Writer and reader visibility in humanities research articles: Variation across language, regional variety and discipline

This study investigates variation in how research article (RA) writers position themselves vis-à-vis others through explicit references to the writer and audience. Based on a two-million-word corpus of single-author RAs, considers several variables potentially affecting discourse patterns: language (English; Swedish), regional variety (British; US-American English), discipline (History; Linguistics; Literary Studies). While nouns referring writer/reader were marginal second person pronouns highly marked both languages, first pronouns—both ‘I’ ‘we’—were used liberally. Regarding ‘I’, previous work has found that, unlike academic English, many cultures avoid it writing. Swedish, however, like Norwegian (Dahl, 2004), presents rare case outnumbering English uses. ‘We’ orientations equally Swedish as British but less English. Differences thus across varieties, with showing preference for ‘we’ over especially authorial ‘we’. The disciplinary trends strong following order Sanderson (2008), most visibility Linguistics, followed by Studies History last. findings show patterned behaviour all three variables, extensive in-group first-person pronoun use also demonstrates that these are not good markers genre, RA exhibits fluid conventions, allowing varied individual preferences.