Arguing linguistics: corpus investigation of one functional variety of academic discourse

This paper has a two-fold aim: first, to report on some findings as to the ways in which textbook authors construe their argument in the introductory chapters to linguistics textbooks; second, to discuss some concerns which are central to descriptions of academic prose and register variation in the light of what the data under study provide us with. The paper compares the introductory chapters taken from 10 textbooks in linguistics, i.e. general introductions for undergraduate students, and stresses both peculiarities and commonalities. A keyword analysis of the corpus reveals repeated linguistic behaviour which can shed light on how a register is constructed. Special emphasis is put on features like processes, modal adjuncts, logical connection and interpersonal pronouns signalling the argumentative dialogue that, though implicit, construes the writer as teacher/researcher, and the readership as students and/or members of the scientific community. As a result of the analysis carried out, it emerges that variation between the individual argumentative styles of each textbook writer included in the corpus, more than overall registerial variation, takes place.