Building and Breaking Discursive Conventions in Academic Writing

Abstract

The present article examines the complex and constantly developing relations between characteristics typical of academic discourse and individual style. The analysis has been conducted from the diachronic perspective since it compares the argumentative styles of various authors in different stages of the development of English academic and particularly of economic discourse. Analyzing the authorial identity as an element of discourse identity in the works of two celebrated scholars Robert Boil and John M. Mains, the article demonstrates how the leading scholars contribute to the establishment of new principles of academic discourse overcoming the barrier between the established norms and authorial preferences.