‘Great work folks!’: establishing interpersonal communication in transparent peer reviews of research articles
In this paper, we examine how referees establish interpersonal relationships by mitigating criticism and expressing compliments as a realization of politeness strategies through the analysis of a specific corpus of transparent peer review reports (TPRs) with 220 reports totaling approximately 200,00...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Asociación Europea de Lenguas para Fines Específicos
2023-12-01
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| Series: | Ibérica |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://revistaiberica.org/index.php/iberica/article/view/787 |
| _version_ | 1797387910972964864 |
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| author | Derya Sönmez Erdem Akbas |
| author_facet | Derya Sönmez Erdem Akbas |
| author_sort | Derya Sönmez |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In this paper, we examine how referees establish interpersonal relationships by mitigating criticism and expressing compliments as a realization of politeness strategies through the analysis of a specific corpus of transparent peer review reports (TPRs) with 220 reports totaling approximately 200,000 words. For the analysis, employing a framework drawn primarily on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness strategies and following a detailed review of the literature, we coded all occurrences of politeness strategies using UAM Corpus Tool 3.3x (O’Donnell, 2021). Conducting intercoder/intracoder reliability tests, we identified and interpreted a variety of politeness strategies at the sentence and discourse levels, which were used for mitigating criticism and expressing compliments. Our results suggest that reviewers resorted to a variety of politeness strategies, predominantly negative politeness strategies, to mitigate their criticism directed at the authors of manuscripts. This is significant especially in the light of earlier studies where reviewer reports appeared to include some blunt/hurtful comments due partly to the anonymity of the reviewing process. Rather than focusing on just communicating criticism or a required change, reviewers were found to have cared about politeness and seemed to achieve interpersonal communication goals in TPRs by means of favoring an egalitarian approach rather than an authoritative one, supporting Gosden’s (2003) argument on the interpersonal aspect of reviewing discourse. This research contributes to our understanding of how criticism in TPRs can be conveyed without imposing, leading to encouraging, constructive and polite reports in English as part of science communication, especially when the review reports are publicly available.
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| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T22:32:01Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-159c161579624caf8b07c44fda3ca5d4 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1139-7241 2340-2784 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T22:32:01Z |
| publishDate | 2023-12-01 |
| publisher | Asociación Europea de Lenguas para Fines Específicos |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Ibérica |
| spelling | doaj.art-159c161579624caf8b07c44fda3ca5d42023-12-17T18:50:31ZengAsociación Europea de Lenguas para Fines EspecíficosIbérica1139-72412340-27842023-12-014610.17398/2340-2784.46.69‘Great work folks!’: establishing interpersonal communication in transparent peer reviews of research articles Derya Sönmez0Erdem Akbas1Independent ResearcherErciyes UniversityIn this paper, we examine how referees establish interpersonal relationships by mitigating criticism and expressing compliments as a realization of politeness strategies through the analysis of a specific corpus of transparent peer review reports (TPRs) with 220 reports totaling approximately 200,000 words. For the analysis, employing a framework drawn primarily on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness strategies and following a detailed review of the literature, we coded all occurrences of politeness strategies using UAM Corpus Tool 3.3x (O’Donnell, 2021). Conducting intercoder/intracoder reliability tests, we identified and interpreted a variety of politeness strategies at the sentence and discourse levels, which were used for mitigating criticism and expressing compliments. Our results suggest that reviewers resorted to a variety of politeness strategies, predominantly negative politeness strategies, to mitigate their criticism directed at the authors of manuscripts. This is significant especially in the light of earlier studies where reviewer reports appeared to include some blunt/hurtful comments due partly to the anonymity of the reviewing process. Rather than focusing on just communicating criticism or a required change, reviewers were found to have cared about politeness and seemed to achieve interpersonal communication goals in TPRs by means of favoring an egalitarian approach rather than an authoritative one, supporting Gosden’s (2003) argument on the interpersonal aspect of reviewing discourse. This research contributes to our understanding of how criticism in TPRs can be conveyed without imposing, leading to encouraging, constructive and polite reports in English as part of science communication, especially when the review reports are publicly available. https://revistaiberica.org/index.php/iberica/article/view/787transparent peer reviewinterpersonal communicationopen science movementdigital genrespoliteness strategies |
| spellingShingle | Derya Sönmez Erdem Akbas ‘Great work folks!’: establishing interpersonal communication in transparent peer reviews of research articles Ibérica transparent peer review interpersonal communication open science movement digital genres politeness strategies |
| title | ‘Great work folks!’: establishing interpersonal communication in transparent peer reviews of research articles |
| title_full | ‘Great work folks!’: establishing interpersonal communication in transparent peer reviews of research articles |
| title_fullStr | ‘Great work folks!’: establishing interpersonal communication in transparent peer reviews of research articles |
| title_full_unstemmed | ‘Great work folks!’: establishing interpersonal communication in transparent peer reviews of research articles |
| title_short | ‘Great work folks!’: establishing interpersonal communication in transparent peer reviews of research articles |
| title_sort | great work folks establishing interpersonal communication in transparent peer reviews of research articles |
| topic | transparent peer review interpersonal communication open science movement digital genres politeness strategies |
| url | https://revistaiberica.org/index.php/iberica/article/view/787 |
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