Abstract:

The structuring of author’s identity is a vital way to present in petroleum academic texts the authors’ contribution to the field. To get first hand information about the means of identity structuring and their pragmatic functions, we collected 50 English petroleum academic texts from SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers). With Wordsmith 5.0, we studied the means by which native writers structure their identity in the texts. The pragmatic functions of the means were analyzed within the theoretical framework of Face-saving Theory. We found that the first person plurals, the most important means of identity structuring, perform various pragmatic functions in different contexts. And the third person abstract nouns are of vital significance in identity structuring, performing different pragmatic functions from first person plurals. Results also show that native writers also employ some prepositional phrases to structure their self-identity.

Key words: petroleum academic texts, structuring of self-identity, Face-saving Theory, pragmatic functions