Abstract
Linguistic expressions of confusion, namely confusion markers, construe discrepancies between an academic author’s prior knowledge and the information received. These emotive responses motivate knowledge-seeking behaviors to dissolve cognitive incongruities and are inherently connected with knowledge-making. Limited research has, however, examined how they partake in knowledge construction and dissemination in academic writing. Drawing on a frame-based analytical approach, this study investigated how an academic author’s disciplinary background and time of publication may mediate the use of confusion markers in 640 research articles sampled from four disciplines. The corpus-based analyses were complemented by insights from 16 specialists to explore how considerations underlying their use of confusion markers shaped their academic writing. The findings indicated that the overall use of confusion markers changed over time and that disciplinary background and time of publication were significant predictors of several frame elements. The observed disciplinary and diachronic patterns of use can be explained in terms of epistemological orientations, developments in the academic world such as increasing disciplinary specialization and growing interdisciplinary research leading to a broadening of readership, and stiff competition in scholarly publication.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Funding
This work was supported by the Social Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (Grant No. 2021K021).
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Contributions
QW, GH: conceptualization. QW, GH: methodology. QW: data curation. QW, GH: data analysis. QW, GH: writing—original draft preparation. QW, GH: writing—reviewing and editing. QW, GH: visualization.
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This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (approval no. HSEARS20211024001).
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Appendices
Appendix 1
See Table
8.
Appendix 2
Sample questions in the interview guide
General questions
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1.
How would you describe the nature of your discipline? Is there a particular way to claim knowledge in your field?
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2.
As an author, why did you express confusion in your RAs? As a reader, why do you think authors choose to use these expressions in RAs?
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3.
Have you perceived any changes in academic writing in your discipline over the last 30 years?
Text-based questions
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1.
Please look at this extract in which you have used expressions of confusion. Why did you use this kind of expression? Is this use discipline-specific? Do you think academic writers from other disciplines would use such expressions in a different way?
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2.
Please look at this extract where you used expressions of confusion. Will you use such expressions in your future publications?
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3.
Please look at this extract of a publication in the 1980s. Do you think the use of such expressions has changed over the last 30 years? Is such use more popular than 30 years ago?
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Wang, Q., Hu, G. Expressions of confusion in research articles: a diachronic cross-disciplinary investigation. Scientometrics 129, 445–471 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04914-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04914-z