The art of referencing: Patterns of citation and authorial stance in academic texts written by Thai students and professional writers

Abstract

This study investigated the citation practices used to acknowledge and refer to the work of others by Thai university students compared to professional writers in academic texts. The data analysed comprised 404,793 words from research reports written in English by Thai L2 students and 833,809 words written by professional writers from leading scholarly journals in applied linguistics and English studies. Drawing on elements from the SFL-based Engagement framework, all citation instances produced by these two writer groups were analysed based on their surface citation patterns in terms of citation form, rhetorical function, and patterns of authorial stances. The findings revealed that Thai L2 students employed a relatively limited range of reporting structures. Meanwhile, the attribution function was primarily used to demonstrate their knowledge of the topic and to refer to the data source. They predominantly adopted a non-committal stance, distancing themselves from the cited materials. The pedagogical implications derived from the findings relate to improving citation practices in teaching academic writing and enhancing the opportunity for student research findings to be published in scholarly journals.