What do they mean? Questions in academic writing

Academic writing is governed by questioning. Papers are written with questions in mind or problems to solve, and occasionally these emerge as explicit interrogatives. But while they exploit the interactivity of more familiar conversational discourses, questions in academic writing perform rhetorical functions which differ considerably from them. In this article I explore the distribution and use of questions through an analysis of a 1.8-million-word corpus of research articles, textbooks and L2 student essays, and through interviews with insider informants on their perceptions and practices. The analysis shows that questions underline the essentially dialogic nature of academic writing as they allow writers to invoke explicitly the involvement of their readers in the discourse, addressing the perceptions, interests, and needs of a potential audience. It also reveals that while questions are frequently used to express writers' purposes, organize texts, evaluate arguments, and set up claims, the distribution of these functions differs across disciplines and genres and crucially depends on participants' perceptions of rhetorical context.