‘Nowhere has anyone attempted … In this article I aim to do just that’

This paper is a qualitative corpus-based study of how academic writers can use the personal pronouns I and we to help to create a self-promotional tenor in their prose. Using a corpus comprising journal research articles (RAs) from the fields of Business & Management, Computing Science, Economics, and Physics, I present data extracts which reveal how I and we can publicize the writer and their work even though the pronouns are ostensibly helping...