Les pratiques de l’évaluation dans l’écrit académique Cas des conclusions de thèses de doctorat ès Sciences en FLE

Abstract

Evaluation Practices in Academic Writing: the case of the conclusions of doctoral theses in Science in FFL

This study aims to shed light on assessment practices in academic writing. The analysis focused on a sample made up of findings from three FFL science doctoral theses to distinguish the different practices used by researchers in academic writing. These evaluation practices can translate the position of the doctoral student in his writing and can take different manifestations that vary from one study to another. Thus, we wondered how these evaluative practices manifest themselves, particularly in the conclusions of doctoral theses as being the part of this type of academic writing where the researcher presents his results and identifies the perspectives and limits of his research. Recourse to the lexico-enunciative approach was made by identifying the most recurrent enunciative subjectivemes in academic writing and this by resorting to the definition of position in academic writing by Hyland where four elements define the position of the doctoral student. The study of the three findings has shown that evaluation practices converge in terms of judgment, appreciation and commitment. According to the appraisal theory, judgment and appreciation are considered as two forms of attitude and this allowed us to discover through the analysis carried out that these two forms of attitudes can be present in the academic writing as well as a presence of evaluative subjectives that varies according to the nature of the study.