Reporting verbs associated with evidentiality in research article abstracts in applied linguistics and applied psycholinguistics

Abstract

The article presents a quantitative corpus-based study that aims to shed light on the frequency and distribution of reporting verbs (for instance, indicate, posit, etc.) associated with evidentiality that are found in research article abstracts (RAAs) in applied linguistics and applied psycholinguistics, respectively. Theoretically and methodologically, the study is informed by the literature (Söderqvist, 2020; Szczygłowska, 2022), which demonstrates that reporting verbs may mark evidentiality in scientific discourse. In order to establish the frequency of the occurrence of reporting verbs associated with evidentiality, a corpus of RAAs in applied linguistics and applied psycholinguistics was collected and, subsequently, analysed in software program AntConc version 4.0.11 (Anthony, 2022). The results of the quantitative analysis revealed that show and suggest were the most frequent reporting verbs associated with evidentiality in the corpus of RAAs in applied linguistics and applied psycholinguistics alike.