The Discourse of Science in Mathematics: Appraisal across the Research Article

GRACIELA LUCERO ARRUA

Mendoza

Congreso; 41° Congreso Internacional de Lingüística Sistémico-Funcional - X Congreso Latinoamericano de Lingüística Sistémico-Funcional; 2014

Universidad Nacional de Cuyo

The study of Research Articles (RAs) has raised considerable interest, particularly in relation to the description of their rhetorical structure, and in a variety of disciplines. In Mathematics, the language used to construct and appraise findings has also been researched, but much still remains to be explored (O?Halloran, 2011). The aim of this study will be to characterize the discourse of Mathematics in terms of the construction of evaluative meanings in RAs with a view to input directly into pedagogic practice and academic literacy. The data for the study includes five published RAs written in English from the field of Applied Mathematics (Game Theory). The linguistic construction of evaluation will be investigated through the study of the interpersonal meanings of Appraisal (White, 2001; Martin and Rose, 2003; Martin and White, 2005) in the discourse semantics stratum. The method will be primarily qualitative; however, a simple quantification method will be used in order to identify interpersonal resources in terms of type and frequency, appraised entity, and the stage where they tend to occur. Preliminary results suggest that the practice of professional mathematicians is inextricably interpersonal, mainly in the construction of their identity as authors and members of their community, and in the value attached to the mathematical content described in the text. The resulting map of Appraisal resources may provide non-native English researchers with awareness of the linguistic choices that will help them use their writing to achieve their purposes, and a practical instrument to help translators and editors in their work.