Stance-taking as negotiating academic conflict in applied linguistics research article discussion sections

Journal of English for Academic Purposes 24 (2016) 43e57

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Stance-taking as negotiating academic conflict in applied linguistics research article discussion sections Fei-Wen Cheng a, *, Len Unsworth b a b

Department of Foreign Languages, National Chiayi University, Chiayi County 62142, Taiwan Learning Sciences Institute, Australian Catholic University, North Sydney, NSW 2059, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 28 January 2016 Received in revised form 18 August 2016 Accepted 6 September 2016

While huge efforts were devoted to the identification of moves and steps in research article Discussion sections, how writers justify the value of the new research through conflict negotiation to transform empirical results into knowledge claims is left unnoticed. The purpose of this study is to show how writers negotiate academic conflict to demonstrate the legitimacy of their new research within the academic discipline. Based on analysis of 21 Applied Linguistics research articles, the present study conducted rhetorical analysis of academic conflict drawing on Hunston’s (1993) framework and then applied Martin and White’s (2005) engagement system to closely examine the use of interpersonal resources in representing and negotiating conflict. This study reveals that/how writers strategically vary their engagement tactics in relation to the functional components of academic conflict to activate readers' positive evaluation of the new knowledge. Most notably, although researchers represent the empirical discrepancies between their own findings and previous research, such conflict is generally not resolved by explicitly dismissing the opposing studies but by conferring authority and legitimation on the new findings. These results not only contribute to our understanding of knowledge construction processes through argumentation but also have important pedagogical implications for the writing practices of novice researchers. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Academic conflict Discussion section Stance Research article Academic discourse

1. Introduction Academic conflict, commonly referred to as “rival, contentious, or conflicting knowledge claims” (Salager-Meyer, 1999, p. 372), is a fundamental aspect of the knowledge construction process. To achieve scientific progress, researchers are required to correct or invalidate established knowledge in search for novelty (Bazerman, 1988; Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995; Hunston, 1993; Kuhn, 1996; Kwan, Chan, & Lam, 2012; Lindeberg, 2004; Myers, 1989). The nature of the challenges to prior formulation of knowledge or paradigms opens up opportunities for original contribution and provides the persuasive force to promote the research (Kuhn, 1996; Lindeberg, 2004; Locke & Golden-Biddle, 1997; Swales, 1990). Yet, to negate validated knowledge for warranting one's contribution, researchers enter into a relationship of tension with the various literature and potentially damage rapport with the disciplinary community. How to manage professional disagreement in order to invite support from the target discourse community involves highly complex and subtle interpersonal strategies and imposes rhetorical

* Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (F.-W. Cheng), [email protected] (L. Unsworth). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2016.09.001 1475-1585/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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challenges for novice scholars (Bazerman, 1988; Hunston, 1993; Hyland, 1998, 2004; Lindeberg, 2004; Myers, 1989, 1992; Salager-Meyer & Lewin, 2011). Surprisingly, little empirical study on research article (RA) rhetorical structure has examined how academic conflict is represented and negotiated in the RA Discussion sections, in which researchers are required to transform the empirical findings to potential knowledge claims to be acknowledged by the academic community (Thompson, 1993). This communicative purpose has generally been achieved through managing and resolving academic conflict. Particularly, to confront previous studies and promote the value of one's research involves strategic manipulation of authorial stance to prior research and one's findings. That is, blunt criticism and overt assertion of novelty claims are generally avoided (Hyland, 1998, 2004). Writers are required to undertake more subtle argumentation strategies by taking different authorial stances on propositions in order to align readers to the writer's arguments. This highlights the importance of effective handling of interpersonal strategies. However, such authorial-stance taking in conflict negotiation has yet to be investigated in sufficient detail. The present research fills this gap by conducting a two-level rhetorical analysis: identifying the constituent components of academic conflict and mapping interpersonal strategies employed to signal these components. The former analysis is based on revised Hunston's framework (1993) while the latter draws upon Martin and White’s (2005) engagement framework. This study will shed light on the composition process of reporting scientific contributions by demonstrating how researchers in the Discussion sections argue that they have indeed made contributions promised in their Introductions. This knowledge can inform English for academic purposes (EAP) learners and international scholars about how to make informed judgments in crafting complicated relationships between their own findings and prior validated knowledge to warrant a trajectory for their contribution. 2. Academic conflict The rhetorical practice of negotiating academic conflict (AC) in RAs has been broadly examined from two distinct lines of scholarship, by: 1) considering its enactment as an isolated phenomenon without connecting it to the larger RA structure; or 2) projecting its use as part of the move/step rhetorical scheme in different RA sections. The former research had made a commendable effort in uncovering a wide spectrum of rhetorical strategies, ranging from straightforward and blunt criticism to less overt and more implicit negative comments (Dahl & Fløttum, 2011; Giannoni, 2005; Martín-Martín & Burgess, 2004; Myers, 1989; Salager-Meyer, 1999; Salager-Meyer & Ariza, 2011). A series of studies conducted by Salager-Meyer and her colleagues (Salager-Meyer, 1999, 2001; Salager-Meyer, Ariza, & Zambrano, 2003; Salager-Meyer & Ariza, 2011) based on entire Medical RAs found that mitigated indirect criticism is more prevalent in modern English academic discourse diachronically and cross-linguistically, and overt criticism is relatively rare. A similar finding is also documented in the research on Linguistics and Psychology RA abstracts, showing a prevalence of more indirect and impersonal strategies in English than Spanish (Martín-Martín & Burgess, 2004). However, Giannoni's study (2005) of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics RA Discussion sections across English and Italian reveals that overt criticism is more dominant cross-linguistically, though a relatively higher percentage of overt criticisms is exhibited in Italian Discussions. Likewise, Dahl and Fløttum (2011) also indicate the presence of personal and unhedged criticism is more common than impersonal or hedged expressions in Economics and Linguistics RA Introductions. As shown in these earlier studies, no conclusive findings can be made with regard to the use of academic criticism for the following reasons: 1) different parts of RAs across various disciplines and language were examined; 2) different criteria of overt and covert criticisms were used in different studies. More research is thus necessary to clarify the contradictory results and, most importantly, this line of research needs to be expanded by connecting AC to the move/step rhetorical scheme proposed in the EAP literature. The findings based on AC as a single unit disconnected from other rhetorical structures of RAs have less pedagogical value for academic writing instruction, since the rhetorical move/step scheme is strongly endorsed in the guidelines for designing EAP materials and instruction (e.g., Bitchner, 2010; Paltridge & Starfield, 2007; Swales & Feak, 2012). Another line of research based on Swales' (1990) concept of a move/step analysis framework has conceived AC as part of a move/step scheme, for instance, the ‘Indicating a gap’ step of ‘Move 2: Establishing niche’ in RA Introductions, or ‘Comparing/ contrasting findings with prior literature’ step of ‘Move 4: Commenting on results’ in Discussions. Although a substantial number of studies have uncovered its constituent components or linguistic realization in Introductions (e.g., Gil-Salom & Soler-Monreal, 2014; Kwan et al., 2012; Lim, 2012; Locke & Golden-Biddle, 1997; Pho, Musgrave, & Bradshaw, 2011), the role and enactment of AC has received scant attention in Discussion sections. Despite its critical role in transforming knowledge, the prior literature has simply listed it as one of the constituent steps in the ‘Comment on results’ Move (e.g., Basturkmen, 2009, 2012; Le & Harrington, 2015; Lim, 2010; Yang & Allison, 2003), the ‘Explain specific research’ Move (Nwogu, 1997), or the ‘Consolidating results’ Move (Kanoksilapatham, 2005, 2015). Little has thus been reported about how researchers subvert or invalidate an established line of thought to textually construe opportunities for their original contribution when they discuss their findings. To bridge this gap, this study will analyze the use of academic conflict in the RA Discussion sections by integrating these two lines of research. First of all, this study will follow Hunston's (1993) conceptualization of academic conflict as the writer's knowledge claims are formulated as “being in conflict with another researcher's knowledge claims” (p.115), and such conflict is resolved to justify the value of the writer's knowledge claims. As compared to the focuses of other studies on academic criticism, this conceptualization highlights an argumentative pattern involved in composing academic conflict, including not only the presentation of conflicting knowledge claims, but also conflict resolution. Since conflict management is not limited to

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critiques but often extends to stretches of texts involving presenting one's new knowledge claims and reconciling academic conflicts (Dahl & Fløttum, 2011; Hunston, 1993), Hunston's framework is more comprehensive and pedagogically valuable than the aforementioned studies. This definition is then mapped to the move/step schemes developed in the extant EAP literature (Basturkmen, 2009, 2012; Le & Harrington, 2015; Lim, 2010; Yang & Allison, 2003). The relationship of the move/ step structure in the discussion sections and the current components of academic conflict is shown in Fig. 1. As shown, there are four components in academic conflict, of which three are documented in Hunston's (1993) study and one extra component, the inconsistency indicator (indicating the contrasting relationship between current study and prior literature) is added. This component, though embedded in the coding of the opposed claim in Hunston's study, is singled out as a separate component for two purposes. It acts as an indicator of the conflict and this indicator may not always be embedded in the opposed claim, in which case the opposed claim is reported first prior to the reporting of the current findings, sandwiched with this contrasting lexis. To facilitate discussion, the term ‘component’ is employed to refer to the different parts of the academic conflict because its constituents simultaneously correspond to two different move structures: Result Move and Commenting on results Move (part of the step: Comparing/contrasting results with prior literature in this Move). That is, this analytical framework first follows the typical macro-move scheme in Discussion sections: the ResultComment move cycle, in which academic writers opt to report their empirical findings (‘Reporting results’ Move) prior to crafting comments on them (‘Commenting on results’ Move), formulating a Result-Comment move cycle (Basturkmen, 2009, 2012; Yang & Allison, 2003). It also maps partially to one specific step of the Comment Move, ‘comparing/contrasting with prior literature’. Although this step consists of comparing or contrasting between the current study and other research, in this paper the focus is on contrasting, since this is what academic conflict is associated with. As illustrated, a Result-Comment cycle with a focus on research conflict is re-labeled as follows: the current result as ‘the proposed claim’, the conflict findings reported in the prior literature as ‘the opposed claim’, the linguistic indexing of conflict as ‘the inconsistency indicator’, and the justification for inconsistency as ‘conflict resolution’. 3. SFL engagement framework Negotiating academic conflict to justify one's new contribution requires a writer's strategic interaction with multiple voices, retrospectively with prior established peers and prospectively with disciplinary readers of various stances towards to the topic under investigation. However, none of the prior research examining the RA Discussion sections has explored the linguistic means of authorial stance-taking. In addition, although some former studies have discussed certain isolated linguistic strategies in the representation of academic conflict, such as hedges (Dahl & Fløttum, 2011; Martín-Martín & Burgess, 2004; Salager-Meyer, 1999), personal vs impersonal citation and writer presence (Dahl & Fløttum, 2011; Martín-Martín & Burgess, 2004), use of attitudinal reporting verbs (Hunston, 1993), evaluative adjectives and adverbs (Hunston, 1993), and direct vs. indirect expressions (Giannoni, 2005; Salager-Meyer, 1999), how these features in combination with other subtle writer-reader interpersonal strategies co-articulate to align readers to the value position advocated by the writers has not been addressed to date. Instead of random selection of certain linguistic features manifested in the RAs, the present study adopts a systematic approach to authorial stance-taking, Martin and White’s (2005) engagement framework (see Fig. 2), to fully account for the writer's positioning in this textual argumentation process. Drawing upon Michael Halliday’s (1994) Systemic Functional Linguistics, this framework characterizes not only how writers express their attitudinal stance towards their propositions but also how they simultaneously engage their readers to share and endorse their value positions. Informed by Bahktin's (1981) notion of dialogism and heteroglossia, it provides a systematic account of the semantic resources authors can utilize to represent themselves as engaging in a dialogue to the extent that they present themselves as taking up, acknowledging, responding to, challenging or rejecting prior utterances or as anticipating possible responses from other speakers/writers (White, 2001, p. 2). In this framework, these various engagement options can be primarily divided into monogloss and heterogloss (see Fig. 2). The former refers to speaker/ writer's categorical assertion without acknowledging any alternative viewpoints. The heteroglossic resources are further structured based upon dialogistic expansion or contraction (White, 2001), which refers to whether the engagement value employed by the speaker/writer as orienting the dialogue to more or less divergent position (expansion) or as closing it down in order to limit such diversity (contraction). Contraction includes ‘disclaim’ and ‘proclaim’ categories while expansion

Fig. 1. Correspondence of move/step scheme and academic conflict codings.

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Fig. 2. The engagement system adapted from Martin and White (2005), p. 134.

includes ‘entertain’ and ‘attribute’ categories. Subcategories of language resources and examples embedded in this system are illustrated in Appendix A. ‘Disclaim’ is further divided into ‘deny’ (e.g., not, never), and ‘counter’ (e.g., however, although), both of which allow little scope for negotiation of alternative positions and thereby give them minimal dialogic space. There are three sub-types in the category of ‘proclaim’: ‘concur’ (e.g., of course, not surprisingly); ‘pronounce’ (e.g., I contend that, The facts of the matter are); ‘endorse’ (e.g., the use of reporting verbs, such as, show, demonstrate). ‘Concur’ is further divided into ‘affirming concur’, and ‘conceding concur’ (e.g., Certainly…but). These three sub-categories of ‘proclaim’ are considered more expansive dialogically than the category of ‘disclaim’ since the proposition is represented as based in the single subjectivity of the writer/speaker and thus acknowledging the heteroglossic diversity of the current communicative context. ‘Entertain’ (e.g., may, suggest) is an expansion category since the writer's voice is presented as one of a number of possible positions. This will lead to an opening up of the dialogic space for those propositions. Finally, ‘attribute’ is the most expansive category in the system of engagement given that the writer/speaker does not take responsibility for the cited propositions and thereby maximizes the space for dialogic alternatives, including ‘acknowledge’ (e.g., say, believe) and ‘distance’ (e.g., claim, assume). This engagement framework is considered most suited to explore academic persuasion due to its primary concern with the interaction of multiple voices, focus on readers' responses and a wide spectrum of interpersonal features categorized into different hierarchical levels. Its combination of writer's voice (e.g., ‘deny’, ‘pronounce’, ‘entertain’) and external textual voice

Fig. 3. Coding example for a functional unit of academic conflict (taken from JSLW.7).

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(e.g., ‘endorse’, ‘acknowledge’) into a coherent system can illuminate how writers strategically mediate external voices and authorial utterances to negotiate the status of the knowledge claims. Overall, this research shows how writers position their stance while articulating and resolving the academic conflict. The study first involved a close examination of rhetorical elements manifested in academic conflict, including conflict representation and resolution. Then, the use of engagement resources was examined to uncover the stance-taking involved in negotiating confrontation to align readers into the writer's perspective. Specifically, the following research questions are addressed: 1. How do writers utilize engagement values to represent conflicting claims? 2. What argumentation patterns are involved in resolving the academic conflict? 3. What typical engagement features do writers use to resolve the academic conflict?

4. Method 4.1. Data collection Five high-impact international journals in Applied Linguistics, namely the Journal of Applied Linguistics (JAL), the Journal of Second Language Writing (JSLW), English for Specific Purposes (ESP), System, and Studies in Second Language Acquisition (SSLA) were selected. Articles published during 2011e2013 were selected based on the following criteria. First, they exhibit Introduction-Method- Result-Discussion-Conclusion (I-M-R-D-C) structures; Discussion sections are placed after the Results sections and before the Conclusion sections. Second, the Methodology section must present an empirical study. Metaanalyses and reviews or theoretical papers were excluded. Third, the selected articles contain extended Discussion section with a length of more than 1000 words. 35 articles were screened out by choosing the most recently published at the time when the study began in 2012, which included seven articles from each of the five journals. As such, the present findings can be generalized only to the RAs revealing the same features. 4.2. Data analysis 4.2.1. Identifying the components of academic conflict The functional units of academic conflict were first identified in each discussion text using a preliminary scheme as presented in the literature review (see Fig. 1). Each functional unit may consist of four rhetorical elements: the proposed claim, the inconsistency indicator, the opposed claim and conflict resolution. The identification of each rhetorical component was based on the function and linguistic evidence (Basturkmen, 2012; Kwan et al., 2012). The following excerpt (Fig. 3) illustrates an exemplary instance of a functional unit. As can be observed, the writer's reporting of one specific new finding is considered as the proposed claim. The component of opposed claim refers to the presentation of prior findings in conflict with the writer's own findings. Inconsistency indicator is the use of countering linguistic devices to signal the shift of perspective to a contrary viewpoint. Conflict resolution refers to the writer's explanation or justification for the contrastive findings between current study and prior literature. It should be noted that academic conflict, as defined by the present research, is not utilized in every Applied Linguistics RA Discussion section, as observed in Yang and Allison (2003) and Basturkmen (2009, 2012). After the initial rhetorical analysis, the articles that did not include this functional unit were excluded so that the final corpus for current analysis consists of 21 articles with 30 functional units of academic conflict. The total size of this subcorpus for coding the act of academic conflict is 6775 words. It was collected purposefully from each of the aforementioned five journals and can be considered as representative of RA Discussions from the discipline of Applied Linguistics. 4.2.2. Engagement analysis Based on an initial analysis, some typical rhetorical features manifested in academic writing are not included in the Martin and White’s (2005) engagement framework, which is thereby expanded to incorporate and classify these features. First of all, the ‘pronounce’ category was expanded to include the formulations that are placed to signal the author's position in this discourse (e.g., this study considers that…, the present result argues that…), following Sawaki’s (2014) framework, since the use of these reporting verbs highlights a writers' intentions to add emphasis to the warrantability of their own findings or propositions. Second, lexical negation, mainly some reporting verbs (e.g., challenge, fail) and contrastive expressions (e.g., unlike, inconsistent) were added to the ‘deny’ category since writers employ these linguistic expressions to make comment on their own findings and identify flaws in or conflicts with previous literature. Finally, the ‘endorse’ value is expanded to include non-integral and non-reporting citations as well as the semantic expressions indicating the writer's support for other research, such as “the current result is similar to/is consistent with/support…, which shows that…”, given that these two formulations emphasize the writer's alignment with the cited sources to advance a valued proposition. These linguistic features are not addressed in the current Martin and White's system and are added to the analytical framework to provide a more comprehensive account of the stance-taking in arguing academic conflict. The ensuing engagement taxonomy in relation to the aforementioned expansions is shown in Appendix A. It is worth noting that reporting verbs are not limited to citations of

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Table 1 Engagement resources across the four components of academic conflict. Ｎ

Proposed Opposed Inconsist-ency Resolution Total

29 28 30 30 30

Deny

Counter

Con- cur

Pronounce

Endorse

Entertain

Acknowledge

Distance

n

m

n

m

n

m

n

m

n

m

n

m

n

m

n

m

16 1 18 36 71

16.70 1.10 54.71 6.28 8.96

8 1 16 54 79

8.35 1.10 48.63 9.42 9.96

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

16 0 0 25 41

16.70 0.00 0.00 4.36 5.17

0 3 0 33 36

0.00 3.30 0.00 5.76 4.54

6 2 2 122 132

6.26 2.20 6.08 21.29 16.65

0 22 0 22 44

0.00 24.18 0.00 3.84 5.55

0 4 0 1 5

0.00 4.40 0.00 0.19 0.63

r.n

46 33 36 293 408

Note. N ¼ total number of the functional units in the entire corpus. n ¼ number of resources. m ¼ the means per 1000 words. r.n ¼ total engagement resource number in the component.

other's claims (external voice) but also employed to report and interpret the writer's research findings (writer's voice). That is, a reporting verb can be assigned different engagement values according to its occurrence context. For instance, the formulation “our findings suggest that” is labeled as ‘entertain’ whereas the citation “Yang and Allison (2003) suggest that” is considered as ‘acknowledge’. The occurrences of engagement values were subsequently analyzed in relation to the rhetorical components of academic conflict: the proposed claim, the opposed claim, the inconsistency element, and the conflict resolution. The frequency and types of engagement tactics utilized to realize each component were calculated in order to illustrate the prominent engagement features in each. To discern the relationship between engagement values and rhetorical components of academic conflict, all the above analyses were undertaken on UAM (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid) corpus tool (Version 2.8), developed by O'Donnell (2012). To ensure coding reliability, sample sections of engagement analysis were scrutinized by the second author as a validity check. A detailed discussion was carried out until we came to complete agreement on all disagreeing cases. Then, the first author proceeded to analyze the texts for engagement devices at two different points in time, and in this case a time interval of three months was adopted. Intra-coder agreement was measured by Cohen's kappa statistics (Hu & Cao, 2015; Lim, 2010; Lim, Loi, Hashim, & Liu, 2015) for the four major categories of engagement resources. The obtained kappa values were 0.97 for ‘disclaim’, 0.85 for ‘proclaim’, 0.81 for ‘attribute’, which indicated almost perfect agreement between the two codings, according to the guidelines stated in Landis and Koch (1977). There is total agreement for ‘entertain’ codings. 5. Results Among the 30 functional units of academic conflict, 29 proposed claims and 28 opposed ones, 30 inconsistency components and 30 conflict resolutions are identified. The reason for the lack of proposed claims in one functional unit is that the same finding can be subject to multiple comments. As noted above, the Discussion section is primarily realized by ResultComment cyclic organization patterns; that is, the same result can be commented from different perspectives. In such cases, the finding will be coded once for rhetorical and engagement analysis. Also, the opposed studies in two functional units are not coded as they are represented as ‘A's findings' or ‘B's model’ without full reporting of their major claims in these studies. An overview of the distribution of engagement resources in these four components of academic conflict is presented in Table 1. This table illustrates the number of each of the engagement resources in the four rhetorical components and the means of each of the resources per 1000 words. As shown in Table 1, the highest count of engagement tactic in the present corpus is ‘entertain’ while ‘concur’ did not occur at all and the least used tactic was ‘distance’. Among the four components, the dominant engagement value to present the proposed claim is ‘deny’ and ‘pronounce’ while for the opposed claim it is ‘acknowledge’. The major engagement tactics in indicating the inconsistency between the proposed claim and the opposed one is ‘deny’ and ‘counter’. Although a variety of engagement values are involved in conflict resolution, the predominant one is ‘entertain’. The following sections will discuss the use of engagement resources in each component illustrated with typical examples. The linguistic resources indexing the engagement tactic are stressed in bold and the deployed engagement option is featured in bracket. 5.1. Proposed claim Although a diversity of engagement options are employed to report writer's proposed knowledge claim deriving from their empirical findings (see Table 1), contractive options tend to occur more frequently than expansive options, as observed in the next three examples. Writers display a tendency to pronounce their research results as presenting a neutral account of what has been found. 1) …in the current study the descriptive statistics revealed [Proclaim: pronounce] that task performance under both the þTS condition and the þLS condition promoted more LREs on form than meaning. (JSLW.1)

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2) The current study also shows [Proclaim: Pronounce] that the animacy of the head noun does not [Disclaim: Deny] have an effect on the production of RCs. (SSLA.1) 3) Although the values placed on achieving long-term goals were driving forces for Chinese learners in previous studies (e.g., Taguchi et al., 2009), identified regulation (i.e., perceived values) did not [Disclaim: Deny] play such a role in this study. [Proposed claim underlined] (System.6) Pronouncing one's finding highlights the writer's rhetorical intention to contract the discourse and limit the space for the presence of different voices. This engagement option asserts the value of the writer's finding and confronts any contrary position directed towards this finding as shown in examples 1 and 2. Another frequent strategy is formulating the proposed result in a confrontational format, directly rejecting or replacing the opposed claim with the intention to correct an erroneous or problematic extant knowledge claim, as indicated in instance 3. In contrast, the proposed claim can be represented through more expansive linguistic means to convey the author's attitude to it, as exemplified in the extract 4. In these cases, the proposed claim is characterized as arguable and open to other alternative interpretations. 4) …our findings with regard to FL writing suggest [Entertain] that the most important resource-directing characteristic of the cartoon description task is pushing learners to use more sophisticated vocabulary and thereby increasing lexical complexity. (JSLW.2) The above examples show the very complex setup of claim construction, consisting of both contractive and expansive engagement tactics. This finding is consistent with prior studies examining the construal of knowledge claims in the RAs across the disciplines of Linguistics, Economics and Biology (Dahl, 2008; Myers, 1992). Both studies argue that although the new knowledge claims tend to be represented as mitigated in Linguistics but not in Biology (Myers, 1992) or Economics (Dahl, 2008), these claims tend to be formulated in a categorical manner across disciplines. Such linguistic diversity can also be ascribable to levels of the claim hierarchy (Myers, 1992) or substantive vs. field-central claims (Bloor & Bloor, 1993), in which the lower level claim or substantive claims, that are closest to the research results, tend to be asserted, while higher levels or field-central claims (i.e., interpretation or new theoretical models) are typically delivered in mitigated form. This may explain why the knowledge claims put forward in examples 1 through 3 tend to be experiment-specific while the one in example 4 is declared as more like a generalizable result.

5.2. Opposed claim As indicated in Table 1 and the following extracts 5, 6 through 7, we see a predominant occurrence of expansive citation options in reporting the opposed knowledge claim. 5) Ellis et al. (2008) reported [Attribute: Acknowledge] that DCF led to statistically significantly higher scores in the same Error Correction Test that was used in this study and that the DCF group also outperformed a control group in this test. (JSLW.7) 6) The finding contrasts claims by researchers that [Attribute: Acknowledge] learning the collocations for pairs of synonyms is an effective method of learning the differences between words (Hill 2001; Lewis 2001; Woolard 2001). [Opposed claim underlined] (JAP.4) 7) Words associated as a result of their frequency of co-occurrence in the spoken or written language have been traditionally coded as [Attribute: Distance] syntagmatic responses and their production in association tasks is considered by some researchers as [Attribute: Acknowledge] an index of a L2 lexicon in the early stages of development (e.g., Politzer, 1978; Soderman, 1993). (SSLA.2) By resorting to the ‘acknowledge’ tactic, there is no overt signaling of the writer's stance to the quoted source and it grounds the claim in the cited researcher(s)’ subjectivity but not in some generally held position. This rhetorical option denotes other alternative propositions are possible on the issue under discussion and thus it creates a space for the writer's innovative finding to be justified. This conflicting knowledge claim can even be presented via the ‘distance’ tactic (see Extract 7 above), implying a state of disagreement between the writer and the cited researchers. By deploying these two attribution strategies, writers implicitly set the scene of the conflict in the current state of knowledge concerned and open up the dialogic space in spotlighting the points of controversy. Both resources are strategically useful when writers are inclined to disalign with an external proposition. Surprisingly, some writers on rare occasions resort to the ‘endorse’ tactic as reporting the opposed claim. Example 8 illustrates such a case. This use of contractive resources to present the opposed claim suggests that even if the writer rejects the cited claim in the ensuing text, they opt to align themselves with the established knowledge. 8) Traditionally…with past studies demonstrating that [Proclaim: Endorse] more proficient L2 writers produce texts with greater lexical diversity (Engber, 1995; Grant & Ginther, 2000; Jarvis, 2002). However,…(JSLW.5)

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One plausible explanation is that this inconsistent use of engagement strategies may result from the contentious state of knowledge at issue, which may vary along with the research domain in question. Writers will opt for the ‘endorse’ strategy to suggest the warrantability of research findings contradictory to their own before moving to problematize these cited studies. By indicating concurrence first before invalidation, writers strategically acknowledge the rational basis of contrary viewpoints and thus establish solidarity with readers who may be resistant to the writer's proposed claim. In this rather complex rhetorical context, the deployment of this reverse strategy is considered more effective in justifying one's new finding since this formulation of the opposed knowledge can accentuate the tension between prior accepted studies and the writer's subsequent challenging or refuting of them. 5.3. Inconsistency indicator Writers generally employ ‘deny’ or ‘counter’ options to reject or counter the opposed claims. Here are some examples of this rhetorical component. 9) As opposed to [Disclaim: deny] studies in Japanese and Chinese contexts (Taguchi et al. 2009), we did not find a significant link between students' Ought-to L2 self and motivated behavior. (JAP.3) 10) The findings of the current study differ from [Disclaim: Deny] those…(SSLA.1) 11) Contrary to [Disclaim: Counter] previous research…(System.7) 12) Unlike [Disclaim: Deny] previous studies…(SSLA.3) 13) …but [Disclaim: Counter] contradicts [Disclaim: Deny] those of Kassim and Ali (2010)…(ESP.7) 14) The findings concerning the lack of significant differences in cohesion seem [Entertain] to contradict [Disclaim: deny] the results concerning expository and argumentative genres (e.g. Connor, 1984; Leki et al., 2008; Tapper, 2005) …(JSLW.2) By disclosing the empirical discrepancies with accepted knowledge, this indicator generally requires a series of elaborated arguments in the following texts to justify this relatively confrontational tactic. Its rhetorical aim is more concerned with showing the writer's proposition as operating within a continuing debate and taking on board the substantial improvements made through the proposed inconsistency. As noted, this component can occasionally be modified by the ‘entertain’ option to tone down its confrontational force in a way what would allow more dialogic space for any alternative proposition as illustrated in example 14. 5.4. Conflict resolution This component is generally expected when writers opt to resolve the tensions between the writer's findings and the established literature through strategic manipulation of acceptable challenges. This enables writers to argue for the validity of their research data and to confer legitimation on their own findings. The function of this component then becomes first and foremost promotional. Undoubtedly, it constitutes the most complex argumentative pattern since multiple voices are called upon in this component to clarify the controversial state of the investigated knowledge domain. The following extract provides a typical example of this relatively subtle form of argumentation to neatly construe consensus. 15) A possible [Entertain] reason for this finding concerns the influence of the learning context. The Chinese learners in most L2 motivational studies [Attribute: Acknowledge] have been studying in a foreign language learning context (e.g., mainland China), whereas [Disclaim: Counter] the participants in the current study were in the target language context (i.e., in Japan) where they were studying Japanese to achieve personal and professional goals. Given that acquiring Japanese is necessary for them to have successful study abroad experiences and for the achievement of their personal and professional goals, it is likely [Entertain] that they already [Disclaim: Counter] had an adequate level of identified regulation when they decided to study in Japan and that this relatively high identified regulation was still [Disclaim: Counter] present when this study was conducted (M ¼ 56.65). It is possible that [Entertain] once learners pass a minimum threshold for identified regulation, it does not [Disclaim: Deny] differentiate proficiency significantly regardless of how strong it is. (System.6) As shown in the above passage and the following extracts 16 through 21, the ‘entertain’ option stands out as the most frequently used engagement resource in this rhetorical element as writers endeavor to argue for the potential reasons leading to the empirical discrepancies between the new research and the opposed study. This indicates that writers are inclined to foreground their own interpretations or speculations in individual subjectivity to characterize the explanations as arguable and dialogically expansive. These explanations are thereby represented as possible propositions which avoid meeting with opposition from other research community members. By acknowledging potential alternative interpretations of the same phenomenon, writers in fact strategically afford the readers the opportunity to supply a positive reading towards the designated position. Moreover, another relatively high occurrence rate of ‘disclaim’ options can also be observed in Table 1 and in instance 15, which enacts the outright countering or denying of alternative assertions and contributes to the

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construction of the valid state of the new scientific knowledge. As compared with other rhetorical components, writers, in this component, have a greater propensity to employ expansive engagement options which accentuate the scientific debate to create a space for the writer's knowledge claim. Given that this is a critical component in legitimizing the current findings via academic conflict with established knowledge, further analysis was undertaken to uncover how writers subvert the opposed knowledge claims and justify the validity of current findings to promote the value of the new research. As illustrated in Fig. 4 below, two major patterns can be observed to distinguish the writer's attempt to resolve the academic conflict: (i) explicit dismissal of the opposed claim, referring to the rhetorical patterns identifying weakness and problems in the opposed literature; (ii) no explicit dismissal of the opposed claims, referring to the patterns involving no outright critique to the previous established knowledge. The former can be further categorized as 1) assigning negative value to the opposed claim (OC), or 2) assigning negative value to the opposed one plus positive value assignment to the proposed claim (PC). Value assignment is conceptualized as the evaluation of the knowledge claim as positive or negative (Hunston, 1993). The category of no explicit dismissal of the opposed claim for conflict resolution can be further specified as 1) positive value assignment to the writer's new claim through networking with supporting literature or 2) the writer's own explanation, as shown below. Intriguingly, as shown in Fig. 4, only less than one-fourth of conflict incidents (7/30, 23%) has been resolved via assigning negative value to the opposed study while more than three-fourths of the functional units (23/30, 77%) do not explicitly criticize the opposed knowledge claim. Among the functional units without explicit dismissal, 16 out of 30 functional units (53%) resolve the conflict through positive assignment to the proposed knowledge claim by crafting supporting networks of validated knowledge. Notably, almost one-fourth of the functional units (7/30, 23%) do not resolve the academic conflict within the disciplinary network but resort to explicating the reasons on which the proposed claim can be warranted. These findings indicate that invalidating prior research outrightly is not the dominant rhetorical option to resolve the academic conflict in Applied Linguistics RAs but the dismissal of the opposed research is achieved in a more strategic and meticulous manner. Writers endeavor to find a justification practice which avoids a head-on challenge of existing work and still can negotiate a space for their own findings in their attempts to resolve the contradictory findings. These argumentation patterns will be explored further below. 5.4.1. Conflict resolution via explicit dismissal of the opposed claim In this argumentation pattern, writers make explicit critique on the weaknesses or inadequacies of the opposed study to shatter its privileged status in defending their own theses. It should be borne in mind that such direct confrontation of the extant literature to resolve academic conflict is featured only in roughly one-fourth of this corpus. Here are two such examples (see the underlined parts for explicit dismissal). 16) The divergent results may [Entertain] be explained by the types of data collection used in the different studies. First, the animacy effect reported in Kanno's (2007) study may [Entertain] have been obtained due to the nature of the comprehension task. Kanno (2007) reported [Attribute: Acknowledge] that participants were better at comprehending RCs when animacy cues were present (i.e., irreversible RCs) than when there were no such cues (i.e., reversible RCs). However, Kanno's (2007) participants were reported to [Attribute: Acknowledge] have had minimal exposure to RCs at the time of the test, so it is not [Disclaim: Deny] clear whether the participants had knowledge of the RC structure. With limited competence, learners might [Entertain] try to…Furthermore, Ozeki and Shirai (2007) used…In short, despite [Disclaim: Counter] recent claims [Attribute: distance] of the increased role of animacy in the acquisition of East Asian RCs, the empirical evidence gathered thus far is weak. Furthermore, pragmatic constraints on the use of inanimate subjects in languages like Korean should [Entertain] be considered when interpreting naturalistic production data. (SSLA.1) 17) A plausible [Entertain] explanation could [Entertain] be the fact [Proclaim: Pronounce] that phonetics was considered a separate category, while it had either not [Disclaim: Deny] been included in previous research in text-based CMC (Bower and Kawaguchi, 2011; Smith, 2004), or it had been included as negotiation of meaning in F2F (Williams, 1999). This raises the question [Disclaim: Deny] of whether excluding phonetics from focus on meaning episodes in previous research…(System. 7)

Fig. 4. Argumentation patterns in the conflict resolution.

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As shown in the underlined part of the excerpt 16, the writer not only challenges the methodological procedure of Kanno's study by questioning its participants' knowledge but also makes a sweeping critical comment on all the established line of thought by accusing the very literature of its weak evidence. Likewise, instance 17 exemplifies the criticism involving the writer's explicitly highlighting a complete absence of research in a specific academic domain or methodological limitations in the opposed research as well as commenting on their ensuing problems, which constitute the potential factors leading to the empirical discrepancies between the writer's new finding and the opposed knowledge. A relatively high percentage of ‘disclaim’ resources were employed to register hostile criticism of or disagreement with the opposing claims to eliminate or minimize their established academic status. In addition to the blunt criticism of the opposed studies, ‘attribute’ options are deployed to represent some findings, assumptions or methodological procedures documented in the opposed studies. This engagement choice for citation usage reveals the writer's communicative intentions to underscore the negotiable and controversial status of opposed claims, and thus contributes to the manifestation of the contentious state of the established specific knowledge. This strategically negotiates a space for the writer's follow-up outright critique on previous works. By enacting these engagement tactics in combination with negative evaluation, these rhetorical endeavors activate a positive position in the readers towards the writer's new findings and reveal the writer's gestures towards building solidarity with readers. It should be noted that in some cases of this conflict resolution pattern, writers not only highlight the shortcomings in previous research but also strongly advocate their own new findings with positive value assignment. How positive value was implicated to promote the writer's own finding will be elaborated in the next section. 5.4.2. Conflict resolution through positive value assignment to the proposed claim This is the most frequently deployed argumentation pattern (16/30, 53%) to justify the conflict, in which the positive value assignment is achieved implicitly by citing established research (see the underlined part) to support the writer's explanations (in example 18) or the proposed claim (in example 19). 18) What then explains the differences in the lexical diversity values? As in the stem overlap analysis, the answer likely [Entertain] relates to rhetorical strategies associated with text cohesion.… We hypothesize [Entertain] that first-year composition students focus more on essay cohesion, while [Disclaim: Counter] L2 writers focus more on linguistic processes such as word choice. This finding may [Entertain] also relate to working memory processes because it demonstrates [Proclaim: Endorse] that L2 writers focus on local and not global features of text as a result of dedicating working memory to word searches and morphosyntactic considerations (Schoonen et al., 2009). (JSLW.5) 19) It is possible that [Entertain] decreasing task complexity may [Entertain] have freed up attentional capacity and thus allowed greater attention to form. For learners in the þLS condition… Additionally, the relatively high occurrence of LREs on grammar may [Entertain] have been related to the learners' familiarity with the content of the task ….With the lexical difficulties kept to a minimum, learner attention may [Entertain] have been available to focus… These results reflect [Proclaim: Endorse] Alegría de la Colina and García Mayo's (2007) findings that use of a task relevant to the learners' future profession may have led to greater attention to grammatical forms than lexical items that were familiar to them…(JSLW.1) Instead of overtly demonstrating the superiority of the proposed claim, the writers opt to indicate the similarity between the new research with former established knowledge as a major tactic to add positive value to the proposed claim. As Hunston (1993) argued, consistency with findings or explanation in the existing scholarship is critical to knowledge construction since the writer's thesis is perceived as fitting into a disciplinary network. That is, writers subtly enhance the status of the new finding by representing it as part of established knowledge (Thompson, 1993). It is not unexpected that in this argumentation pattern, past studies in support of the researcher's study are enacted primarily through ‘endorse’ strategy to contract the dialogic space, given that these citations help to demonstrate the legitimacy of current findings through knowledge extension. The deployment of the ‘endorse’ strategy suppresses the heteroglossic nature in social interaction and wards off any alternative perspectives and further strengthens the positive relationship between current research and former established knowledge. The textual voice can construe a particular authorial authoritativeness on the value of current findings through this formulation. As shown in extract 18, the writer cites Schoonen et al.’s study to explain the factor leading to the inconsistent results between the writer's study and prior research through the reporting verb ‘demonstrate’. Likewise, the writer, in extract 19, suggests the validity of the current study by framing a positive link between the current finding and supporting research. Intriguingly, the opposed clam is not confronted or problematized in terms of its accuracy or adequacy as an established academic knowledge. Its significance is undermined by being shown not to fit into the network with compatible assumptions and findings (Hunston, 1993; Myers, 1989; Salager-Meyer, 1999). This result adds further insight into the rhetorical strategy that applied linguists opt most frequently to invalidate prior research; that is, by indicating supportive evidence to the proposed study but making no such connection to the opposed research. Here, the spotlight is on the writer's proposed claim whereas the contrary claims were overlooked, with no further attention.

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5.4.3. Conflict resolution through the writer's own explanation only In this category, writers do not choose to problematize the opposed study through blunt criticism nor buttress their proposed claims with a pertinent research strand. In some cases, conflict is resolved by limiting their explanation exclusively to identifying factors leading to the stated empirical discrepancies without connections to any established research. The next two examples illustrate this phenomenon: 20) The absence of an effect in the present study may [Entertain] be attributed to the fact [Proclaim: Pronounce] that there was a relatively small variation in the number of abstract words the passages contained (M ¼ 375.84, SD ¼ 35.58). Additionally, the concreteness values were generally midrange on a scale from 0 to 700, which was probably [Entertain] below the level at which differences would [Entertain] substantially affect the processing difficulty experienced by advanced learners. (SSLA.6) 21) …it is also possible [Entertain] that certain differences in cognitive complexity demands such as the one in the current study have a limited effect on the overall quality of writing. On the one hand, the time given for producing the narrative texts in this research might [Entertain] have allowed students …On the other hand, in these tasks…might [Entertain] have extinguished each other's effect… The picture narration task can be considered [Entertain] the opposite, as here students had to devise a plot, but [Disclaim: counter] they could [Entertain] potentially avoid the use of linguistic constructions which were beyond their competence… (JSLW.2) Otherwise, writers may juxtapose the differences between the proposed research and the opposed study in terms of research methodology or contextual variations, and then proceed to defend the validity of the writer's research through elaborated explanations (see example 15 above). In this argumentation pattern, a clear prevalence of ‘deny’ and ‘counter’ engagement tactics can be observed to illustrate the contrast between the new finding and the rival ones in varying aspects of experimental treatments. In both patterns, writers implicitly underscore the validity of the proposed study by showing the reasons on which the proposed study can be justified. Yet, the rejected study fails to receive any further discussion. As such, academic persuasion is rendered in a very subtle manner since the conflict resolution rests heavily on writer's subjective interpretations of the investigated phenomenon without crafting any connection to any supporting established knowledge. This may explain why the high occurrence of the ‘entertain’ engagement tactic is observed in this category as shown in the excerpts 15, 20 and 21. The deployment of this engagement option opens up the dialogic space for the writer's argument since it is represented as but one positive interpretation toward the evaluative comparison among a diversity of possible explanations. This strategy enables writers to strategically invite readers' acceptance of writers' generalizations or interpretations through rigorous acknowledgement of alternative assertions. In sum, in resolving and justifying the academic conflict, explicit criticism to subvert the opposed study is not the preferred rhetorical option. Problematizing the opposed literature entails a great deal of complexity and subtlety in terms of rhetorical practices. In Applied Linguistics RAs, there is a high tendency to legitimize the proposed claim by underscoring its connection to the pertinent intellectual resources or specifying the supporting reasons for its soundness and significance. However, the opposed claim, as part of the established line of scholarship, often receives no further outright attacks on its validity and generalizability. These discursive practices implicitly undermine the importance and value of the opposed study and challenges to it are cast in a more polite manner. The use of contractive and expansive engagement options as shown in different resolution patterns further supports this notion. 6. Discussion The current study integrates previous research on academic conflict/criticism and that on the move/step rhetorical schemes used in RA Discussion sections to develop an analytical framework that uncovers how authors represent and resolve academic conflict. Given that enactment of academic conflict requires a subtle balance of assertion and politeness strategies, this study further applies Martin and White’s (2005) engagement framework to disclose authorial stance-taking in this rhetorical practice. The present study finds that negotiating this seemingly threatening academic practice involves strategic and delicate maneuvers in rhetorical organization and authorial positioning. 6.1. Academic conflict and knowledge creation This study broadens our understanding about how academic conflict is managed to promote the value of new research findings in RA Discussions. We propose that there are four rhetorical components in negotiating academic conflict: the writer's proposed claim, the opposed claim, the inconsistency indicator, and conflict resolution, and show the major argumentation patterns used in resolving academic conflict. The rhetorical component of pinpointing the inconsistent findings or experimental discrepancies opens up the research space for the writer's new study. Through setting the scene of the conflict, writers tactically manipulate their arguments to indicate how the reported finding moves the discipline forward and confers legitimation on their ideas. Once this communicative purpose is achieved, writers strategically proceed to balance the negation act shown in conflict representation with a politeness strategy. The findings indicate that although researchers

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represent the academic discrepancies between their own studies and existing works, the majority of them generally do not proceed to accuse the opposing studies of falsifying findings or of methodological inadequacies. After initiating the academic conflict, the opposed literature is rarely dismissed by explicitly invalidating or subverting its status, but is generally left unchallenged and unsupported (Hunston, 1993), thus allowing greater room for doubt. As such, the way writers try to weigh their proposed claims over the opposing ones is through adding positive value to their work. This indicates that in negotiating the conflict, writers tend to avoid casting the opposed claims in a negative light, but rather confer authority and legitimation on their new findings. They endeavor to enhance the knowledge status of their proposed claims with positive value assignment by relating it to other studies or interpretations in an intricate disciplinary network. These results add insight to the pioneering works on academic conflict/criticism by laying out the argumentation patterns used to negotiate the adversative discourse in RA Discussions. This study also confirms Hunston's (1993) insight on conflict resolution, and advances it by specifying subtle resolution patterns observed from the current corpus and the frequency distributions of each potential pattern. We also move beyond her findings by demonstrating authorial stance-taking in conflict negotiating, as discussed in the next section. This study further enriches our understanding of the typical ResultComment organization schemes of RA Discussions presented in several well-established studies (e.g., Basturkmen, 2009, 2012; Le & Harrington, 2015; Lim, 2010; Yang & Allison, 2003), by displaying a more fine-tuned pattern for part of the step ‘comparing/contrasting with prior literature’. It not only demonstrates the intellectual endeavors that are made to transform empirical findings into accredited scientific claims, but also clarifies the process of knowledge-formation in RA Discussions. This understanding of the textual construction process to argue for experimental findings through the act of academic conflict can inform pedagogical practices dealing with the strategies used to achieve rhetorical promotion. As the current research is exclusively focused on Applied Linguistics Discussion sections, the findings on the argumentation patterns of academic conflict cannot be seen as conclusive. Several studies have demonstrated the cross-disciplinary differences in the use of evaluation strategies in RA Introductions in various disciplines, such as Economics and Linguistics (Dahl & Fløttum, 2011), Management (Lim, 2012), and Information Management and Information Engineering (Kwan et al., 2012). It is not clear whether the rare occurrences of overt attacks on the opposed study are more associated with the current small corpus size, disciplinary or sectional differences. More research is thus warranted to tackle this limitation and to offer a more comprehensive picture of the issue of academic conflict and knowledge construction. This will further disclose the potential rhetorical functions of academic conflict and provide fruitful guidelines for pedagogical materials. 6.2. Engagement analysis and academic persuasion By undertaking the analysis of engagement usage, the present study further clarifies the relationship between the use of dialogic positionings in the texts and academic persuasion. Since academic conflict plays an important role in transforming the current findings into knowledge claims to be acknowledged by the academic community, how writers interact with readers to solicit their acceptance is vital in the ratification of new knowledge. The application of Martin and White’s (2005) engagement framework provides further insights into the use of an intersubjective stance to align readers with a particular value position in order to ultimately seek disciplinary consensus. The findings of this study show that reporting the proposed claim based on a specific result is enacted primarily through contractive engagement strategies. The deployment of these rhetorical choices appears reasonable, given that these are the elements where writers advance their knowledge base for further interpretation and evaluation. Naturally, writers would prefer to represent these claims as more like taken-for-granted statements and allow limited dialogic space for any alternative viewpoints, or even simply not provide this. This strong position-taking seeks to confront and discourage other contrary positions, and readers are strongly aligned with the writer's argument. On the other hand, the opposed study is often represented in ‘acknowledge’ and ‘distance’ formulations, which frame these sources as maximally arguable and thus open up the space for alternative observations; that is, the writer's advanced new knowledge. As observed by Buckingham and Nevile (1997), to create the niche for new ideas to arise, the state of knowledge in question needs to be presented as negotiable, and thus potentially in tension with dialogic alternatives. The contractive options ‘deny’ and ‘counter’ are naturally exploited to illustrate a tremendously confrontational rhetorical element, namely identifying the empirical discrepancies between the writer's own thesis and the opposed study. Staking claims against consensual knowledge is a very powerful rhetorical appeal to construct opportunities for the writer's original contribution. Writers will thus opt to contract the argumentative space and align readers with this assertive stance. This finding is in a similar vein to the classification of these linguistic features as overt criticism in most of the prior research (e.g., Giannoni, 2005; Martín-Martín & Burgess, 2004; Myers, 1989; Salager-Meyer, 1999; Salager-Meyer & Ariza, 2011). In addition, when resolving the academic conflict a variety of experts and texts are called upon in Discussion sections to enrich the authorial voice and contribute to the construction of a particular position. The current findings demonstrate that writers are inclined to endorse a prior study with similar findings or by providing an effective explanation for their proposed claim. By means of the contractive ‘endorse’ option, writers not only represent the current view as shared with the research community, but also construe a strong solidarity with readers. As a consequence, this renders the quoted sources and the writer's finding as warrantable and valid. Nevertheless, as this rhetorical component involves interpretation of the factors leading to the contradictory results, writers tend to opt for more expansive strategies to realize these acts. This may explain why ‘entertain’ options enjoy the highest counts in this component, as found in this study, and substantiate some prior research findings on the use of hedges as the most salient characteristics in the enactment of academic conflict (e.g., Martín-

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Martín & Burgess, 2004; Salager-Meyer, 1999). These resources enable writers to acknowledge that alternative explanations beyond the current one are possible. By recognizing and validating these contrary viewpoints, these resources provide valid tools to construct solidarity with readers who may not share the authorial positions. It can be argued that by opening up the dialogic space, this action implicitly signals recognition of the validity of the currently valued propositions on the heteroglossic backdrop, and prevents readers' overt rejection of writer's arguments. These resources thus activate readers' positive response to the valued position and can be considered effective appeals in the rhetorical context since the advocated argument has not been ratified by the research community in question, and may risk meeting with opposition from other research community members. As shown in the current study, the construction of academic conflict in the RA Discussions to negotiate the knowledge status of a novel study involves more contractive resources than expansive ones, though the deployment of engagement tactics varies depending on the functional components. Making direct comparisons of the current findings with the previous literature is difficult, due to disparate conceptualizations of this rhetorical practice and subsequent approaches taken to examine its features. The present study moves beyond the significant attempt of prior research which revealed the various critique strategies from overt to covert ones (e.g., Dahl & Fløttum, 2011; Giannoni, 2005; Martín-Martín & Burgess, 2004; Myers, 1989; Salager-Meyer, 1999). It addresses what has been left unnoticed, which is in what context certain interpersonal resources should be enacted to achieve a persuasive purpose; that is, how specific language features are deployed in different rhetorical components of academic conflict. Most notably, this engagement analysis sheds light not only on how writers relate to the explicitly cited sources, but also simultaneously address authorial concerns for potential readers' reactions. Through the variations of engagement options in different rhetorical components, the polyphonic nature of academic writing is fully displayed. This multiple positioning is undeniably essential for the social construction of scientific facts, and winning adherence for one's propositions. The current findings contribute to our understanding of this rather complex and subtle textual practice, beyond what has been reported in previous studies on academic conflict. Most importantly, we have focused on the use of engagement resources in one important rhetorical practice in the RA Discussions. We highlight this heteroglossic aspect of academic interaction as a much-needed area for future work, in view of the fact that previous research focused mainly on examining limited interpersonal categories and neglected the connection of the deployment of these resources along with the intended rhetorical purposes. Future research could expand on our efforts here to more fully examine the use of engagement resources in other moves or sections of RA genres (see also Chang & Schleppegrell, 2011; Loi, Lim, & Wharton, 2016). It would also be useful to explore any disciplinary differences in the use of engagement taxonomy in any move structures. 7. Conclusion As shown in this study, the enactment of the rhetorical components either in conflict representatio or resolution requires sophisticated skills in handling the interpersonal resources to craft readers' acceptance of the writer's proposals, and subsequently to transform the new findings into the disciplinary network. The current study not only adds a more nuanced understanding of the interpersonal dimension of RA Discussions, but also has significant pedagogical implications in guiding novice English writers to legitimize their novel research through negotiating academic conflict. This topic has received relatively little treatment in textbooks about writing RA Discussion sections. The rhetorical components of academic conflict and the engagement resources exploited to realize these, as identified in the present study, could offer valuable insights for textbook writers and EAP practitioners about the overt argumentation strategies used to construct knowledge in the complex disciplinary context of competition and cooperation, and to present a new finding in the most favorable light. Acknowledgements We would like to thank Taiwan's Ministry of Science and Technology for a research grant (coded NSC 101-2918-I-415-002) in support of the first author to conduct this study at the University of New England, Australia. Special thanks also go to the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their insightful comments and suggestions. Appendix A. Linguistic features in the revised engagement system (partially adapted from Martin & White, 2005, pp.97e135; Sawaki, 2014, pp. 213e224)

Engagement options

Subcategories of language resources & some examples

Deny

Formulations introduce some alternative position but reject or dismiss it. 1 Negative quantifiers: few, no 2 Lexical negation: challenge, fail, attack 3 Negative modifiers: limited, unexplored, not never 4 Contrastive expressions: unlike, inconsistent, different from, not in line with, opposed to Formulations present the current proposition as replacing an alternative one. although, however, yet, but, amazingly, surprisingly Proposition is represented as widely held within the current communicative context.

Counter Concur

(continued on next page)

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(continued ) Engagement options

Pronounce

Endorse

Entertain

Acknowledge

Distance

Subcategories of language resources & some examples 1 Affirming concurrence: admittedly, naturally 2 Conceding concurrence: certainly…but The writer's emphases are explicitly inscribed in the propositions. 1 Formulations granting the true/fact (factive verbs) status: demonstrate, show 2 Intensifiers with clausal scope: really, indeed, in fact 3 Formulations that add authorial emphasis to a statement: it is important, undoubtedly, we can conclude, it is worth bearing in mind 4 Formulations signaling the author's position in the discourse: This study argues…; considers that… 5 Formulations pinpointing the writer's choice is selected over another: agree, prefer, adopt, support, confirm Citations are presented by the writer as valid and warrantable. 1 Formulations that indicate writer's support or its nominalization form: confirm, demonstrate, reveal, show, prove, point out, establish, is consistent with, is similar to, support, reflect 2 Non-integral, non-reporting citation 3 Boosting adjuncts plus denotational citation verbs: compelling argue Formulations indicate the proposition is as one of the possible positions. 1 Modality: may, probably, it’s possible that 2 Circumstances: unless, in my view 3 Mental verb projections: think, believe, doubt 4 Evidentials: seem, suggest, apparently 5 Expository questions which don't assume a specific response 6 Modality of permission/obligation: should, must Formulations represent the citied source without a clear indicator as to where the writer's voice stands with respect to the citation. 1 Discourse verbs and its nominalizations: agree, suggestion 2 Mental process verbs and its nominalizations: believe and assertion 3 Adverbial adjuncts: In X's view, according to Formulations mark explicitly the internal authorial voice as distinct or separated from the attributed material. Claim

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