RESEARCH FUNCTIONS   The use of language to realise a specific purpose is known as a language function. Writers of academic texts need to communicate a wide range of purposes linked to research activities. These “research functions” typically include tasks such as describing aims, referring to figures, comparing results, explaining procedures, and justifying methodological choices. These research functions often differ from everyday social functions of communication. For example, the function used to "describe aims" could, when addressing another person face-to-face, be expressed as "I wanna tell you about...", whereas the same function would be better expressed in an academic context as "This study aims to describe...". Note how this academic version avoids direct reference to either the writer ("I", "we") or the reader ("you") and prefers the choice of vocabulary particular to that field of study— "aims" instead of "wanna" and "describe" instead of "tell." Research functions vary from one field to another. Some functions are confined to specific fields, such as describing product yield in chemistry. Other functions, such as referring to figures, are common to all research fields. Some functions are associated only with certain sections of research reports, while others, such as metatext, are important throughout the whole text. Metatext is especially important because it not only guides the reader in how to interpret the text but also signals the writer's attitude to both the text and to the reader.

Finnish Virtual University / © 2004 McAnsh & Pennington