Assigning linguistic agency and attributive responsibility in retraction notices

Abstract

Assigning responsibility for retraction is a crucial rhetorical strategy for communicating retraction stigma in retraction notices. However, the linguistic realization of this strategy remains largely unexplored. This study addresses the gap by analyzing 3,296 retraction notices for the disclosure of retraction-engendering acts by responsibility-bearing authors and the grammatical constructions used to represent agency and assign responsibility. It is found that retraction-engendering acts were disclosed in 92.1% of the retraction notices. In the retraction notices disclosing these acts, seven distinct grammatical constructions were employed to represent agency linguistically and encode responsibility attributively. Significant variations were identified in both the disclosure of retraction-engendering acts and the grammatical representation of responsibility across four contextual factors: academic disciplines (hard disciplines vs. soft disciplines), retraction periods (1980–2009 vs. 2010–2019), retraction notice authorship (i.e. journal authorities vs. authors of retracted publications), and retraction reasons (i.e. blatant misconduct vs. inappropriate conduct vs. questionable conduct vs. honest error).