A Comparative Analysis of the Role of Audience on Discursive Practices in Academic Research Articles and Popular Science Articles in Light of Appraisal Theory

The current study aimed to investigate the use of evaluative resources in academic and popular science articles published in Iranian scholarly journals and popular media in the field of nutrition in light of Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal theory. The corpus of the study consisted of 80 articles including 40 academic research articles and 40 popular science articles. The results of the analysis of two groups of articles in terms of Appraisal resources revealed that authors used more Attitude resources followed by Engagement resources and Graduation resources. Among Attitude markers, the authors of Persian academic research and popular science articles employed appreciation resources more frequently. Furthermore, the results of several Chi-Square tests also revealed a significant difference between Persian academic research and popular science articles considering the frequency of Attitude and Engagement resources but not Graduation resources of Appraisal Theory. The findings can be transferred to pedagogical grounds through embedding Appraisal resources in writing courses and employing them to enhance the quality and efficiency of the interaction between the writers- scientists and their intended readers- scholarly or non-scholarly.