Text-internal variation in the use of linking adverbials in the English-medium research article

Abstract

Linking adverbials (LAs) facilitate the logical flow of ideas, particularly in academic writing, where they are more common than in other registers. This study employs Liu’s (2008) taxonomy of LAs to explore text-internal variation in their frequency and distribution by semantic category across the rhetorical sections of the English-medium research article (RA). Using a section-coded corpus of 200 empirical RAs published in high-impact journals in public health, data are presented to reveal that: (i) textual cohesion in the sections is largely constructed through a small set of LAs; (ii) yet, the sections differ significantly in LAs’ frequency and preferred semantic categories, with Methods differing the most from the other sections; (iii) the contribution of LAs to the construction of textual cohesion is greatest in Discussions and least in Methods; (iv) the sections share many high-frequency LAs, which however fulfil the sections’ distinct communicative purposes to varying degrees.