Dialogic Heteroglossia in Doctoral Psychology Dissertations: A Discourse Study

This study aims at investigating the use of dialogic heteroglossia in the introductory chapters of doctoral dissertations in psychology. Applying the heteroglossic engagement system (White, 2003; Martin & White, 2005), the current study analyzes a corpus of four doctoral dissertation introductions (2000 words each) from well-recognized British universities. A mixed-methods research design is adopted for analysis. This research design comprises quantitative frequency analysis to identify patterns in the distribution of heteroglossic resources with qualitative discourse analysis to explore their rhetorical functions. The findings demonstrate that dialogic contraction (51.71%) slightly outweighs dialogic expansion (48.29%), in an indication of a preference for consolidating research positions and simultaneously maintaining a space for engagement with alternative perspectives. Among contraction strategies, proclaim-endorse (13.63%) and disclaim-counter (19.31%) are the most predominant. Expansion resources, particularly attribute-acknowledge (27.27%) and entertain (20.67%), echo the emphasis of the discipline on citing prior studies and acknowledging the contestability of knowledge. Remarkably, attribute-distance is entirely absent, indicating a strong commitment to direct source attribution. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how authors of doctoral psychology dissertations construct their research space through heteroglossic engagement. Moreover, they offer insights into the disciplinary writing conventions that sustain academic knowledge authentication.