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This study analyzed the use of acknowledgements in medical articles published in five countries (Venezuela, Spain, France, UK and USA) from 1950 to 2010. For each country, we selected 54 papers (18 research papers, 18 reviews and 18 case reports), evenly distributed over six decades, from two medical journals with the highest impact factors. Only papers written by native speakers in the national language were included. The evolution of the frequency and length of acknowledgments was analyzed. Of 270 articles studied, 127 (47%) had acknowledgments. The presence of acknowledgments was associated with country (p = 0.001), this section being more common and longer in US and UK journals. Acknowledgments were most common in research papers (70 vs. 40% in case reports and 31% in reviews, p < 0.001). Reviews without acknowledgments were significantly more common than those with (69 vs. 31%), but there was no trend in case reports. Altogether, articles with acknowledgments predominated only after 2000. Since the frequency of use of acknowledgments remained stable over time in US and UK journals but increased in non-Anglophone journals, the overall increase is attributed to the change in non-English publications. Authors acknowledged sub-authorship more in English language journals than in those published in the national language in France, Spain and Venezuela. However, the practice of acknowledging is increasing in non-Anglophone journals. We conclude that the concept of intellectual indebtedness does not only differ from one geographical context to another, but also over time and from one academic genre to another.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the frequency of academic criticism (AC) varies in the four most frequent written genres of medical Spanish discourse – editorials (ED), review articles (RV), research papers (RP) and case reports (CR) – and whether the frequency has changed over time. The corpus consisted of 76 medical articles published between 1930 and 1999, divided into Block A (1930– 1969) and Block B (1970–1999). The results show that: the frequency of AC is significantly greater in ED than in the remaining genres for both blocks, followed by RV, RP and CR; the frequency of AC is significantly higher in Block B than in Block A; and AC has increased over time in all the genres except CR. It is argued that the overall increase in AC frequency can be accounted for by the growth in the number of scientific publications over the last decades, by the scientists’ need to publish, and by the paradigmatic shift from science being assertive to becoming skeptical and probabilistic, based on claim refutability, i.e. on criticism. Cross-generic differences are explained in terms of the communicative function of each genre and of the rank/ status power relations that exist between the social role assumed by the authors of the different genres and their audience.

“We should not fear diversity of views. On the contrary, progress in science demands it. The only way to frame the best answers possible in the face of incomplete knowledge is to allow differing views to be expressed” A.D. Sniderman, [The Lancet 357 (1999): p.328] The socio-pragmatic phenomenon of academic conflict (AC) is here addressed from a cross-cultural and diachronic perspective, and is examined by combining a quantitative approach and a qualitative discoursal analysis of its salient rhetorical features in a corpus of Spanish, French and English medical articles published between 1930 and 1995. The speech acts that conveyed AC were recorded in each paper and classified into two categories according to their level of commitment (direct author’s involvement) or detachment (hedginess and AC responsibility shifting). The quantitative results were analyzed by means of the Chi-square test. Our overall findings indicate that French and Spanish scientists tend to be not only more critical, but also more authoritarian and passionate in the formulation of their AC than their Anglo-Saxon counterparts. However, when analyzed diachronically, our results indicate that from the 1990s on, the rhetorical behavior of Spanish AC (though still somewhat blunt and personal) quite abruptly distinguishes itself from that of French and starts adopting the more veiled and “politically correct” tone of English AC. By contrast, the discursive pattern of French AC did not substantially change over time, although its indirectness slowly and continuously increased over the period studied. By placing the earlier results within their broader educational, political, historical and socio-economic context, it can be claimed that the behavioral changes observed in the framing of AC reflect the evolution of an increasingly promotional, competitive, professionalized, collegial and pragmatic end-of-twentieth-century scientific research which tends to compel scientists to progressively change their vision of science, although certain cultures seem to be more vulnerable to external penetration than others.

This study addresses the issue of academic conflict (AC) in four different genres of medical discourse, viz., editorials, review and research papers and case reports. The rhetorical strategies used to convey AC were recorded and their qualitative features (their level of commitment or detachment, their overall tone, the presence of irony, sarcasm, etc.) were analyzed in 40 medical articles written in Spanish in the last decade of the 20th century. Our results show that the communicative function of each genre and the rank/status power relations that exist between authors and their audience have a direct bearing on the way medical researchers express their dissension.

It is now generally accepted that synchronic studies can benefit from, be enhanced and informed by diachronic considerations which help us understand why specialized languages have come to be as they are. ‘History is who we are and why we are the way we are’, said the US ‘celebrity’ historian, David McCullough. In that sense, Bazerman (1988) claims that it is necessary to understand why certain forms of expression arise, why they evolve and why they disappear. He further stresses that it is only through the analysis of language as a historical phenomenon that one can understand the rhetoric of today’s scientific discourse. Along the same lines, Atkinson (1996: 334) forcefully remarks that ‘the study of scientists’ communicative practices across historical times is a crucial aspect in the study of science’. Hyland (2000) echoes these opinions by asserting that diachronic analyses of scientific discourse are an important way of looking at the constitutive relationship between writers and their texts in the sense that they show that language and communities are mutually entailed and constituted.

This paper analyses the evolution of the way book authors and reviewers were identified in a corpus of 60 book reviews (BRs) drawn from English-medium medical journals published at the end of the 19th century, in the mid-20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century. The evolution observed mirrors changes in the scientific activity and in the scientific community in general who became increasingly competitive, specialized, professional and institutionalized. Cet article analyse l’évolution de la façon dont les auteurs d’ouvrages et les auteurs de recensions d’ouvrage sont identifiés dans un corpus de 60 recensions publiées entre 1890 et 2008 dans des revues médicales. Les diverses évolutions observées reflètent les changements de l’activité scientifique et de la communauté scientifique en général, rendue de plus un plus compétitive, spécialisée, professionnelle et institutionnalisée.