TY - JOUR
T1 - The cognitive and rhetorical role of term variation and its contribution to knowledge construction in research articles
AU - Fernandez-Silva, Sabela
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 John Benjamins Publishing Company.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - This study explored the behaviour and functions of term variation in research articles in order to better understand the process of knowledge construction within texts. A semantic analysis of term variation in 19 Spanish-language psychology research articles was carried out. Variants were classified according to the semantic distance from the base term. Analysis revealed that term variation provides information about the concept's content and its relationships with other concepts within the conceptual structure. Furthermore, an examination of the distribution of term variants across text sections revealed three rhetorical functions of term variation: a naming function, present in the title, abstract and keyword sections; an explanatory function, in the introduction and discussion sections; and a particularizing function, in the method and results sections. This analysis confirmed that intratextual term variation plays a cognitive and rhetorical function in research articles, helping to construct and transfer knowledge within the text and to realize the communicative purposes of the genre.
AB - This study explored the behaviour and functions of term variation in research articles in order to better understand the process of knowledge construction within texts. A semantic analysis of term variation in 19 Spanish-language psychology research articles was carried out. Variants were classified according to the semantic distance from the base term. Analysis revealed that term variation provides information about the concept's content and its relationships with other concepts within the conceptual structure. Furthermore, an examination of the distribution of term variants across text sections revealed three rhetorical functions of term variation: a naming function, present in the title, abstract and keyword sections; an explanatory function, in the introduction and discussion sections; and a particularizing function, in the method and results sections. This analysis confirmed that intratextual term variation plays a cognitive and rhetorical function in research articles, helping to construct and transfer knowledge within the text and to realize the communicative purposes of the genre.
KW - Academic discourse
KW - Knowledge construction
KW - Research articles
KW - Rhetorical structure
KW - Term variation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84971221639&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1075/term.22.1.03fer
DO - 10.1075/term.22.1.03fer
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84971221639
SN - 0929-9971
VL - 22
SP - 52
EP - 79
JO - Terminology
JF - Terminology
IS - 1
ER -