Evaluation in the Reporting Verbs Used in Academic Papers

Abstract

This paper discusses the results of a project to identify the kinds of verbs used in citations in academic papers, as a basis for developing teaching materials for non-native-speaker students who need to read or write academic papers. Categories are suggested for classifying the verbs both in terms of their denotation and of their evaluative potential, in order to illuminate the role that they play in the evaluation that their presence entails. The ways in which denotation and evaluative potential interact and some of the effects of the immediate context (for example, negation) are examined. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which the writer commits herself to or detaches herself from the reported proposition to varying degrees. Finally, an idealized model of the ‘layers of report’ that may be involved in citations is presented as a means of drawing together the various choices available. The model mayserve as a pedagogic image to help the students in understanding or choosing reporting verbs and, beyond that, in interpreting or conveying evaluation in academic papers.