Linking adverbials in Tunisian research articles across two disciplines: A comparative corpus-based study

    Donia Kaffel

     Abstract

Cohesion, as one of the most significant properties that characterize a text (Halliday & Hasan 1976, 4), can be maintained and traced through detecting a variety of cohesive means. The cohesive devices explored in this study are Linking Adverbials (LAs), defined as “important devices for creating textual cohesion” (Biber et al. 1999, 875). LAs are explored in research articles (RAs) written by Tunisian researchers in Linguistics and Computer Sciences. This comparative study investigates the semantic functions and the distribution of LAs in the different sections of RAs. The aim is to examine the choice of LAs as affected by genre features and disciplinary differences, from an SFL perspective. While analysing a corpus of 20 RAs, quantitative methods, maintained through statistical and frequency distribution analysis, are applied and supplemented qualitatively. The study shows that LAs are frequently and differently employed in both disciplines. Results reveal that LAs function not only as semantic linkers, but also as means to fulfil the communicative functions in each section. In conclusion, disciplinary and sectional distinctions in the use of LAs in RAs reflect and support the effects context engenders on lexico-grammatical choices in academic writing.  Accordingly, the use of LAs with consideration to genre and disciplinary specificities can help writers from different fields conform to generic differences and write respectively, thus empowering their academic writing skills.