The “I” in interaction: authorial presense in academic writing

Abstract

This study explores the discourse functions of personal pronouns and verb forms referring to writer and reader interaction in a corpus of 60 research articles in the fields of linguistics, psychology and educational research in English and Spanish. Drawing on Tang and John's (1999) taxonomy I elaborate and refine their categories, and propose I as the Interpreter as a new role in the continuum of writers' authorial presence. The analysis reveals that both English and Spanish writers make extensive use of pronominal discourse functions.