The persuasive strategies in more and less prestigious linguistics journals: focus on research article abstracts

Abstract

Research article abstracts are widely recognized as a promotional genre since they aim to persuade the readers to read the rest of the articles. Hence, it is important for abstract writers to use effective persuasive strategies to achieve this promotional goal. The current study aimed to examine the use of persuasive strategies in more and less prestigious journals in the field of Linguistics. A total of 400 abstracts were extracted from eight journals, half of which were indexed in Web of Science (WoS) while the other half were not WoS-indexed. The abstracts were then coded manually in terms of their use of persuasive strategies as listed in a recent model of persuasion by Dontcheva-Navratilova et al. (2020). The results showed that logos strategies were the most frequently used in both types of journals, followed by ethos strategies. The results also showed that some strategies were used more frequently than others. The most frequently used strategies were logical reasoning and modulating claims. Additionally, a T-test was run to compare the use of persuasive strategies between the two types of journals. The results showed that while more prestigious journals (WoS-indexed) used a significantly higher number of the strategy of ‘showing involvement’ and ‘providing evidence’, the authors of less prestigious journals (non-WoS-indexed) employed several strategies more frequently; namely, using exemplification, providing statistics and facts, evoking emotions and expressing evaluation. The results are interpreted in light of the existing literature, and implications and directions for future research are proposed.