Authorial Development in Research Writing: Coding Changes in Grammatical Subject

Authors

  • Ann Montemayor-Borsinger

Keywords:

Research article writing, authorial development, discourse functions of grammatical subject, multifunctional nominal groups

Abstract

This work presents a new taxonomy for coding changes in grammatical subjects in research writing, and applies it to study papers written over time by ten different scientists. For each scientist a first and two later publications have been selected, with a maximum time span between the first and the last article of sixteen years. The linguistic analysis of the texts is based upon a new classification of grammatical subject, which identifies a set of four main functions: Participant, Discourse, Conventional and Instantial Subject functions. The distinction between Conventional and Instantial Subjects is particularly relevant for the study of authorial development. Conventional Subjects are readily available wordings that are part of the terminology of a given research field, whereas Instantial ones are multifunctional nominal groups especially composed to fit a given stretch of discourse. Results indicate a correlation between a higher frequency of use of Instantial elements and writer expertise, showing that as writers gain experience, they become increasingly capable of manipulating language to reflect the complexity of their research activities.