Creating an authorial presence in English-medium research articles abstracts by academic writers from different cultural backgrounds

In recent decades, the traditional perception of academic writing as impersonal prose conveying facts has given way to a view that sees it as an interactional process laden with cultural influence. Due to this shift, authorial voice has become a major research focus in applied linguistics studies. This study involved a corpus-based textual analysis of self-representation markers in research papers by Russian and Chinese authors in the field of engineering. Using Hyland s interactional metadiscourse model (2005) and Tang and John’s (1999) taxonomy of writer’s roles as the analysis frameworks, the study aimed to compare the features of authorial voice in English-medium research article (RA) abstracts by non-native writers from two different cultural backgrounds. To achieve this purpose, 98 RA abstracts were collected from four reputable Scopus-indexed engineering journals. The differences in the use of self-mention markers are explained in terms of the national and international academic writing traditions and the level of competitiveness among scholars influencing an authorial stance in English-medium academic prose. The study has important implications for novice non-native English academic writers who aspire to take their work to an international audience.