This article discusses selected aspects of the organisation of the academic article introduction – a section of a central academic genre, recognised as both troublesome (Swales 1990) and strategically important, as it is at this stage that the reader forms the fi rst, and often lasting, impressions of the whole text. Based on Swales’ (1990) revised CARS model of article introductions and drawing on previous Polish–English contrastive studies (e.g., Duszak 1994; Golebiowski 1998, 1999), it looks into the placement, realisation, and role of the purpose statement in introductions to articles published in the years 2001-2006 in linguistics-related peer-reviewed Englishand Polish-language journals. It seeks answers to the following questions: (i) Is the statement of purpose a typical/recurrent feature of introductions to Polish-language articles? (ii) If it does occur in Polish, in which part of the introduction is it usually made by Polish authors as compared to English writers? (iii) What is the preferred way of announcing it in both groups of texts? and (iv) Can any assessment be made of its prominence in both languages on the basis of what precedes and what follows it? Contrary to what might have been expected on the basis of previous studies, the article demonstrates that the statement of purpose is in fact a stable element of the introduction to a Polish-language linguistics article, although its prominence depends on the presence of other rhetorical moves.

The article examines the disciplinary preferences of medical and psychology writers of research articles (RAs) in the use of epistemic lexical verbs (ELVs), regarding their frequency, prominence, distribution across the RA sections, and recurrent phraseology. The results show that disciplinary affiliation affects these phenomena, as more ELVs are found in psychology than in medicine. Both groups prefer speculative judgements and quotative evidence and most frequently use ELVs in Discussions. Yet, psychology authors are more balanced in their preferences and rely on a wider selection of frequent ELVs which are often combined with self-mention. Medical authors are more inclined towards deductive ELVs. Disciplinary differences are also observed in the choice of the specific ELVs, their frequency distributions and phraseology in the distinct RA sections.

The article studies the use of linking adverbials (LAs) in English-medium articles by Polish and Anglophone scholars representing medicine and psychology, attempting to reveal discipline- and culture-specific preferences in the choice, frequency and distribution of linkers. The results show that disciplinary and linguacultural constraints impact on LA use. Variation across disciplines reflects differences in the knowledge base and its rhetorical management, as there are significantly more LAs in psychology than in medicine. Cross-cultural variation determines the choice of specific LA (sub)categories in line with the authors’ linguacultural backgrounds, target readers and publication contexts. These findings can raise academic writers’ awareness of culture- and discipline-driven aspects of adverbial cohesion in English academic prose.

Academic authors employ various language means in order to construct and disseminate knowledge, to sound persuasive, to undergird their arguments, but also to seek agreement within the academic community. The aim of this paper is to analyse a selected group of rhetorical strategies used by Anglophone and Czech authors of Linguistics research articles (RAs) and research theses (RTs). These strategies are assumed to vary in both academic genres since the position of their writers within the academic community differs. Even though authors of RAs have to meet reviewers’ requirements in order for their article to be published, so their relative position may be lower than that of the reviewers’, authors of RAs may have the same “absolute status” as the reviewers may be just as expert in that particular field. By contrast, the status of research students is lower than that of their evaluators both in relative and absolute terms. Even though students may gain some learned authority in presenting an original contribution, their assessors command both learned and institutional authority, hence are endowed with a higher status. Apart from comparing rhetorical strategies used in RAs and RTs, the paper focuses on cross-cultural differences between Anglophone and Czechacademic writing traditions.