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Epistemic positioning of researchers in Applied Linguistics in the UK

This article explores the fragmented nature of Applied Linguistics, the role of epistemic positioning in academic discourse, and the need for researchers to position themselves to claim epistemic territories. It discusses how epistemic positioning is done in academic writing and the potential differences between written and spoken discourse. The article also examines the alignment with academic traditions through citation and references relevant literature.

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Epistemic positioning of researchers in Applied Linguistics in the UK

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  1. Epistemic positioning of researchers in Applied Linguistics in the UK Hah Sixian For PAD, Nov 2015

  2. Why Applied Linguistics? • Applied Linguistics is now so fragmented in its range of interests that one can no longer rely on a common basis of shared assumptions between people who are called ‘Applied Linguists’ (Meara 1989: 66 in Seidlhofer 2003: 270).

  3. Epistemic territories • Interlocutors are preoccupied with this question: what they know relative to others, what they are entitled to know, and what they are entitled to describe or communicate (Heritage, 2009: 309)

  4. Positioning theory • Positioning refers to “the discursive construction of personal stories that make a person’s actions intelligible and relatively determinate as social acts” (Harré & Langenhove 1999: 16) • deliberate self-positioning: if a person tries to achieve specific goals with their act of self-positioning • forced self-positioning by an institution • And sometimes, one is positioned by others.

  5. Epistemic positioning in academic discourse • To enter a discourse … one cannot not occupy certain discursive positions (Angermuller 2013: 268) • Researchers are always taking a position on something and seeking to position others in an evaluation process (of citing and ratifying one another’s claims. (Hyland & Diani, 2009) • Epistemic positioning can refer to: • Which academic field or sub-fields of knowledge researchers present or situate their research to be in • With which other researchers they want to align with or distance away from

  6. Why do researchers need to position themselves? • To exist as a researcher, one needs to claim epistemic territories in the vast epistemic landscape of academia

  7. How is epistemic positioning done? • Researchers are often simultaneously trying to maintain rapport with readers, argue a position and signal their allegiance to a particular orientation or group in academic writing (Hyland & Diani, 2009: 06) • Hedging acts as a politeness strategy when it marks a claim… as being provisional, pending acceptance by the community – in other words, acceptance by the readers. (Myers, 1989) • Could there be differences in how epistemic positioning is done in written and spoken academic discourse?

  8. Epistemic positioning – Aligning with a ‘tradition’ in citation [Discussing a recent paper published by R1 & a co-author on a corpus-based analysis of UK security documents; pilot interview] And the beginning of methodology I always: (.) well, in this phase of my research er:m I find it (.) very important to very quickly locate the er:m methods that (.) my co-writer and I used (.) within a contemporary literature (.) so I got this this bank of citations in the methodology (.) section (.) er:m to the mainlyLancaster people er Paul Baker features largely here er: they are almost all of Lancaster origin reachin-er situating I guess our corpus based methodology within, /ei/ erm critical tradition, and /biː/ one I think er also draws upon certain qualitative (.) <procedures> Transcription Key: (.) micropause <slower talk> e::r lengthening sound word emphasis - Abrupt cut-off /ei/ phonemic alphabet for sound created

  9. References Angermuller, J. (2013). How to become an academic philosopher: Academic discourse as a multileveled positioning practice. Sociología Histórica: Revista de investigación acerca de la dimensión histórica de los fenómenos sociales, (2), 263-289. Harré, R., & Van Langenhove, L. (Eds.). (1999). Positioning theory: Moral contexts of international action. USA: Blackwell. Heritage, J. (2009). Conversation analysis as social theory. The new Blackwell companion to social theory, 300-320. Heritage, J. (2012). Epistemics in action: Action formation and territories of knowledge. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 45(1), 1-29. Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Harvard university press. Myers, G. (1990). Writing biology: The social construction of popular science. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

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