Verbal representations of “relevance” as a scientific category in English and Russian academic discourse

   The article studies the category of “relevance”, which is known as a core part of the scientific research methodology.

   The subject of the analysis is the ways “relevance” is verbally represented in English and Russian academic discourse.

   The purpose of the study is to identify and analyze the ways “relevance” is verbally represented in scientific texts of academic discourse in the field of medical research.

   The analysis is based on the ‘Introductions’ of research articles from the leading British and Russian medical journals. The research methodology is based on the selection and description of incorporated elements, revealing the meaning of “relevance” as a scientific category represented in the original English and Russian texts of ‘Introductions’. The selected components were consecutively described according to the language means of their representations in these texts. The results have identified both similarities and differences between the pieces of national discourse. While the similarities are considered to prove universal typological properties of academic discourse, the differences demonstrate the national identity of English and Russian academic discourse. The article concludes that there are standard ways of representing relevance, such as the explicit use of the same-name word marker in Russian texts and implicit lexical markers in English texts. The awareness of the norms and conventions of English academic discourse can help non-native English writers become active participants of the global academic community.

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