Abstract
Our research aims to describe the disciplinary discourse of mathematics through the perspective of construction grammar (Groom, 2019). In particular, in this study we focus on constructions in which the presence of the authors is manifested through the first person pronoun we.
In their research into stance and engagement, McGrath and Kuteeva (2012) report on a high frequency of the pronoun we in pure mathematical research articles. This finding, rather unexpected for the writing practices of a pure hard science, is then analysed from the perspective of reader engagement and linked to the epistemology of mathematics.
However, the question in what contexts and functions mathematicians use the first person pronoun remains open. The present corpus-driven study draws on a specialised corpus of recent mathematical research articles (0.87 million words, 108 articles).
A keyword analysis confirmed the pronoun we to be typical of mathematics when compared with a reference corpus of research articles from a wide range of disciplines (Kosem, 2010). Going one step further, we look at the specific uses of we in the text.
Generally, the authors were found to promote their contributions, navigate the reader, construct the setup for the paper including definitions, notation, and assumptions, and then guide the reader through the derivation of logical conclusions. We describe constructions that participate in these general meanings, giving detailed account of their specific function, position, and formal characteristics.
Moreover, we organise the constructions into a network reflecting their similarities. The outcome is then a complex description of the activities that mathematicians engage in when they carry out and present their research.