Hooking the Readers via the Use of Attitudinal Language in Economic Research Article Abstracts

The purpose of this study is to investigate the strategic use of evaluative language in economic research abstracts with regard to how authors use Attitude expressions in light of Martin and White's (2005) model to engage their readers and draw more attention to their articles. The analysis of 60 abstracts in English, which were retrieved from the Scopus and Web of Science databases, documented much higher frequencies of Appreciation subtypes (the assessment of objects or phenomena) than of Affect (personal feelings) and Judgment (evaluation of people and their behaviours). Appreciation subtypes deserve much more consideration with regard to objectivity and value judgments. Interestingly, the evaluations of Composition, which include the organisation and structure of objects or phenomena, are almost balanced between positive and negative polarity, which might point to nuances in the presentation of the research area and study contributions. In addition, the results show variation in realisations for the attitudinal types using different parts of speech. Interestingly, concerning lexical realisations, the study finds that the term “optimal” is prevalent in the data, which may signal a feature in the specific discipline examined. These findings provide valuable insights into the strategic use of attitudinal language in the economic discourse community and how one could thereby facilitate communicative success in the publication of writing. Keywords: Appraisal framework; attitude; abstract; evaluative; economics