Assessment category in academic writing: a interdisciplinary analysis

Abstract

The interaction between the author and the reader is one of the crucial aspects of academic discourse realized mainly with the use of metadiscourse resources. The purpose of this article is to compare the types of frequencies of attitude markers as metadiscourse devices used in research articles by Russian writers representing engineering and legal sciences. The analysis showed that engineering writers mainly expressed attitudes to their research and its results, while legal writers predominantly evaluated the subject area explored in their study. In order to express attitude, the authors used a whole range of lexical items represented by adjectives, nouns, adverbs, and verbs. The study found that while engineering writers preferred adjectives and nouns, lawyers exploited the evaluative potential of adjectives and adverbs. The analysis of similarities and differences in the use of attitude markers in the research articles in the two fields of knowledge presented in the article can be used in teaching academic writing. The results can also serve as a guideline for novice writers making their first attempts to produce academic texts in compliance with the disciplinary-specific norms of academic writing.