Writers’ self-representation in academic writing: The case of computer engineering research articles by English versus Iranian writers

It is widely acknowledged that academic writing is not just about communicating an ideational content; it is also about the representation of self. The purpose of this study was to investigate the tendency of Iranian and American writers for self-representation which is realized by means of writers’ explicit (first person self-references) and implicit self (imperative forms and attitude markers) in computer engineering research articles. In this study, 40 published research articles written in English by Iranian and American academics were analyzed to determine the distribution of first person pronouns, imperative forms and attitude markers. We have also examined the semantic references of plural pronoun ‘we’ as inclusive or exclusive according to their functions. The results indicated that both groups presented themselves both explicitly and implicitly. In addition, in the light of the results, it is evident that Iranian writers utilized explicit 'self' more than American writers did, whereas American writers made use of implicit 'self' more than Iranian scholars.