Citation and the Construction of Subdisciplinary Knowledge

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to examine the citation patterns of discussion sections employed by local and international article writers in ESP and EGP subdisciplines of applied linguistics. Eighty article discussion sections were selected from well-established local and international journals in the field of applied linguistics, and they were sorted according to Thompson and Tribble's (2001) framework. The results revealed that local ESP and EGP writers tended to apply the integral citations to a far greater extent than the non-integral. On the other hand, international writers used citation to a significantly higher degree than local writers; ESP writers preferred the integral over the non-integral form. In contrast, international writers in EGP articles took more advantage from non-integral types, among which they selected source more than other types. In terms of integral types, verb controlling received the highest frequency. The potential diversities existing in the discussion sections written by local and international writers suggest that international writers seem to focus more on functional than formal criteria and use a wider range of citation types, giving more credit to the works of others. These differences appeared to be related to citation patterns and discoursal conventions across subdisciplines.