Tense usage in academic writing: A cross-disciplinary study

This thesis examines tense usage in academic writing in the humanities. Using a corpus of 18 journal articles in English, history, and philosophy, a quantitative analysis was conducted to establish and compare patterns of use across the disciplines and within each discipline. A contextual analysis then followed to identify factors that affect tense choice. The analysis identified the tense choices associated with the rhetorical functions unique to the journal article genre and analysed these tense-function associations in terms of time and basic meanings as described in general English.

The results reveal consistency in usage within each discipline but systematic variations across the disciplines. These variations are found to be largely due to differences in the specialized content area each discipline deals with. At the same time, a similar range of choices can be found for similar function categories across the three disciplines. The temporal location and basic meaning of each tense choice are shown to be consistent with the general descriptions of tense, and different choices are possible because the writer can choose to present the same situation in different ways, from different perspectives, or from different temporal zones.

The present study has pointed out the relevant aspects of general tense grammar and has shown how they can be used to explain usage specific to academic discourse. A thorough understanding of the full range of possible meanings and uses of the tenses and how they can be applied to rhetorical uses in academic writing will allow the writer the greatest flexibility in the use of tense to express nuances in meanings.