Citations in eighteenth and nineteenth-century hard sciences as evidenced in the Coruña Corpus

Abstract

The inclusion of citations in contemporary scientific writing is an unquestioned and essential practice. However, citing and potentially over-citing other relevant figures within the same scientific community is often perceived as a strategy for academic advancement. This perception may have its roots in the early scientific literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This study investigates whether a relationship existed between citation practices and an author’s academic success during this historical period. The research focuses on data from the chemistry subcorpus of The Coruña Corpus of English Scientific Writing (CC). Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted, employing Hyland’s (2005) pragmatic framework on stance and engagement. The findings from the chemistry subcorpus were generalized to other subcorpora within the CC. The study identified several key conclusions, most notably the frequent use of enhanced citations that present attitude markers. These appear to be shifting the focus from the author to the work by the end of the period in question. Despite these trends, no significant correlation was found between citation practices and work diffusion linked to academic success. The results suggest that while citation practices in eighteenth and nineteenth-century scientific writing involved the strategic use of attitude markers, these practices did not necessarily translate into academic success.