Abstract
For decades the study of voice has been the privileged domain of literary criticism. The question of understanding ‘who speaks’ (Genette, 1980) in the complex workings of narrative fiction, amidst myriads of characters, narrators, implied authors, etc., undoubtedly poses serious problems for the reader. It may, for this reason, seem paradoxical that such a concern should be central to academic writing, which distinguishes itself epistemologically from narrative fiction precisely for its need to present new knowledge as credible or true. But taken in another sense, I would affirm that the rhetoric of downplaying the interpersonal while foregrounding complex contents, characteristic of academic discourse, makes the need to interrogate voice all the more pressing in written academic texts.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Aczel, R. (1998) ‘Hearing voices in narrative texts’, New Literary History, 29 (3), 467–95.
Bakhtin, M. (1981) The dialogic imagination, Holquist, M. (ed.) (Austin: University of Texas Press).
Becher, T. (1989) Academic tribes and territories: intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines (Milton Keynes: SHRE/Open University Press).
Bhatia V. K. (2004) Worlds of written discourse: a genre-based view (New York: Continuum).
Biber, D. (2006) University language: a corpus-based study of spoken and written registers (Amsterdam: John Benjamins).
Bondi M. (1999) English across genres: language variation in the discourse of economics (Modena: Il Fiorino).
Bondi, M. (2007) ‘Authority and expert voices in the discourse of history’ in Fløttum, K. (ed.) Language and discipline perspectives on academic discourse (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing), pp. 66–88.
Bondi, M. and M. Silver (2004) ‘Textual voices across disciplinary study of attribution in academic discourse’ in Anderson, L. and J. Bamford (eds) Evaluation in oral and written academic discourse (Rome: Officina), pp. 117–36.
Bruner, J. (1986) Actual minds, possible worlds (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).
Charles, M. (2003) ‘This mystery: a corpus-based study of the use of nouns to construct stance in theses from two contrasting disciplines’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2 (4), 313–26.
Conrad, S. (2001) ‘Variation among disciplinary texts: a comparison of textbooks and journal articles in biology and history’ in Conrad, S. and D. Biber (eds) Variations in English: multi-dimensional studies (Harlow: Longman), pp. 94–107.
Declerck, R. and Susan Reed (2001) Conditionals. A comprehensive empirical analysis (Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter).
Fløttum, K. (ed.) (2007) Language and discipline perspectives on academic discourse (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing).
Fløttum, K., D. Trine and K. Torodd (2006) Academic voices (Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins).
Genette, G. (1980) Narrative discourse: an essay in method (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).
Hunston, S. (2000) ‘Evaluation and the planes of discourse: status and value in persuasive texts’ in Hunston, S. and G. Thompson (eds) Evaluation in text. Authorial stance and the construction of discourse (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 176–207.
Hyland, K. (2000) Disciplinary discourses: social interactions in academic writing (Harlow: Longman).
Hyland, K. (2004) ‘Engagement and disciplinarity: the other side of evaluation’ in Del Lungo Camiciotti, G. and E. Tognini Bonelli (eds) Academic discourse: new insights into evaluation (Bern: Peter Lang), pp. 13–30.
Hyland, K. (2005) Metadiscourse. Exploring interaction in writing (London and New York: Continuum).
Hyland, K. (2007) ‘Different strokes for different folks: disciplinary variation in academic writing’ in Fløttum, K. (ed.) Language and discipline perspectives on academic discourse (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing), pp. 89–108.
Hyland K. and M. Bondi (eds) (2006) Academic discourse across disciplines (Bern: Peter Lang).
Ivanič, R. and D. Camps (2001) ‘I am how I sound. Voice as self-representation in L2 writing’, Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 3–33.
McGuire, M. (1990) ‘The rhetoric of narrative: a hermeneutic, critical theory’ in Britton B. K. and A. D. Pellegrini (eds) Narrative thought and narrative language (Hillsdale: Erlbaum), pp. 219–36.
Matsuda, P. and C. Tardy (2007) ‘Voice in academic writing: the rhetorical construction of author identity in blind manuscript review’, English for Specific Purposes, 26, 235–49.
Polkinghorne, D. (1995) ‘Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis’ in Hatch, J. A. and R. Wisniewski (eds) Life history and narrative (London: Routledge), pp. 5–23.
Silver, M. (2003) ‘The stance of stance: a critical look at ways stance is expressed and modeled in academic discourse’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2, 359–74.
Silver, M. (2006) Language across disciplines: towards a critical reading of contemporary academic discourse (Boca Raton: Brown Walker Press).
Silver, M. and M. Bondi (2004) ‘Weaving voices: a study of article openings in historical discourse’ in Del Lungo Camiciotti, G. and E. Tognini Bonelli (eds) Academic discourse: new insights into evaluation (Bern: Peter Lang).
Sinclair, J. (1988) ‘Mirror for a text’. Journal of English and Foreign Languages, 1, 15–44.
Stern, L. (2002) ‘Voices of critical discourse’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 60 (4), 313–23.
Stubbs, M. (1996) Text and corpus analysis (Oxford: Blackwell).
Swales, J. (2004) Research genres: explorations and applications (New York: Cambridge University Press).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2012 Marc Silver
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Silver, M. (2012). Voice and Stance across Disciplines in Academic Discourse. In: Hyland, K., Guinda, C.S. (eds) Stance and Voice in Written Academic Genres. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137030825_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137030825_13
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-33788-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-03082-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Language & Linguistics CollectionEducation (R0)