Evaluation and Popularisation in Journal Editorials: Medicine vs Applied Linguistics

This study focuses on two closely-related phenomena displayed by journal editorials in medicine and applied linguistics, i.e. evaluation and popularisation. The results indicate that EDs contain a fair amount of metatextual evaluation (employed prevalently to construct scientific arguments and promote the journal) but also of popularisation (used to narrow the interpersonal distance between writer/reader or stigmatise that between scholars and other groups). Evidence from our corpus suggests that evaluation and popularisation may vary in terms of frequency and communicative purpose. Medical EDs are 32% more likely to contain popularising features (85.25 vs 57.75 occurrences), and thus closer to the contingent repertoire, while applied linguistics EDs are 61% more likely to contain evaluations (31.25 vs 12.25). The conclusion therefore is that EDs in these two unrelated disciplines constitute one genre with different voices. In medical journals they are a voice of authority providing guidance for practitioners and representing the community against external threats. Added to this is the entertainment value added by such popularising features as humour, metaphors and incongruous lexis. In applied linguistics journals they are the voice of an expert commending the journal and sharing his/her views, doubts and experiences with readers, hence the emphasis on contingency and personalisation.