Cover -- Preface -- Table of contents -- Introduction -- Part 1. Perspectives on scientific community -- 1.1. Scientific community in discourse perspective -- 1.2. Alternative approaches to discourse community -- 1.3. Scientific community in sociological perspective -- 1.4. Typology of scientific communities -- 1.5. Evolution of scientific communities -- 1.5.1. Evolution and asymmetry -- 1.5.2. Evolution and components of scientific community -- 1.6. Communication in scientific communities -- 1.6.1. Intra-group communication (communication within scientific communities) -- 1.6.2. Inter-group communication (communication with non-members) -- Part 2. Scientific article : discourse perspective -- 2.1. Scientific article as a core genre of scientific community -- 2.1.1. History of scientific article -- 2.1.2. Scientific article: structural and functional definitions -- 2.1.3. Scientific article: pragmatic approach -- 2.1.4. Scientific article: contributions of ethnopragmatics and contrastive rhetoric -- 2.2. Discourse approach to scientific article -- 2.2.1. Scientific article as text-in-context: discourse model -- 2.2.2. Scientific article as a process: discourse model -- 2.2.3. Cultural and disciplinary variation of scientific article -- 2.3. Discourse dimensions of scientific article -- 2.3.1. Paradigmatic dimension of scientific article -- 2.3.2. Interpersonal dimension of scientific article -- 2.3.3. Identifying, marketing and economic functions of scientific article -- 2.3.4. Text dimension of scientific article -- 2.4. Scientific article under globalization -- 2.4.1. Language uniformity -- 2.4.2. Scientific style homogenization -- 2.4.3. Genre homogenization -- 2.4.4. Relaxation of style and colonization of scientific discourse -- Part 3. Methodology and corpus -- 3.1. Aims of the research.

3.2. Limitations of previous research and relevance of the present study -- 3.3. Claim-making and claim-challenging -- 3.4. Methodology -- 3.4.1. Units of analysis -- 3.4.2. Hedges - Text dimension: research categories -- 3.4.2.1. Accuracy-oriented hedges (reliability hedges) -- 3.4.2.2. Writer-oriented hedges -- 3.4.3. Author - reader dialogicity - Interpersonal dimension: research categories -- 3.4.4. Self-promotion and other-depreciation - Paradigmatic dimension: research categories -- 3.5. The corpus -- 3.6. Research tools -- Part 4. Empirical analysis -- 4.1. Text dimension: Hedges -- 4.1.1. Reliability hedges -- 4.1.1.1. Epistemic modality -- 4.1.1.2. Judgmental speculative and evidential verbs -- 4.1.1.3. Markers of the author's limited knowledge -- 4.1.2. Writer-oriented hedges -- 4.1.2.1. Research-related subjects ("abstract rhetors") -- 4.1.2.2. References to other scholars to support the writer's own argumentation -- 4.1.2.3. References to shared knowledge -- 4.2. Interpersonal dimension: Author-audience dialogicity -- 4.2.1. Inclusive we -- 4.2.2. Directives -- 4.2.3. Second-person pronouns -- 4.2.4. Direct questions -- 4.3. Self-promotional strategies -- 4.3.1. First-person singular pronouns -- 4.3.2. Exclusive we -- 4.3.3. Self-citing references -- 4.3.4. Positive evaluation of the writer's own work -- 4.4. Claim-challenging -- 4.4.1. References to works which are challenged -- 4.4.2. Negative evaluation of the works of other scholars -- Conclusions -- References -- Appendix: The corpus.