Abstracts of poster presentations: a diachronic analysis (1980-2010)

Poster presentations have become a major format for scientific communication at conferences and other scientific meetings (Matthews & Matthews, 1996, p. 97). While posters have a research value because their purpose is to share recent research findings with peers (Demarteau et al., 2007), their academic worth has been reconsidered because their abstract, if published in major medical journals, could enhance academic career. Studies on medical abstracts have been focused on their genre (Samraj, 2005, Salager-Meyer, 1990), on the use of metaphorical strategies (Hidalgo Downing, 2009; Méndez-Cendón, 2003), and on cross-cultural analyses (Bellés-Fortuño, 2010; Bielski, 2008; López Arroyo, 2007; Fernández Antolín, 2006; Martin-Martin & Burgess, 2006). Yet, to the best of my knowledge, there seems to be no investigation about the way in which medical abstracts have evolved. This paper therefore aims to examine the diachronic evolution of medical abstracts of posters presented at medical conferences. The diachronic investigation of abstract lexico-grammar seems to suggest that a development has occurred toward interdiscursive patterns by means of which hybrid generic frameworks are created by appropriating established conventions associated with other genres and professional practices (Bhatia, 2007).