in the two heart sounds (Hadjileontiadis & Panas, 1997).
In the above examples, readers are expected to positively evaluate authors techniques, methods, tools, or results on the grounds that are not similar to previous
ones. Even though there are no inscribed negative judgment values as regards previous studies nor positive judgment values as regards the present one, readers are
expected to evaluate them negatively as being erroneous or as having limitations
based on shared understandings that enable them to see the positive value of the
techniques, methods, tools, or results presented.
6. Common knowledge markers
Common knowledge markers consist of devices that stress common knowledge
of authors with readers. They were found to include:
. evaluative adjectives, such as well-known or common
. expressions of generalised attribution (van Leeuwen, 1996) such as it is known, it
is widely accepted.
Table 3 displays the frequency of occurrence of each of the two categories:

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D. Koutsantoni / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 3 (2004) 163182

Table 3
Frequency of lexical expression of common knowledge markers
Common knowledge markers

No of items
Percentages

Expressions of generalised attribution

Adjectives

Totals

6
29%

15
71%

21

The function of this type of marker is to stress authors commitment in propositions and to add to the argumentative force by presenting the view as one which is
not theirs alone, but one which is shared with the wider community or with relevant experts (White, 2002). Common knowledge markers also indicate endorsement of sources which are highly respected in the eld and carry the status of
objective facts. At the same time authors emphasise their own status as members of
this scientic community by showing awareness of these sources and by showing
their relevance to their work.
Seventy-one per cent of common knowledge markers are adjectives, such as wellknown, or well-established, which are appreciations of techniques, methods, algorithms and give positive social values to these techniques, methods, or algorithms
based on the value system of this particular discourse community:
48. For that purpose the well-established back-propagation algorithm (38) is utilized (Rovithakis et al., 2001).
49. A well-known BIST technique is the signature analysis (Soudris et al., 1998).
50. The designer of the synthesiser can apply most of the well-known techniques
(prescaling, down conversion) to the feedback line of the loop (Efstathiou &
Papadopoulos, 2000).
Common knowledge markers can also be adjectives such as usual or common,
which convey normality. Such adjectives are used to justify authors methodological choices by indicating that the methodological procedures they use are standard
and used by everyone in the eld. They also indicate that they are familiar to
everyone in the eld, take certain knowledge as given and as shared among authors
and readers, and create an atmosphere of solidarity:
52. When only a nite set of inputoutput vectors is given, a common approach is
to use some of these pairs for training and the rest for testing the eciency of
the network designed (Kotropoulos, Tefas & Pittas, 2000).
53. As usual in such cases, we express the latter integral over the nite interval
from. . . (Jackson, 2000)
Common knowledge markers also consist of expressions of generalised attribution,
such as it is well known, it is true, it is widely accepted, which are used to refer to
points that are considered facts in the community and are self-explanatory (19% of

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177

Table 4
Attitude, certainty and common knowledge markers taxonomies
Attitude markers (express attitude) Certainty markers (express certainty and Common knowledge
conviction)
markers (allude to common knowledge and
shared understandings)
. Evaluative adjectives
. Evaluative, intensifying, and
attitudinal stance adverbs
. Obligations and necessity
expressions and modals
. Discourse-based negative
evaluations of previous research

.
.
.
.
.

Certainty adverbs
Certainty adjectives
Demonstrate/show
Will/be going to
Discourse-based expressions of
condence in results or contributions
of research

. Generalised attribution
. Evaluative adjectives

common knowledge markers). By using them authors make high externality

claims (Pinch, 1985), type 5 claims in Latour and Woolgars (1979) taxonomy of
claims, and refer to taken-for-granted facts that are no longer contested. Authors
use this sort of marker to support their own claims and therefore strengthen them,
by stressing the fact that they are based on knowledge that everyone in the eld is
(or should be) familiar with. Such markers are attributions, the source of information of which is received knowledge, which as Hunston (1993: 62) maintains,
pushes the statement up the certainty scale. They also indicate endorsement of
sources which are highly respected in the eld and carry the status of objective
facts. At the same time, authors emphasise their own status as members of this
scientic community by showing awareness of these sources and by showing their
relevance to their work:
54. It is well known that ripple carry adders are easy to test with a very small number of test vectors (Moore, 1998).
55. It is widely accepted that. . . (Halford & Brandt-Pearce, 1998)
56. It is true that the more dominant the DS component of the system, the better
the performance (Lygouras, Tarhanidis, Tsalides & Dimitriadis, 1998).
The linguistic expressions of emphatics in the papers analysed and their pragmatic
functions are summarised in Tables 4 and 5.
7. Conclusion
This paper has looked at appraisal resources of scientic authors, and has
attempted to compile a taxonomy of their lexical and discourse-based realisations,
as manifested in a small corpus of electronic and electrical engineering research
articles. Three types of marker have been investigated: attitude, certainty and common knowledge markers, which express authors attitudes and opinions, certainty

Common
knowledge
markers

Certainty
markers

Attitude
markers
. Evaluative
adjectives
. Discourse-based

. Evaluative
adjectives/adverbs
. Intensifying adverbs
. Discourse-based
negative evaluation

. Will/going to
. Show/demonstrate
. Discourse-based condence

. Certainty adjectives
. Certainty adverbs

DiscourseObligation
based negative expressions and
evaluation
modals

Proclaim
(pronounce)

. Evaluative adjectives

. Generalised attribution

. Discourse-based condence
in results

Attitude-appreciation (positive social value, normality)

in results

. Discourse-based condence

Attitude-appreciation (positive/ Attitude-judgement (positive/

negative social value)
negative/inscribed/evoked)

Attitudinal
stance adverbs

Disclaim
(deny)

Endorsement of attribution

in results

Proclaim (pronounce)

Attitudinal
stance adverbs

Attitude: aect
Disclaim
(positive/negative) (counter-expect)

Proclaim (concur)

negative evaluation

Attitud: judgement
(positive/negative/
inscribed/evoked)

Attitude: appreciation
(positive/negative
social value)

Table 5
Pragmatic functions of attitude, certainty, and common knowledge markers based on the appraisal framework (http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal
The Appraisal Website, 2003 and White, 2003)

178
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D. Koutsantoni / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 3 (2004) 163182

179

and conviction to propositions, and allude to shared understandings within the

community. It was argued that all the above markers dene authors epistemic and
attitudinal stance towards propositions and engage readers in the construction of
claims.
The use of these linguistic devices is closely linked to the functions of the RA as
a genre, its employment as the mains means for the publicisation and ratication
of claims in the hard sciences and engineering, and its essentially persuasive nature
(Latour & Woolgar, 1979). Epistemological reasons, such as evidence from hard
data and experimental results, and the achievement of social goals in scientic
communities, namely the need for negotiation of knowledge before claims are
accepted and consensus is reached, are the main motivating factors behind their
employment.
It was shown that attitude, certainty and common knowledge markers limit the
room for negotiation of claims by imposing attitudes, interpretations, and assessments of truth-value, and by predisposing readers towards certain inferences. However, they also allude to shared understandings within this community of engineers,
and its shared value system. By exploiting the complex dynamics of power and
solidarity, they prove to be very powerful resources for engineers in their eort to
create research space for themselves, assert their learned authority and expertise,
solicit readers acceptance of claims, and reach consensus.
The taxonomies of attitude, certainty and common knowledge markers presented in this paper are specic to the discourse community of electronic and electrical engineering. As was indicated earlier, engineering discourse is underrepresented in studies of scientic discourse and conventions, which means that the
ndings of this paper could have important pedagogical implications for the teaching of EAP. The RAs analysed in this study constitute successful examples of academic communication since they have achieved publication and have gained
accreditation by gatekeepers. The models of rhetorical behaviour identied in them
could, therefore, be used to devise discipline-specic EAP teaching materials and
strategies for students preparing to enter engineering communities, and familiarise
prospective engineers with the rhetorical behaviour that is considered appropriate
by this disciplinary community.
Since the corpus of this study is rather small, more studies on the linguistic
expression and pragmatic usage of these types of marker in RAs from the eld of
electronic and electrical engineering and other elds could validate the ndings of
this paper, and would be of great use to EAP educators.

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Dimitra Koutsantoni is senior project researcher at the Language Research Centre of the University of
Luton. She holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, which analysed cross-cultural variation in
scientic conventions in English and Greek engineering writing. Her research interests include Discourse
Analysis, Contrastive Rhetoric, Sociolinguistics, and EAP. She has taught EAP at the Universities of
Warwick and Aston.