局部语法、话语行为与学科文化研究——以“例举”为例

Local Grammars, Discourse Acts, and Disciplinary Cultures: A Case Study of “Exemplification”

本文采用局部语法路径,以"例举"话语行为为例,考察其局部语法型式在语言学、教育学、计算机科学和物理学学术论文中的实现型式及其差异,进而探讨语言使用与学科文化的潜在关联。研究结果表明,"例举"话语行为在纯理、应用以及软、硬学科四类学术论文中的使用不尽相同,大致与各学科文化特征相符,但也呈现出动态变化,这说明语言使用在很大程度上受到学科文化的制约但也存在一定的复杂性。方法论上,本研究表明局部语法分析能有效量化话语行为的实现型式,从语篇语义视角揭示不同学科语言使用的特性和异同,为学术话语研究,尤其是探讨话语行为和学科文化的关系,提供了新的研究路径。

This paper proposes a local grammar approach to explore disciplinary cultures, which is demonstrated by investigating one particular discourse act, i.e. exemplification, across four disciplines(i.e. Applied Linguistics, Education, Computer Science, and Physics). The investigation shows that the lexicogrammatical realizations of exemplification vary, to a greater or lesser extent, according to disciplines, which can be attributed to disciplinary epistemologies. The study, overall, shows that local grammars are able to quantify reliably the lexicogrammatical realizations of discourse acts in academic writing, thereby facilitating the exploration of disciplinarity. The methodological implication is that local grammars offer an alternative way to academic discourse studies, especially for investigating the association between discourse acts and disciplinary cultures.