“There are significant differences…”: The secret life of existential there in academic writing

While numerous interactive aspects of academic writing have attracted attention in recent years, one common feature which has escaped scrutiny is “existential there” (as in “there are significant differences”). Based on a corpus of 80 research articles from four disciplines, this study explores the ‘secret life’ of this construction, revealing how academic writers use it to organise their arguments and persuade peers of their claims. In contrast...