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nes (cf. Shinn &Whitley, 1985; Paul, 2004; Corbett, 2006),its presence in scientific journals awaits closer investigation.Journals are primarily a forum for scholarly debate but at the same time they serve anumber of functions related to the fact that their readership may include students andpractitioners as well as lecturers and researchers. This diversity is partly reflected in thearray of genres contained in such publications, partly centred on the presentation ofnew findings (research articles, abstracts, case reports) and partly on their evaluation (edi-torials, review articles, book reviews, letters to the editor). The latter group, referred to byCarnet and Magnet (2006a) as researcher-centred genres because of their emphasis oninterpersonal conflicts, belong to the ‘downstream’ of scientific publication (Hilgartner,1990, p. 525) whereby new knowledge claims are acknowledged, assessed and occasionallychallenged by the community of practice. Among these, editorials are the most influentialgenre for at least two reasons: they are written by recognised authorities in the field andoften combine evaluation of the literature with guidelines for its incorporation into profes-sional practice. While no precise data is available on the actual readership of such texts inspecific disciplinary areas, it is worth recalling Gross and Sta ¨rke-Meyerring’s remark that‘‘experienced journal readers often advise physicians and researchers to read the editorialsbefore anything else in a journal’’ (1999, p. 185).Journal editorials (JEDs) tend to introduce complex content in a way that is acceptablealso to less-experienced scholars and peers in other (sub)disciplines, while promoting thejournal and its contributors. In so doing, the original references are popularized for awider, more exoteric audience than that targeted in research-centred genres. But popular-ization does not only affect the treatment of content matter: it extends to the discourse andits ‘popularity’ with the readership. Though still under-researched, this second aspectappears to be of considerable importance, according to recent comments made by severalmedical writers. Redelmeier and Shumak (2003, pp. 1323–1324), for example, explain thata well-crafted JED should provide ‘thrill for readers’ with ‘spicy vocabulary’, and add that‘‘the title of an editorial is a sufficient first impression for deciding how stylish the materialis likely to be’’. For Smith (2006) many journals publish ‘articles that are more journalismthan science’ and increasingly resemble popular magazines – a trend confirmed by theremark that polemical expressions in medical JEDs function as ‘entertainment’ (Gross,2000, p. 445). While the more conservative may see these developments as a threat tothe quality of published research, they are often welcomed by publishers as a means toboost circulation and by readers as a pleasant novelty to the often uninspiring, politicallycorrect discourse of academics.In order to shed light on the range and function of these popularizing features, the pres-ent study was conducted on a sample of JEDs published in medical journals and, as a con-trol, in applied linguistics. While the two domains are conceptually unrelated, they share aconcern for practice as well as factual/speculative knowledge and are both likely to targetaudiences with diverse needs and interests. The findings of this analysis will be discuss本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。