Academic Evaluation This page intentionally left blank Academic Evaluation Review Genres in University Settings Editedby Ken Hyland InstituteofEducation,UniversityofLondon,UK and Giuliana Diani UniversityofModenaandReggioEmilia,Italy ©Selectionandeditorialmatter©KenHylandandGiulianaDiani2009 Chapters©theirindividualauthors2009 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-22433-9 Allrightsreserved.Noreproduction,copyortransmissionofthis publicationmaybemadewithoutwrittenpermission. Noportionofthispublicationmaybereproduced,copiedortransmitted savewithwrittenpermissionorinaccordancewiththeprovisionsofthe Copyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988,orunderthetermsofanylicence permittinglimitedcopyingissuedbytheCopyrightLicensingAgency, SaffronHouse,6-10KirbyStreet,LondonEC1N8TS. Anypersonwhodoesanyunauthorizedactinrelationtothispublication maybeliabletocriminalprosecutionandcivilclaimsfordamages. Theauthorshaveassertedtheirrightstobeidentified astheauthorsofthisworkinaccordancewiththeCopyright, DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Firstpublished2009by PALGRAVEMACMILLAN PalgraveMacmillanintheUKisanimprintofMacmillanPublishersLimited, registeredinEngland,companynumber785998,ofHoundmills,Basingstoke, HampshireRG216XS. PalgraveMacmillanintheUSisadivisionofStMartin’sPressLLC, 175FifthAvenue,NewYork,NY10010. PalgraveMacmillanistheglobalacademicimprintoftheabovecompanies andhascompaniesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld. Palgrave®andMacmillan®areregisteredtrademarksintheUnitedStates, theUnitedKingdom,Europeandothercountries. ISBN 978-1-349-30930-6 ISBN 978-0-230-24429-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230244290 Thisbookisprintedonpapersuitableforrecyclingandmadefromfully managedandsustainedforestsources.Logging,pulpingandmanufacturing processesareexpectedtoconformtotheenvironmentalregulationsofthe countryoforigin. AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. AcatalogrecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 Contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction:AcademicEvaluationandReviewGenres 1 KenHylandandGiulianaDiani Part I AnOverviewofReviewGenres 1 NegotiatingResearchValuesacrossReviewGenres:ACase StudyinAppliedLinguistics 17 DavideSimoneGiannoni 2 ReviewingScienceinanInformation-OverloadedWorld 34 JudyNoguchi 3 LiteratureReviewsinAppliedPhDTheses:Evidenceand Problems 50 PaulThompson 4 BackCoverBlurbs:PuffPiecesandWindowsonCultural Values 68 HelenBasturkmen Part II DisciplinaryVariation 5 ReportingandEvaluationinEnglishBookReviewArticles: ACross-DisciplinaryStudy 87 GiulianaDiani 6 DisciplineandGender:ConstructingRhetoricalIdentity inBookReviews 105 PollyTseandKenHyland 7 PhraseologyandEpistemologyinAcademicBookReviews: ACorpus-DrivenAnalysisofTwoHumanitiesDisciplines 122 NicholasGroom v vi Contents Part III Cross-LinguisticVariation 8 (Non-)CriticalVoicesintheReviewingofHistory Discourse:ACross-CulturalStudyofEvaluation 143 RosaLorésSanz 9 AcademicBookReviewsinEnglishandSpanish:Critical CommentsandRhetoricalStructure 161 AnaI.MorenoandLorenaSuárez 10 HistoriansatWork:ReportingFrameworksinEnglishand ItalianBookReviewArticles 179 MarinaBondi Part IV DiachronicVariation 11 OntheDynamicNatureofGenre:ADiachronicStudyof Blurbs 199 Maria-LluïsaGea-ValorandMartaInigoRos 12 TheLexisandGrammarofExplicitEvaluationin AcademicBookReviews,1913and1993 217 PhilipShaw NotesonContributors 236 NameIndex 239 SubjectIndex 243 Acknowledgements KenHyland This book is the outcome of a collaborative project by a group of authors whose interest in academic review genres has greatly stimu- latedandexpandedmyowncuriosityaboutevaluationinwrittentexts. Mythanksgotothem.IalsowanttothankPollyTse,JohnSwalesand Vijay Bhatia, colleagues and friends whose knowledge and enthusiasm forunderstandingdiscourseisaconstantinspiration.Finally,asalways, mythanksgotoFionaHyland,forherstimulatingthoughtsonwriting andforherconstantsupportandencouragement. GiulianaDiani IamparticularlyindebtedtoProfessorMarinaBondiforawakeningmy interest in the topic of evaluative language use in academic discourse andwhoseencouragementconvincedmetowritethebook.Iwouldlike tooffermywarmthankstoProfessorKenHylandforacceptingtheidea togetinvolvedintheproject.Therewouldhavebeennobookwithout hissupport. vii Introduction: Academic Evaluation and Review Genres KenHyland and Giuliana Diani The expression of personal opinions and assessments is a ubiquitous feature of human interaction and, despite its apparently impersonal facade, central to academic writing. It could be argued, in fact, that among all the activities of the academy, what academics mainly do is evaluate. Their research and publishing is a continual round of com- paring methods, assessing sources, weighing up outcomes, contrasting claims and considering data. They are constantly making judgements about whether samples are representative, findings are accurate and interpretations valid. The texts they produce while conducting these activities reflect this concern with evaluation and its expression per- vadesresearcharticles,lectures,conferencepresentations,textbooksand studentassignments. Perhaps most explicitly, however, evaluation is central to a constel- lation of related activities, which we label review genres. These are texts and part texts that are written with the explicit purpose of evaluating the research, the texts and the contributions of fellow academics and include book reviews, book review articles, review articles, book blurbs and literature reviews. Academic review genres collectively represent ‘thepublicevaluationsofresearch’(Lindholm-Romantschuk,1998)and playasignificantroleinscholarship,supportingboththemanufacture of knowledge and the social cohesiveness of disciplinary communities (Hyland,2000).Togethertheycompriseacrucial,andhighlyvisible,role inacademicdisciplinesastheyassessthevalueofresearchandprovidea platformformembersinacommunitytoengagewitheachother’sideas andanalysesinconventionalfora. Review genres are, in fact, crucial sites of engagement where writers arguetheirviewpoints,signaltheirallegiancesanddisplaytheircredibil- ity.Thesegenresareoftenmoreinteractivelycomplexthantheirmore 1 2 Introduction celebrated research genre cousins as they do not simply respond to a generalbodyofmore-or-lessimpersonalliterature,butcriticallyengage withparticulartexts,andthereforetheirauthors.Itis,then,somewhat surprising that their contribution has not received more attention in the applied linguistics literature. It is even more surprising when we consider that evaluation is a term that has begun to capture the imag- ination of theorists and analysts from a range of different perspectives acrossthehumanitiesandsocialsciences.Inthisintroductionwecon- sider the nature of review genres and offer an overview of the role of evaluationinacademictexts. Whatarereviewgenres? Reviewingtheworkofothershasbeenpartofthatacademiclandscape for almost 2000 years (Orteza y Miranda, 1996), but its evolution into modern review genres really began in the mid seventeenth century, when the output of books, and thus new knowledge, increased enor- mously. Initially, dedicated book reviews summarized and chronicled uncritically the explosion of learning in the sciences for the reading public and journals such as the Analytical Review and the Monthly Epit- omeemergedwhichweredevotedentirelytothispurpose(Roper,1978). A more selective and critical approach to reporting published scholar- ship only came into being with the introduction of The Edinburgh in 1802. The style of reviews also underwent a rhetorical shift with the publication of this journal. The common practice of transcribing long passages from the reviewed text without comment was now replaced withthereviewer’sownopinion,oftenconveyedatlengthandwithlit- tleconnectiontotheoriginal(Roper,1978,p.45).Today,bookreviews, book review articles and state-of-the-art articles all play an important roleinthelifeofdisciplinarycommunities. Many international journals devote a section to book reviews and they play an important role in supporting both the manufacture of knowledge and the social cohesiveness of disciplinary communities. Evaluation of recent publications not only provides the research com- munitywithvaluableinformationabouttitlesthatmightotherwisepass unnoticed, but also provides an alternative forum in which academics can set out their views without engaging in the long cycle of inquiry, review and revision involved in a full-length paper. Very much a pub- licdiscourse,reviewscontributetothedisseminationandevaluationof researchandofferameansbywhichjunioracademicscangaininstitu- tionalcreditandapublicationprofileandestablishedwritersarhetorical