“Polyphony in academic discourse: a cross-cultural perspective”

This study is part of a wider research project investigating language variation in academic discourse across genres, disciplines and languages. The paper starts by outlining the basic assumptions of the study and proceeds to illustrate its “double” cross-cultural perspective: in the context of an approach to writer’s identity based on the notion of multiple identities, its focus lies on both national and disciplinary communities. The study is based on the analysis of the openings of historical research articles in English and in Italian and uses openings in economics research articles for disciplinary comparison. Including consideration of both rhetorical development and language features, the notion of polyphony is used to explore the way the writer’s voice interacts with other voices in the incipit of the research article across disciplines and across national academic cultures.